Newsletter, CoP, July 14, 2019

THIS SUNDAY: July 14, 2019, 9:30 am Moreland Presbyterian Church, 1815 SE Bybee Blvd., Portland, OR 97202; Questions? Contact Pastor Brett Webb-Mitchell (919) 444-9111; brettwebbmitchell@gmail.com

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Dear Summer Pilgrims, Wandering Pioneers, and Voyagers of the Faith,

 

Summer seems to have found Portland, finally, and we are experiencing more days of sunshine than cloud cover and rain at the end of this week, though we needed the moisture! Let us all enjoy the long days of summer to come!

 

This Sunday, the focus Scripture is Luke 10:25-37. These verses contain within them the well-known story of the Good Samaritan! This story strikes close to home these days, as we are reminded that it was the marginalized Samaritan in the story—an outsider to those who are Jewish—who did the right and good thing in aiding the one who was stricken on the roadside and in need of help, and not the others who passed by the one in need. In today’s world, there are plenty of stories of the marginalized “others,” like the ancient Samaritan, who also turn out to be the one who does the right and good task, practicing charity and kindness upon those stricken and left alone on the busy roadside of life, when those who we would expect to do the “right thing” fail to rise to the opportunity to love one another. The question for us is not only who do we wish to emulate in this story, but who is Jesus in this story? The Samaritan? The one who is suffering on the roadside? The inn keeper?  Join us this Sunday as we discuss this story!

 

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This Sunday, July 14, 2019, rather than meet at 4:00 at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church, we will join the folks at Moreland Presbyterian Church in worship together, at 9:30 am, in their Fellowship Room, as we bring our communal practice of “Gathering and Worship” to this host community of faith! Join us for this wonderful experiment!  Address is above!

 

 

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Events!


July 14, Moreland Presbyterian Church worship! 9:30 am at Moreland Presbyterian Church!

July 20, a Thank You Volunteer Appreciation BBQ/Picnic by Human Solutions! All of us invited to come; 4-6 pm, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, 17405 NE Glisan St., Portland, OR.

July 21, Pastor Brett preaching at Woodburn Presbyterian Church

July 21, Gathering and Worship, Rose City Park Presbyterian Church!

July 28, Gathering and Worship, Rose City Park Presbyterian Church!

Aug. 4, Pastor Brett preaching at Portsmouth Union Church, Portland, OR

Aug. 4, Gathering and Worship, Rose City Park PCUSA.

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Requests


* Regarding the CoP t-shirts: Please pick up your t-shirt this Sunday, and bring cash or a check made out to Community of Pilgrims, in the amount of $8 for adult M, L, and XL, and youth; and $12 for adult 2XL. Thank you!

* We also have plenty of beautiful leather bracelets for each member of the community! Pick one up this Sunday!

* In the coming months, Pastor Chris and I will be quoting from and referencing sections from the book, Wisdom Distilled from the Dailyby Joan Chittister, a Benedictine monk, who, in this book, focuses on the nature of living life in an intentional Christian community, which is our aim as Community of Pilgrims. We can either order books for those interested and sending in a request for so-many copies, or feel free to order it or buy it from your favorite book distributor. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily, Joan Chittister, San Francisco: Harper One. 

* Another book for our consideration: The Intentional Christian Community Handbookby David Janzen (Paraclete Press, 2013). We may use this book as we delve deeper into understanding what it means to be an intentional Christian community of faith.

* Finally, Community and Growthby Jean Vanier will be picked up as a book for us to read together.

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Prayers of Celebrations and Concerns


·Health, healing, and wholeness for Melissa, Lorinda's daughter, who has breast cancer.

·Thanksgiving that Shu and David joined us tonight.

·Happy Birthday to Ray Moholt who turns 86 tomorrow, and for Linda's mother, now deceased, whose birthday is also tomorrow.

·Continued peace and well-being for Sue Malter.

·Continued peace and well-being for Liz who was hospitalized briefly this past week;

·Our country and its leadership.

·Alaska where climate change is causing record-breaking high temperatures, drought, unusually warm coastal waters, and wildfires.

 

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Poem

The End of Summer, by Rachel Hadas

 

Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—

an early warning of the end of summer.

August is fading fast, and by September

the little purple flowers will all be gone.

 

Season, project, and vacation done.

One more year in everybody’s life.

Add a notch to the old hunting knife

Time keeps testing with a horny thumb.

 

Over the summer months hung an unspoken

aura of urgency. In late July

galactic pulsings filled the midnight sky

like silent screaming, so that, strangely woken,

 

we looked at one another in the dark,

then at the milky magical debris

arcing across, dwarfing our meek mortality.

There were two ways to live: get on with work,

 

redeem the time, ignore the imminence

of cataclysm; or else take it slow,

be as tranquil as the neighbors’ cow

we love to tickle through the barbed wire fence

(she paces through her days in massive innocence,

or, seeing green pastures, we imagine so).

 

In fact, not being cows, we have no choice.

Summer or winter, country, city, we

are prisoners from the start and automatically,

hemmed in, harangued by the one clamorous voice.

 

Not light but language shocks us out of sleep

ideas of doom transformed to meteors

we translate back to portents of the wars

looming above the nervous watch we keep.

 

 

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Buen Camino!

Pastors Brett & Chris 

Rev. Dr. Brett Webb-Mitchell (919) 444-9111; brettwebbmitchell@gmail.comRev. Chris Dungan chrisdungan1@msn.com