​We have embarked on a Lenten journey in hopes of arriving closer and closer to God.  Our Lenten study is titled "Becoming A Season of Rebirthing"; and we will apply it in a a way which aims to bring our worship community closer as we go deeper into our journey of faith.

The plan is that our Adult Sunday School reflections will inform and inspire our gathering and reflections on Wednesday evenings.  Both at the casual conversations over a simple meal provided by our church groups at 6:00 pm, and continue on at our 7:00 pm worship service.  On Sundays we will watch a short video and everyone is encouraged to read the lectionary readings.  Please find below that we share each Sunday.  

Please note that we are having Communion every Wednesday and Sunday until Easter.

Much love to you, and may God's grace nurture you as we journey through Lent, 
Pastor Alex

Session 1
​The Knowing

Session 2
Wait for it

Session 3
tory Like This

Session 4
​Only Just Begun

Session 5
Mourning by Morning

Based on the Lectionary readings:
​Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11

Reflection
I’ll show you my heart, you whisper us through the dark and we’ll go safely into the knowing.—Shellee Coley

We are always seen by God.  We are not, however, always seen by ourselves.

The most liberated I remember feeling was around second grade. I was absolutely open to God and myself. I knew my favorite color, food, song, game, person. I knew how lovely I felt snuggled into the neck of my golden retriever. I knew how free I felt swinging, laughing, enjoying a day on my tummy in the grass picking clover flower, puncturing the stem through blades of grass to make arms and legs for the newly appointed Queen of Cloverbed. On hard days, I would go outside singing angry songs I made up, running for the treehouse. When I was sick, I would cry and my mother would come sit near me, placing a cool wet washcloth on my head. I can see how much of a gift this time was now. I was an open book. I couldn’t hide my love or my anger or my pain. Somewhere along the line I learned to hide all of these things because I was afraid of any intense feeling (including and especially love) and because exposing myself was a great risk. I have personally fabricated different cloaking devices to protect myself from appearing vulnerable. Sarcasm, misuse of substances and people, consumerism, habitual sickness, victimization, insane busyness, and blame shifting became ways to deflect from my weaknesses. I didn’t know this was a problem, I didn’t know I had encased myself in so much falsehood! I became exhausted under the weight of my wear. I came to the end of my ability, of myself, whoever I was. It was in my thirties when I awakened to God and without any other option but death, gained the courage to uncover and face myself.

I shed a lot of unhelpful belief during this time, a lot of falsehood, self-imposed expectation, and a lot of dead weight. This dying to myself led me through what my dad calls the "Land of Questions” (and I survived to return again and again). If we are willing to go through it, if we are willing to let go and let God, to ask and adventure through the questions, we begin to recover what was true about God and us all along.

Willingness is the beginning of some important work. Willingness to be honest, to come clean is the threshold we cross to experience our own hallelujahs.

Meditation focus suggestion -Willingness to be honest; Transparency

Blessing
Bless us O, God, with enough of You
to bring us out of hiding undressed of untruths,
thin as leaves--bare our souls to be known.
Even as nerves are unwrapped and anxieties unbandaged
even with our instinctual desire to cloak-- to tailor a way out of exposure
and cheat our way out of certain death--we come out to You.
Hiding is futile.  Nothing goes unnoticed, nothing undiscovered--
All existence is within Your sight.
So, we give You our willingness to recover, to become transparent and teachable,
to be redesigned and redressed.
To our greatest ability, God,we bring ourselves to You,
hoping you will take us as we are.

Based on the Lectionary readings:
​Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17
Matthew 17:1-9 

Reflection
And we find our truth on the path, on the path. We find our truth on the path. And we’re free from the chains of our past, of our past. We are free to move on…—Shellee Coley

Dying to self is a process, unfortunately (or fortunately), one that leads us through surrender, letting go, decomposition, and reunion to the Source of Life. Throughout any process, waiting can be expected. Are we willing to wait through God’s process of recreation, are we willing to remain surrendered to God’s will?

This is much like what happens to a caterpillar when it enters into the stage of becoming a butterfly. According to Scientific American, “To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests itself. But certain groups of cells survive, turning the soup into eyes, wings, antennae and other adult structures.” 1
 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caterpillar-butterfly-metamorphosis-explainer/1

Really, none of us remain the same, we all change. But I consider cocoon times an intense time of God’s rebuilding from the most microscopic levels up through our bodies. Our work is to be willing to remain fully surrendered to this dark night of the soul, to this unknowing, to another womb-time, however long it takes. 
​
Waiting is our job for now.

Meditation focus suggestion
​Willingness to be in-between; Remain

Blessing
Recreation work can get dark, My loves— Light so sparse it takes willingness to catch a glimmer.

It is not a comfortable time and space, and though you may not recognize Me, I AM in it, waiting alongside you.  Speaking your eyes wide open, illuminating faces, guiding Lights, scattering flickers of hope  and traces of warmth not only to sustain you…

but lead you by your willingness to holiness embodied, where we can reflect one another, altered— Me wearing your humanity, You hosting My divinity.
It sounds too good to be true, but I tell you… you will discover unmistakeable beauty in unmade-up places.

