Journey Into Lent 2020

Tuesday, March 31, 2020 Reading:  John 11:1-45 Commemoration of John Donne (1572-1631), English poet and cleric "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"  John 11:37 Like the people mourning with Mary, sister of Lazarus, we often have very specific ways we want to see God at work in the world. Why doesn't God just intervene and stop war? We pray and pray and a friend dies of cancer anyway. Why didn't God just heal her and let her live? A poem by Dorothy Sayers, friend and colleague of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis:             "…Hard it is, very hard,             To travel up the slow and stony road             To Calvary, to redeem mankind; far better             To make but one sceptered miracle, ...

Monday, March 30, 2020                     Reading: Romans 8:6-11 "To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace."  Romans 8:6 Today let Martin Luther speak, again from his "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans": "Flesh and spirit you must not understand as though flesh is only that which has to do with unchastity and spirit is only that which has to do with what is inwardly in the heart. Rather, like Christ in John 3:6, Paul calls everything 'flesh' that is born of the flesh - the whole person, with body and soul, mind and senses - because everything about [that person] longs for the flesh…From the 'works of the flesh' in Galatians 5[:19-21], you can learn that Paul calls heresy and hatred 'works of the flesh'. On the contrary, you should call [the person] 'spiritual' who is occupied with the most external kind of works as Christ was when he washed the d...

Fifth Sunday in Lent March 29, 2020 Eucharist: 8:00 am and 10:45 am Ez. 37:1-14; Ps. 130; Rom. 8:6-11; John 11:1-45 Commemoration of Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771-1824) Norwegian spiritual leader Ez. 37:1-14; Ps. 130; Rom. 8:6-11; John 11:1-45   O God, with joy I enter in, Restored and precious in your sight, For in your grace I live again In lands of honey and delight. ·         Listen to Franz Schubert's oratorio "Lazarus" at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pa1VgWnCzY . Score at  http://imslp.org/wiki/Lazarus,_D.689_(Schubert,_Franz)

Saturday, March 28, 2020 Reading: John 11:1-45 "Lazarus, come out!"  John 11:43 In the Saint John's Bible illumination for the raising of Lazarus, the viewer stands behind Lazarus in the rocky tomb, looking out through a circular tunnel where the bright gold figure of Christ stands calling Lazarus out of the tomb. It is almost like the pupil  of an eye. Against the inner darkness of the tomb are the gold leaf words of Christ: "I am the resurrection and the life." One vividly senses the loving call to come out of the tomb, and since we, as viewers, are also in the tomb with Lazarus, the call of Christ is also directed at us: "Lazarus, come out!" From all the dark places of  hurt where we have walled ourselves off, Christ calls us to come out. From the dead places of hatred and bitterness, Christ calls us to arise. From the tomb of self-loathing, Christ's loving voice bids us come forth. To golden light. To life. Out of the depths h...

Friday, March 27, 2020 Reading: Ezekiel 37:1-14 "O dry bones, hear the word of the  Lord."   Ezekiel  37:4 Master Calligrapher Donald Jackson designed a two-page illumination for Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones for the handwritten Saint John's Bible. Whereas Jackson frequently traveled to the British Museum to view examples of Near Eastern ornaments and motifs for the book's illuminations, in this case he went to internet archives of documentary photos, extracting images of piles of bones from massacres in Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq and other places to create the lower half of the illumination page. These he interposed with piles of glass shards reminiscent of terrorist attacks and piles of eyeglasses from the Holocaust to create a bleak collage of the dry bones of human suffering and spiritual death. Across the top of the page, in contrast, is a collage of rainbow fragments and menorahs, signs of covenant and promise. All across the page...

