Message from Our Minister Reverend Mary White
Good Day and Blessings!
From the beginning of my memory, there have been rules. Some were followed, some were challenged, and some I have aborted. Rules are necessary for society to function in a cohesive manner but when they cause harm to any segment of society, then it is our responsibility to challenge them. The lawmakers are not infallible and at times tend to be reactive to a given situation without looking at their logical conclusions. It is our civil duty to speak our truth, to protect the environment, to march in protest, to write letters of protest, and to disturb our world in the fight for justice for all living species.
If we are to Serve with Love, then we are to live Love.
With Love,
Rev. Mary White
Poem: Genesis One
by Carol Dixon
In a vast universe that often seems sinister and unaware of us, we need the presence and shelter of Love to transfigure our loneliness. This cosmic loneliness is the root of all inner loneliness. All of our life, everything we do, think, and feel is surrounded by nothingness. Hence, we become afraid so easily. The fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart says that all of human life stands under the shadow of nothingness, the umbra nihili. Nevertheless, love is the sister of the soul. Love is the deepest language and presence of soul. In and through the warmth and creativity of Love, the soul shelters us from the bleakness of that nothingness. We cannot fill up our emptiness with objects, possessions, or people. We have to go deeper into that emptiness; then we will find beneath nothingness the flame of Love waiting to warm us.
Reading • The Commandments by Thom M. Shuman
For some folk, the Ten Commandments have to be followed without question. They are the core of how folk are to live; they are the Law; they are the instruments by which we judge who are the really good people, and who are the rotten scoundrels.
For others, the Commandments are a sort of moral code that, while not absolute, gives us some guidance on how we should live.
Yet, for Jesus, keeping the Commandments was an act of love! (John 14:15). Not an act of unquestioning obedience; not a philosophical pondering of the relevance of the Commandments for ourselves and our times; no, simply the natural result of a life lived with God.
If we live life and serve in love with God, how can we not want to keep the Commandments?
Excerpt from Ruth Burgess “Bare Feet and Buttercups”
In Memory Gladys Paterson
It is with great sadness that long time member of our church passed away July 11, 2021.
PRUC Online Worship Service
Please join us this Sunday, July 25th
Prayer
Light up my life, loving One:
Let me reflect the glow of your love on those around me.
Burn within my being, until I am shining with your grace.
Reach beyond my earthbound existence into the heart and soul of each community with whom I come into contact. Transform me with your Love, so all will see and know that you are God within.
Amen