Dear Movers, Shakers, Walkers, Bikers, Those who use Walkers, Canes, or Crutches,
Greetings from Community of Pilgrims Presbyterian Fellowship! We are entering the 6th Sunday of Eastertide, drawing closer to Pentecost, the birthday of the assembly, the gathering, of what we call today, "church". It is always helpful to remember that Jesus and his 12 disciples were a small little group of communitarians, sharing food and money daily. Even on Pentecost, there were no churches. My, how things have changed over the generations!
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This Sunday we focus on John 15:9-17, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father." John's Jesus reveals a new relationship we have with Jesus: we are not "servants" only, but are elevated by Jesus (aka, God), to be called "friend". This is incredible! We are called to be friends with God, seeking the goodness of God as God seeks and nurtures goodness in us. In ancient Greek philosophy, there were three kinds of "friendship": friendship of use, and friendship in which we share things in common that we both enjoy. These two friendship are short-lived. The third kind of friendship is based on goodness, in which we admire the goodness in others, and help one another strive for goodness. This kind of friendship endures. It is this third kind of friendship that Jesus imagines with us when Jesus calls us "friends." Brother Jesus, who walks with us on the pilgrimage of life, calls us "friend", and off we go! Let the adventure of this incredible friendship with God continue to unfold!
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Coming Events!
* Saturday, May 5, 2018, 11-5 pm, Deafopia Expo, OR Association of the Deaf, https://oad1921.org/event/deafopia-expo, Washington School for the Deaf, 611 Grand Blvd, Vancouver, WA 98661
* Sunday, May 6, 4-6 pm, we will not meet at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church, but will meet at Colonial Heights Presbyterian Church: we will meet together this Sunday to embody the above passage: "Love one another as I have loved you," packing food together for Human Solutions, in which we will help feed 45 individuals!
* Sunday, May 6, 7:30 pm, performance of Lake Oswego Millennium Community Band, Lake Ridge High School, Lake Oswego, OR.
* Saturday, May 12, 4 pm, Sacred Flight Concert, Rose City Park Presbyterian Church, Rev. Chris Dungan, Narrating;
* Wednesday, 7 pm, a showing of the film, Price Out, St. Charles Borromeo Parish, 5310 NE 42nd Ave., Portland, OR.
* Saturday, May 19, 5 pm, Dinner and gathering of ASL Interpreters, Tom Galey and Lee Ellis home;
* Sunday, May 20, 10 am worship, Rose City Park Presbyterian Church, Brett preaching;
* Sunday, May 20, 4 pm, worship, Kathy Fukuyama's baptism; visit with Church Coach Tom Letts;
* Sunday, June 17, 11 am, Portland Pride March! Place to meet TBD.
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Prayer Concerns and Celebrations!
- Liz as she has her cardioversion procedure on May 3rd. She is now healing and feeling better!
- Diana Zapata's mother health.
- Ken and Ann Miller as Ken continues to live in intense pain.
- The family of David Gilkey, for a life well lived.
- Remembering Rosa Lee Brooks, who died this past week.
- Linda's friend Pat who recently lost her husband and whose daughter remains in the hospital and for her autistic teenage son.
- Celebration for the summit between North and South Korea that it may mean peace.
- People in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Rohingya refugees, and Palestinians and their oppressors.
- People living on city streets as the gap between rich and poor widens.
- Craig Stein as he transitions back to Portland and in his search for a new home.
- Linda and Chuck's wedding anniversary. It would be 28 years of marriage today.
- Members of the Church at Eagle Creek who love Chris and she loves them.
- Our community of faith. We are part of a proud tradition of faith communities and more branches will come.
- Traveling mercies for Nina on her drive to Arizona and for her son's move to Portland.
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Finally, a poem:
Instructions on Not Giving Up, by Ada Limon
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.
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Buen Camino!
Pastors Brett & Chris