Message from Light of God Ministry • Reverend Mary White
Good Day and Blessings!
Robert Frost wrote…
Home is the place where,
when you have to go there,
they have to take you in.
Do you identify with what you own, or the work you do, or maybe where you live? What if you were to lose everything tomorrow and there was no one to take you in?
Imagine all your possessions, your job, everything gone!
Maybe friends would suddenly ignore you because now you would no longer belong in their social category. Some may let you sleep on their couch for a while, but you would soon wear out your welcome and you could be out on the street.
If you have never had nothing, it’s difficult to imagine to be without.
Yet, throughout the eons of human existence, people survived with minimal sustenance. The Creator has supplied us with all that is needed, and still, we live in communities where some are takers, leaving very little for others to have a thriving existence.
There are signs that state “home is where the heart is” but it seems that the sign is more truthful when it states “home is where the stuff is”.
With Love,
Rev. Mary White
Poem: All This Stuff by Ruth Burgess
There are very few spaces in my garden, which is difficult when I want to plant something.
There are very few spaces on my bookshelf, which is difficult when I acquire new books.
And as for the cupboard in the hall – don’t go there!
All this stuff… It’s my home!
READING
Mythic Power and Symbolic Place excerpt from “Beyond Homelessness”
by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh
Not only do tall bank towers of the International Style symbolize the phallic power of the corporation housed in them, but the modern house--whether it be the detached house in the suburbs, the elegant, terraced housing of the United Kingdom, or the gated communities of North America--bears distinctive symbolic meanings. For example, the Victorian home was a display of the virtues of polite society, the boundary between public and private space; the castle or fortress offering protection against the cruel world outside. In industrial society, the house stands out primarily as a symbol of social status, where status is determined primarily in terms of tenure, location, and type of dwelling. That is, status is conferred according to whether the inhabitants are renters, homeowners, or under public subsidy, whether they live in the right part of town, and whether they live in a detached house, a condominium, a public housing apartment or the like.
PRUC Online Worship Service
Please join us online this Sunday, August 8th
PRAYER
Creator Creator
You have given us the gift of life created in your image and we are grateful. Through relationships and interaction with others we have learned to discriminate between those with plenty and those with minimal possessions. May we be like little children who have not yet learned about status and the symbols that define class. Help us to be non-judgemental Christians who socialize with and accept all people as the extended family that we are. May we work toward ending the materialistic comparative society that we have created and utilized to define ourselves. Remain with us as we move toward a more realistic place where what we acquire is shared to enable a thriving society for all. We pray that these come to fruition.
Amen