Thursday, March 26, 2020 Reading:  Ezekiel 37:1-14 "Can these dry bones then live?"  Ezekiel 37:3 After the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman army in 70 CE, a group of extreme Zealots (Sicarii) overtook the  Roman garrison at Masada, a tabletop mountain overlooking the Dead Sea, where Herod the Great had built a fortified palace complex including a synagogue. Besieged by the Roman troops, the Sicarii and families watched as, bucketful by bucketful, stone and dirt were used to build a ramp up the west flank of the mount. (Imagine building a dirt ramp up the side of Devil's Tower in Wyoming…) When the Roman army breached the walls on April 16, 73 CE, they found every one dead, except a few hiding women and children. Among the artifacts excavated from under the synagogue at Masada is a scroll fragment: Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones. Overlooking the wilderness around the Dead Sea, we hear these words again, "Can these bones then live?" O...

Wednesday, March 25, 2020 Noon Eucharist with Soup Lunch following 6:00 pm Soup supper: 7:00 pm Evening Prayer Reading: John 9:1-41 “[The man who was born blind] answered: “… one thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see.”  John 9:25 In one of her visions, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1160) saw a golden Christ figure pouring out divinity from himself. The golden stream of the divine flowed down to a figure in white baptismal garments; another veiled figure stood below Christ, the garments covered with open eyes. Hildegard called Christ, “the One Who Gives Eyes” - eyes to see wisdom, eyes to see justice. Perhaps eyes to see Christ in the faces of others? Eyes to see the pain in the world? Eyes to see God at work in the universe? Oh, Holy Jesus, most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly.  Amen (Prayer of Richard of Chichester) Call or write a relative yo...

Tuesday, March 24, 2020 Reading: John 9:1-41 Commemoration of St. Oscar Romero (1917-1980), martyred Archbishop of El Salvador) NEW MOON MERCURY VISIBLE IN EASTERN SKY JUST BEFORE SUNRISE VENUS VISIBLE IN WESTERN SKY JUST AFTER SUNSET “As he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth.”  John 9:1 According to many New Testament scholars, the writer of the Gospel of John (probably writing about 90-100 CE) originally ended the gospel immediately after the story of Thomas and the Risen Christ in Chapter 20, and concluded with these words, “Now Jesus did many other things in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that you may have life in his name" (John 20:30-31). Seeing and believing. Seeing and believing.  The disciples at the Cana wedding, the woman at the well, the people who were fed by the five loaves, and now the man born blind. St. A...

Monday, March 23, 2020  Reading: Ephesians 5:8-14 “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”   Ephesians 5:14 Here is one of those lovely, unexpected hymn fragments that are woven into letters and other books in the New Testament. Just a little fragment, possibly of a baptismal hymn, already in existence and being sung by the early Christians by the time Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus. Imagine the song in the night: river water may be rushing nearby, or waves splashing from the sea. The smell of chrism is in the air, and the smoke from fire. The renunciation toward the west, and then the turning toward the east, the direction of the rising sun, where Cyril of Jerusalem says, “God’s Paradise opens before you, that Eden … The place of light, that garden which God planted in the east.” And voices chanting in the dark, “Awake, O sleeper…” Awaken me, O God, raise me up from the dead, and grant me the light o...

Fourth Sunday in Lent March 22, 2020 Eucharist: 8:00 am and 10:45 am I Sam. 16:1-13; Ps.23; Eph. 58-14; John 9:1-41 Commemoration of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), North American theologian How shall my days your grace proclaim; How shall my deeds your healing prove? An open heart will praise your name; My grateful life will sing your love. ·        Listen to Edward Elgar's oratorio on the man born blind: "The Light of Life" (1896)  https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=QtYQQW6U964 .   Score at:  http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Life,_Op.29_(Elgar,_Edward)  Score at:  http://imslp.org/wiki/The_Light_of_Life,_Op.29_(Elgar,_Edward)

Saturday, March 21, 2020 Reading: Psalm 23 Commemoration of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Archbishop of Canterbury “You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”  Psalm 23:5 If we have eyes to see it, ears to hear it, senses to feel it, all around us our cup is overflowing. To take that first deep breath in the morning is a blessing. To feel the softness of slippers. To smell coffee. Perhaps to hear a loving voice. Blessing. The Babylonian Talmud instructs the pious Jew to bless God one hundred times each day. Blessed are you, O God, for the light blue snow at sunset. Blessed are you, O God, for the crescent moon. Blessed are you, O God, for the eyes of that child.  Blessed are you, O God, for the song of the wind. For these amazing fingers. For lentils. For wool. Imagine a life lived, steeped in blessing. My cup overflows. God the Good Shepherd, lead us beside still waters, that we may see your many blessings and bless you.  Amen Give thanks 100 ...