Based on the Lectionary readings:
​Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42 

​Reflection
Cause in the dark you just have to feel your way along, but I’ve always had the hope that I’m being led back home.—Shellee Coley 

Like Jesus with the woman at the well in John 4, God informs us of our story. Tells us like it is, but through a shameless lens. 

In the muddled mess of our becoming, when we are finally wide open to God’s hand in our redesign, we begin to understand right humility. We begin to see and appreciate the life we have been gifted. We understand more about our limitations, our humanity. We see how we have hurt and been hurt. Tried and failed and learned. Loved and celebrated well. At the same time we are dissolved into the soupiness of our cocoon-time we are discovering ourselves. 

We begin to see more about who God is and the expansiveness of One that is NoThing and yet Everything. We get to be willing during this rebirth, to let God flow through us, to flush out our cells and invigorate us with the vibration of new Life. We are learning the blessing of accepting our humanity as a gift rather than a curse. 

These are the transformation chapters. 

Meditation focus suggestion
​Willingness to accept our humanity; Embodiment 

Blessing
​God, we become disillusioned, disconnected, storming through days that often add up to a loss, dark nights of the soul that leave us withered and wanting, searching for water on hollow legs. 

This is when it’s easy to lose sight of Life as a gift. 
And, that no matter how bad we’d like to escape, I doubt You lose anyone.  To You we are not merely humans— broken vessels, cracked pots straining to hold one sip of Life— but Your beloved hand work, shaped to be filled,  to draw upon Your heart and walk. 

You pulled a fountain out of rock, so surely You can bring goodness from dust! Bless us to channel Love even through hardness To let Your water carve its way through us, like river brings Life through canyon, and saturate us through and through! 
When we can’t feel our way to You, make Your way through us. Help us receive Your outpouring of Love. 

Based on the Lectionary readings:
​Isaiah 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

​Reflection
So I wandered through the valley, I stood beneath an open sky. Just looking for somebody to lead me through the lonely nights.—Shellee Coley 

When telling or hearing a story, have you ever heard yourself or someone describing a disaster of epic proportion followed by a turning point statement like, “and that’s when God showed up”. I love this part in the story, because usually that means the good stuff is just getting started. 

I often wonder how this phrase came to be, though. Because throughout everything I have experienced and learned, God doesn’t show up…we do. We awaken to the I AM. 

And, we may have searched everywhere for God but within. Growing towards knowing the creative Source that imagines us into being from beginning to end, 
who takes up residence in our bodies and constantly builds and rebuilds the “who” of who we are around Godself is the work of reformation of being. We are coming together again, being regathered, and God is not withholding blessing, but pouring out Light and sight—and this is just the beginning. 

Meditation focus suggestion
Willingness to discover God within; Anointing of Light 

Blessing
Come to Me, My flock, just as you are gather up, huddle together, amass— the dying world is thrashing its way out, exhausted of intelligent debate.  
I AM keeping you close, opening My house, giving sanctuary. 

With Me, even death’s darkness will not trouble you. Even the wayward path won’t bring you down. 

I AM imparting clarity with truth and understanding, gifting glimpses of Me—belief through sight.

I AM pouring guiding Light over you,  blessing overflowing blessing, anointing you as one who carries Me within, and one who carries Me out. 
Rest and recharge, Beloveds, soon we will rise. 

Based on the Lectionary readings:
Ezekial 37:1-14
Psalm 130
Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45 

​​Reflection
And we stand as the day closes dark on our face. We stand, and we wait here with you as we’re becoming new.—Shellee Coley 

We have died to become new. We have expressed our worn out ways, turned ourselves inside out, upside down and eventually over to God for further examination and complete consumption. We have been reframed, reanimated by Spirit’s breath, and embody something greater than ourself. Our new understanding of our humanity and God’s absoluteness have instilled right confidence now. Confidence not based on what we have done, but in what God has done and will continue to do. 

It’s time to emerge, friends, to be unwrapped from our burial clothes. Take in the air here, we’ve come through some deep recovery. We have been led through death to new Life! To reconciliation! While we do not have certitude that “it is 
finished”—for we know we will have more dying to do—we have hope in our continued becoming with God.  

Now we set out to live a more fully-human experience. Now we are being sent to bring our new sense and being into Light, into community to become manna for one another, to join and share our healing. “Out there” is where we express transformation, where we stretch out our new wings, raise up our colors and welcome Christ to shine through. 

These are the stained glass windows of our inner sanctum. 

God within us has made each of us a human sanctuary. We hold God’s Presence within and practice carrying LIFE and LOVE and FORGIVENESS and WELCOMING everywhere we go. 

Meditation focus suggestion

Willingness to come alive, to be made new, to be brought breath, to live fully. 

Blessing
​I AM walking through the valley of death, beloved, opening graves, piecing together sets of dry bones, speaking them to Life.

“BREATHE.” 

Soon you will see, I have restored us,  reclaimed you from your suffrage and sorrow and made you whole again. 

Hope, once long lost, is here again. 

I am setting you upright,  placing My presence deep within, reassuring once-hollowed legs they are good to stand, and well to walk. 

My humans, along with My divine presence,  know I gift you your humanity—Life itself!  

Accept and take your life, use it well. Use it for the common good,  for the love of other. 
​
Until you are unearthed completely, and we are wholly one,  never stop becoming, My Loves. ​