Tuesday, March 25, 2008
CROP Walk for Hunger April 13
Have fun and raise money to help hungry people all over the world! On Sunday April 13 the Akron Area Interfaith Council is sponsoring the CROP Walk for Hunger. This is a wonderful way for people of many faiths to spend time together walking and getting pledges for their walking to respond to hunger needs in many places. 25% of the money we raise will be used locally for the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. Check out the link above to learn more about CROP. We have packets at the church building for walkers to get pledges. The walk will be based at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Morewood Rd one block from the main entrance of the Summit Mall. Registration begins at 2:00 pm and the walk at 3:00 pm. The walk will be one mile.
Drumming and potluck meal
We will have another drumming experience with Adam Kukuk on Saturday, April 5. We will begin with a potluck supper at 5:00 pm in the Fellowship Hall. Please bring a dish to share. We will have table service and drinks. At 5:45 we will head to the sanctuary to begin drumming. This is always a powerful and wonderful experience. Adam provides a variety of drums and rhythm instruments. Through different beats and sounds we respond to scripture and just let it go sometimes. Everyone is welcome to join us. We will drum for about an hour.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
from Thomas Merton
I am re-reading Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation". This paragraph speaks to me in a time when we are attempting to be "intellectually spiritual" and trying to work through in our minds what we will accept about Jesus and what we will discard as irrelevant or "out dated" about God.
In all the situations of life the "will of God" comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law but above all as an interior invitation of personal love. Too often the conventional conception of "God's will" as a sphinx-like and arbitrary force bearing down upon us with implacable hostility, leads men to lose faith in a God they cannot find it possible to love. Such a view of the divine will drives human weakness to despair and one wonders if it is not, itself, often the expression of a despair too intolerable to be admitted to conscious consideration. These arbitrary "dictates" of a domineering and insensible Father are more often seeds of hatred than of love. If that is our concept of the will of God, we cannot possibly seek the obscure and intimate mystery of the encounter that takes place in contemplation. We will desire only to fly as far as possible from Him and hide from His Face forever. So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tell us more about ourselves than about Him.
Thomas Merton
In all the situations of life the "will of God" comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law but above all as an interior invitation of personal love. Too often the conventional conception of "God's will" as a sphinx-like and arbitrary force bearing down upon us with implacable hostility, leads men to lose faith in a God they cannot find it possible to love. Such a view of the divine will drives human weakness to despair and one wonders if it is not, itself, often the expression of a despair too intolerable to be admitted to conscious consideration. These arbitrary "dictates" of a domineering and insensible Father are more often seeds of hatred than of love. If that is our concept of the will of God, we cannot possibly seek the obscure and intimate mystery of the encounter that takes place in contemplation. We will desire only to fly as far as possible from Him and hide from His Face forever. So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tell us more about ourselves than about Him.
Thomas Merton
Labels: contemplation, God, Thomas Merton
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Maundy Thursday March 20
Fairlawn West United Church of Christ will observe Maundy Thursday on March 20, 2008 at 7:30 pm in the sanctuary. Fairlawn West Church is at 2095 West Market Street, Akron, OH 44313. There will be the washing of feet and communion as part of the service. Those who desire will be invited to come forward for the washing of the feet.
Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday is the feast or holy day on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles. On this day four events are commemorated: the washing of the Disciples' feet by Jesus Christ, the institution of the Mystery of the Last Supper, the agony of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the betrayal of Christ by Judas Iscariot. The word Maundy is derived through Middle English, and Old French mandé, from the Latin mandatum, the first word of the phrase "Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos" ("A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you"), the statement by Jesus in the Gospel of John(13:34) by which Jesus explained to the Apostles the significance of his action of washing their feet.
Good Friday Tenebrae service March 21
Fairlawn West United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio will observe Good Friday of Holy Week on March 21, 2008 at 7:30 pm in the sanctuary room of the building. The specific style of the worship is a traditional service called "Tenebrae." The church building is at 2095 West Market Street in front of Resnick School.
Tenebrae (Latin for shadows) is a religious service characterized by the gradual extinguishing of candles. Lighting is gradually reduced throughout the service. Initially 15 candles are lit and are extinguished one by one after each lesson. The service ends in total darkness. The great noise at the end of the service is generated by banging a cymbal symbolizing the earthquake that followed Christ's death. This custom seems to have originated as a simple signal to depart in silence. Following the great noise a single candle, which had been hidden from view is returned to the top of the hearse. It is felt that the single candle signifies the return of Christ to the world with the Resurrection.
Why GOOD Friday? The word good used to have a secondary meaning of holy. There are a number of cases in set phrases where the words God and good got switched around because of their similarity. One case was the phrase God be with you, which today is just good-bye. So perhaps Good Friday was originally God’s Friday. Generally it is accepted that we call it Good Friday because, in pious retrospect, all that tragedy brought about the greatest good there could be.
Tenebrae (Latin for shadows) is a religious service characterized by the gradual extinguishing of candles. Lighting is gradually reduced throughout the service. Initially 15 candles are lit and are extinguished one by one after each lesson. The service ends in total darkness. The great noise at the end of the service is generated by banging a cymbal symbolizing the earthquake that followed Christ's death. This custom seems to have originated as a simple signal to depart in silence. Following the great noise a single candle, which had been hidden from view is returned to the top of the hearse. It is felt that the single candle signifies the return of Christ to the world with the Resurrection.
Why GOOD Friday? The word good used to have a secondary meaning of holy. There are a number of cases in set phrases where the words God and good got switched around because of their similarity. One case was the phrase God be with you, which today is just good-bye. So perhaps Good Friday was originally God’s Friday. Generally it is accepted that we call it Good Friday because, in pious retrospect, all that tragedy brought about the greatest good there could be.
Easter Sun March 23, 2008
Fairlawn West United Church of Christ in Akron, Ohio will celebrate Easter on Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 9:30 am in the sanctuary room in its building. The building is located at 2095 West Market Street in Akron in front of Resnick School. Easter is the celebration of the victory of life over death in the resurrection of God's son, Jesus Christ.
Good Fri & Easter...so what
So many people claim to believe in the Resurrection, and yet it means so little to them. It has no effect in their lives. It is not enough to celebrate Easter and say “Christ is risen!” Indeed, it is useless to proclaim it at all, unless at the same time we can say that we too have risen.
The long passage of time has brought with it a temptation to keep on speaking about Good Friday without being moved by it. We hear about Christ’s death, and we sit there bored, as if we were reading a newspaper. In fact, we would find a newspaper a good deal more interesting.
- C. F. Blumhardt in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Orbis, 2005)
Thomas (the disciple who doubted) appears to have been a realist - reserved, cool, perhaps a little obstinate. He wanted proofs, wanted to see and touch. Then again, it might have been rebellion deep within him, the vainglory of an intelligence that would not surrender, a sluggishness and coldness of heart. In any case, he got what he asked for…in that state of unbelief which cuts itself off from everything, that insists on human evidence to become convinced. But nothing that comes from God can be proven like 2 x 2 = 4. It must touch one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit purged of self. Only then can it awaken faith.
Romano Guardini in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (Orbis, 2005)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Fairlawn West March newsletter
Sunday, March 09, 2008
worship with a baptism on March 9
Some churches in the Akron, Ohio area canceled worship services this morning, but Fairlawn West United Church of Christ HAD worship. It was a wonderful experience with the baptism of Tabitha Ann Christman.