Friday, March 20, 2020 Reading: I Samuel 16:1-13 “So Shemu’el (Samuel) took the horn of oil and anointed David amid his brothers. And the spirit of YHWH surged upon David from that day onward."   1 Samuel 16:13 (Everett Fox, tr.) The books of First and Second Samuel are books about power, about the corruption of power and about personal responsibility, and in this story beginning the longest continuous narrative in the Bible, we meet the shepherd-boy who will become king, David. Here, the prophet Samuel anoints David, the youngest son of Jesse, for kingship, after rejecting David’s seven older brothers. David was anointed for kingship. Prophets were anointed, high priests were anointed. Anointing was for healing, for hospitality, for burial. We anoint the ears and  eyes of catechumens. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible says, then, in John 9:6 that Jesus “anointed” ( epechrisen ) the blind man’s eyes with mud. (The New Revised – NRSV – says “s...

Thursday, March 19, 2020 Reading: I Samuel 16:1-13 St. Joseph, Guardian of Jesus SPRING EQUINOX, 11:50 PM “… the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”     I  Samuel 16:7 “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” we sing as the season of Lent begins. “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” we sing in the liturgy at the Great Entrance of the Eucharist. A clean heart. The heart is where the whole person comes together – body, spirit, mind. What is intended by the mind takes up residence in the body and spirit. What is done with the body takes residence in the spirit and the mind. All are interwoven. In the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, heard through this Epiphany season, Jesus spoke over and over again about intention. How crucial are the intentions of the heart! Other people see our actions which may seem just, but God sees the motivations, the intentions, the energy behind our acts....

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 Noon Eucharist with Soup Lunch following 6:00 pm Soup supper: 7:00 pm Evening Prayer Reading: John 4:5-42 “Sir, give me this water so that I may never be thirsty.” John 4:15 If you look at Orthodox icons of Jesus and the woman at the well, you see that the woman is occasionally shown with a nimbus, the gold circle around the head which is a sign of holiness and divine energy. In the Eastern Orthodox church, the Samaritan woman at the well has been given a name, Saint Photini, the “enlightened one,” and is “equal to the apostles”,  because she believed and went to tell others about the Christ she had encountered. Her story continues. It is said she was baptized along with her five sisters and two sons, traveled to Carthage to share the story of Jesus Christ, and eventually traveled to Rome, where she was martyred by the emperor Nero. Her feast day is February 26, and a church dedicated to her has stood for centuries at Nablus in the West...

Tuesday, March 17, 2020 Commemoration of  Patrick, 5th c. missionary to Ireland Reading: John 4:5-42 “Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well.”    John 4:6 Sitting by the well, Jesus speaks to the woman of Samaria about “living water” or “running water” according to the writer of John, who frequently uses double or triple meanings. In one icon of this story the well is shaped like a Greek cross: the living water flows from faith. In an early Christian mosaic, it is shaped like an eight-sided baptismal font: the well of living water is baptism. In one catacomb painting, Jesus himself stands in the well: Christ is the living water. German theologian Oscar Cullman argues that this story was intended to continue Nicodemus’ discussion with Jesus about being born anew (or “from above,” – another double meaning!). Which is it? Perhaps the answer is, “yes.” The power of story is that we can enter it from many differ...

