August 6th, 2006 - Outdoor Sunday Service

The setting was the African-American folk service setting Creator uses on fairly normal rotation. Sometimes it is individually hard to connect with all the energy of a service and this was one of those services for me where had the feeling I was on the outside looking in.

There were many parts of the service that would normally engage me in the moment. The youth and adults who went to San Antonio gave interesting, enthusiastic reports about what happened at the ELCA youth gathering and there were many inspirational moments they described. Stephanie movinly summarized a speaker's message who worked advertising. He had talked about how in that business it is about making people in society feel they are lacking something as to make them complete and then selling a product that will make them feel complete again.

There was an energetic singing of E-L-C-A (It's Good To Be In The) done to the tune of the Y-M-C-A (It's Good To Be In The).

Erik, in his pottery class at college, made some communion chalices that were consecrated at the service. Two beautiful grey chalices with blue top borders we will no doubt be using for a long time.

The music was great and, as usual, Matt and David had the congregation singing and clapping.

My expectations are not that every service will make me feel or meditate deeply about God in a new way or have some spiritual highpoint. Worship often helps rid me of a certain self-centeredness and this Sunday I was tired and mired while I was participating. It is a feeling I used to get alot when I was young but is rather unusual now.

The readings were about God giving manna to the Israelites in the desert. The passages talked about things of value being a God-given gift not as a reward. This tied in with something Josh said when he summarized the message of one of the speakers at the youth gathering. Josh quoted the speaker "Our desire is to put God's gift into a formula - do this and God must give you that; when God is bigger than formulas."

My thoughts moved to the unmerited good we have in the world. My thoughts, like many others currently, are consistently engaged with the news from the Middle East and the terrible fighting going on. That news and our daily lives can often move us away from the other thoughts - what Pastor Dayle called in her sermon the "manna that reigns down on us".

It seems like there are many situations demanding a certain kind of resolve. At those moments I want to have faith that will move me, like so many others seem to have, to a certainty of action and what I know is right. The, listening to my heart other realizations take over and, at those moments, I believe my greatest faith helps me live in uncertainty.

It calls to my mind the quote from St. Augustine, "Love God and do what you like" .

Strong words to pull me from feeling unconnected.