Monday, March 16, 2020 Reading: Psalm 95 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, when your ancestors tested me.”    Psalm 95:8 Pray with your lips, so that you may pray with your mind, so that you may pray with your heart. This is an aim of prayer, of fasting, of acts of love - to engage the heart, to encounter the changing power of God. "Create in me a clean heart" we sing on Ash Wednesday and all through the Sundays in Lent. In  A Simple Way To Pray,  Martin Luther wrote that we should pray the scriptures and the creeds daily "and use them as flint and steel to kindle a flame in the heart." The heart is where the whole person comes together - body, mind, and spirit. It is where change takes place, where transformation happens. As St. Makarius the Egyptian wrote: "The heart is a small vessel; and yet dragons and lions are there, and there poisonous creatures and all the treasures of wickedness; rough uneven paths are there, and gaping chasms...

Third Sunday in Lent March 15, 2020 Eucharist: 8:00 am and 10:45 am Ex. 17:1-7; Ps.95; Rom. 5:1-11; John 4:5-42 O break the rock, let water flow And wash the dust and drought from me; I taste your peace, your presence know, And drinking deep, am healed and free. Listen to C.P.E. Bach's oratorio,  Die Israeliten in der Wüste  (The Israelites in the Wilderness).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duMIrm1EyX8  All of  Part I deals with the Israelites' thirst, mistrust, and dismay, and ends with Moses' entreaty to God to find water, and the Israelites' joyful return to trust in god. Click on Libretto - English translation for text. http://www.cpebach.org/toc/toc-IV-1.html

Saturday, March 14, 2020 Reading: Exodus 17:1-7 “YHWH said to Moshe: Here I stand before you there on the Rock at Horev, you are to strike the rock and water shall come out of it, and the people shall drink. Moshe did thus, before the eyes of the elders of Israel.”  Exodus 17:6 Lent as a period of preparation for Easter was already common in the church by the year 330 CE. During these days catechumens (candidates for baptism) were being instructed for their baptism at the Vigil of Easter, and the community as a whole used the time as a reminder and renewal of their baptism. The woman at the well, the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus were all scripture lessons used in this instruction, pointing toward new life, the new sight given by the waters of baptism. Water flows in the desert, thirst is quenched in the wilderness. Hope is offered to those in despair. Water flows from the rock. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Blessed are you...

Friday, March 13, 2020 Reading: Exodus 17:1-7 “The people thirsted for water there, and the people grumbled against Moshe and said: ‘For what reason then did you bring us up from Egypt, to bring death … by thirst?”     Exodus 17:3 In April 2010, National Geographic devoted an entire issue to the theme of “Water,” and included in the issue one of those grand National Geographic maps, this one a mapping of every river system of the world. One need only a quick glance to see that between the Nile in Egypt and the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq there is Not Much. Not even taking into account the Jordan and its few tributaries. Not much at all. It is brown on the map. No perennial rivers or lakes. And it is through this land that Moses and the Israelites are traveling. Water is life. Water is the life-blood of the green earth, like capillaries and arteries in our own bodies. The Israelites looked around and as far as they could see – only desert. Only wilderne...

Thursday, March 12, 2020 Reading: Romans 5:1-11 Commemoration of Gregory the Great "Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us."   Romans 5:4-5 When hardship comes to us, as it always will, we often want to flee, and quickly. But quite often, as years pass, we discover that hardship has taught us important lessons: trust in God, trust in our own mysterious inner strength, compassion toward others, release of fear and anxiety, gratitude, wonder. Help does not always come in the form we momentarily desire. What may come may simply be an increased capacity for endurance. But God pleads with us not to harden our hearts - to remain hopeful, God-trusting, open, and loving. God wills for us abundant life. Hear our voices when we call, O God, and strengthen us to release all that keeps us from abundant life in you. Amen Eat only cooked rice for one meal; set aside the money saved ...

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 Noon Eucharist with Soup Lunch following 6:00 pm Soup supper: 7:00 pm Evening Prayer Reading:  John 3:1-17 "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."  John 3:16 The Ignatian Examen instructs us, after giving thanks, to examine and name the ways in which we have moved away from God. What is the old garment we need to remove before we can be renewed in the waters? What attitude, what despair is blocking us off from living a resurrected life? Perhaps we are so angry that we have become hard like stone. Perhaps we are so afraid of being hurt that we have let ourselves become numb. Perhaps we have felt so unloved that we have put ourselves first above everything. Naming our incompleteness is not easy. It takes silence, it takes honesty, it takes vulnerability. But Christ already has become vulnerable before us. And God has already loved us, in spite our waywardn...

Tuesday, March 10, 2020 Reading: John 3:1-17 Commemoration of Harriet Tubman (d. 1913) and Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) Jewish Festival of Purim  “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  John 3:6 Life in Christ is a journey into transformation, into newness. It asks for the giving up of things of the flesh, that is, self-centered, self-absorbed, worldly gain, the  incurvatus in se , being turned in toward self, that Luther calls sin. We would often rather, like Jonah, sell our donkey, so we don’t have to take this journey, but Christ is whispering in our ear “I am yours” awaiting our “I am yours.” And when the two come together – fire! wind! Abba Joseph, a desert father, was approached by Abba Lot, who informed him that he had kept his rule of prayer, fasted, purified his thoughts, and lived peaceably – what more could he do? Abba Joseph held out his hands toward heaven, fingers extended, and said, “You can become fir...

Monday, March 9, 2020 Reading: Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 Full Moon - Supermoon "[Abraham] is the father of all of us, as it is written, 'I have made you the father of many nations'…" Romans 4:16b-17a In his "Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans", Martin Luther wrote: "Faith…is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God…Faith is a living, daring confidence in God's grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times. The knowledge of and confidence in God's grace make us glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures." We are descendants of Abraham in faith, writes Paul, and thus we are confident and bold to go where love of God leads us. We are born anew in the Spirit, as Christ explains to Nicodemus in the darkness, and thus we are free to live in sure confidence of God's love, "glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and...

Second Sunday in Lent March 8, 2020 Eucharist: 8:00 am and 10:45 am Gen. 12:1-4a; Ps.121; Rom. 4:1-5, 13-17; John 3:1-17 Commemoration of Gregory the Great Purim But far from Sinai have I roamed And bear the hidden wounds of strife; Away and worn, I yearn for home; Athirst, desire the spring of life. ·         Listen to Ernst Pepping's motet, "Jesus und Nikodemus"  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_agfzU6kric

Saturday, March 7, 2020  Reading: Psalm 121 Commemoration of Perpetua and Felicity (late 2nd c. martyrs) “The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand”   Psalm 121:5 The Ignatian Examen that was described in the Ash Wednesday reflection begins and ends with gratitude. Our days begin with “O  Lord , open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise,” (Matins) and end with “Let us bless the  Lord ; thanks be to God.” (Compline) When life leads us into the wilderness, gratitude helps us recall that we have a shelter from the sun and wind, a refuge from predators. Meister Eckhart, 14 th  century Rhineland mystic, wrote “The one most needful prayer is: thank you.” Gratitude cultivates an approach to life that is life-giving and healing. Gratitude provides a deep well to sustain us in dry desert times, days of wandering and uncertainty, days of wilderness. O Lord, thou hast given so much to me; Grant one thing mo...

Friday, March 6, 2020 Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a “Be a blessing!”  Genesis 12:2b Each person is a unique, never-to-be-repeated event in the universe. No person has the same fingerprint, voice print, or retinal pattern as another. No one’s DNA, cell memory, and life experience are exactly the same as another’s. All of us have different songs, different wounds, different joys vibrating in our bones. God has given each person talents and abilities that are unique, and the universe needs us to develop and use these gifts. God said, “I will give you blessing … be a blessing!” Rabbi Zusya said, “In the world to come, I shall not be asked, “Why were you not Moses?” I shall be asked, “Why were you not Zusya?” God, rich in blessing, may we be complete, as you are complete. Amen Fast secretly for one meal. Set aside the money saved for an act of love.

Thursday, March 5, 2020 Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a “YHWH said to Avram: Go-you-forth from your land, from your kindred … to the land that I will let you see.”              Genesis 12:1( Schocken Bible, Everett Fox, tr.) Righteousness. What was the personal benefit to Abram that he left his land, the land of his father, the land of his ancestors to step out on the journey God offered him? What would Abram get out of the journey he was about to undertake at God’s bidding at the age of 75? Abram was leaving all that he knew, giving up rights to the land of his birth. All we are told is that Abram was given a promise by God. Abram trusted and accepted the summons and left for Canaan. Martin Luther wrote in  Two Kinds of Righteousness , that the first righteousness is a gift of God “instilled in us without our works by grace alone,”  from which develops our “proper” righteousness, a life lived “soberly wit...

Wednesday, March 4, 2020 Noon Eucharist with Soup Lunch following 6:00 pm Soup supper: 7:00 pm Evening Prayer Reading: Matthew 4:1-11 “Then the devil took [Jesus] to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down…'" Matt.4:5-6a Jesus fasted for forty days, and the tempter tried to entice him to turn stones into bread.  Then the tempter tried to entice Jesus to throw himself down from a height of fourteen stories and defy gravity and death. Jesus wandered humbly without possessions, and the tempter tried to entice him with great wealth and power. All of these temptations were attempts to lure Jesus away from his true identity: that of embodied compassion. For compassion suffers with (“cum” – “patior”). If Jesus were truly to live as humans live, he would at some time suffer hunger, thirst, alienation, disappointment, pain, loneliness, death. To opt out of any of these experiences wou...

Tuesday, March 3, 2020 Reading: Romans 5:12-19 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned…”  Romans 5:12 A look at the fossils embedded in limestone quarries shows that thousands of species of animals lived, died, and became extinct before humans ever developed in the Great Rift Valley of east Africa. Stars that are 10 million light-years from earth need 10 million years for their light to reach us, in which time they may have died, far before humans ever walked the savannahs. Everything in creation comes into being, lives, and dies – mountains, deserts, brachiosaurs, galaxies, humans. It is a part of the great becoming of the universe. So what do we do with a statement like Paul’s, who alone among Biblical writers seems to regard death as the result of human sin? Better, perhaps, to focus in on what Thomas Long calls “big ‘D’ Death,” rather than “little ‘d’ death”: that is, de...

Monday, March 2, 2020 Reading: Psalm 32 Commemoration of John and Charles Wesley (1703-91) and (1707-1788) “While I kept silence, my body wasted away.” Psalm 32:3 The rubrics for morning and evening prayer in this devotional instruct us to chant aloud, to pray aloud, to read aloud. Speaking or singing words out into the physical universe is a powerful act. Speaking aloud our faults, our shortcomings, our failings brings mere idea out into the body, into the world of space and time, where change can happen. Brain researchers estimate that more than 80% of our thoughts are old, repeated day after day. Getting the negative thoughts that are rattling around and around in our brain out into the physical world frees the mind, readies the heart. For repentance, for confession, for transformation, speak aloud - to a pastor, to a therapist, to a loving friend, to the trees, to an empty room, to God. "I acknowledged my sin…and you forgave." (32:5) Let all who are fait...

First Sunday in Lent March 1, 2020 Eucharist: 8:00 am and 10:45 am Lenten Processional 4:00 pm Gen. 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Ps. 32, 9-16; Rom.5:12-19; Matt. 4:1-11 Commemoration of George Herbert O God, with hope I enter in And call to mind your desert grace: To wayworn people you have been A presence in the wilderness. + +The stanzas for each Sunday are from the hymn "O God with hope I enter in".* It is based on St. Ignatius Loyola's Examen described in the Ash Wednesday meditation. * [Copyright ©2001 Susan Palo Cherwien, admin. Augsburg Fortresss] Dave Brubeck wrote his first large-scale jazz choral work,  A Light in the Wilderness , in 1968, to address the climate of racial exclusion and intolerance in the United States at the time. It begins with Jesus' temptations and wandering in the desert, and climaxes with the movement, "Love Your Enemies".   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsEJJiMVXfU&index=4&list=PLxFVkD_OKHa...