Greetings!

Today is a happy day for me! I am working on my final paper and presentation. Once I click the send button, I am done and finished with seminary. It has been quite a journey! I have stretched and learned and grown far beyond my expectations, and at some point I will put that into words that I can share with all of you. For now, however, I won’t complain about being done writing papers. Five years of papers and projects and deadlines on top of writing worship services is quite enough for me. So, I will just share with you a quote from the book I am working with for this final paper of mine. It hints at what I’d like to dig into in the upcoming church year (I’ll leave it to you to be able to translate the Christian language into your own religious language so it is meaningful for you):

Through our sermons, sacraments, singing, praying, and orders of worship, through our honoring of God and one another, we can gain tools to respond to our social alienation, to this shallow world of pure enjoyment, to the delusions of our never fulfilled, unregulated desires, and expand understanding of ourselves based on the gospel of Jesus lived in community, in and through our multiplicities, many configurations, conflicts, and ways of living/believing.

From: Carvalhaes, Cláudio. What’s Worship Got to Do with It?: Interpreting Life Liturgically (p. 187). Cascade Books. Kindle Edition.

What is the purpose and meaning of worship? Why do we come together every Sunday morning? Is it about being comfortable, or is it about finding the Ultimate, that which is bigger than us, in the faces, lives, and experiences of those who are different from us? Are we there to expand ourselves and truly feel our interconnectedness, or are we there to pretend that we can live an independent and isolated life of comfort?

I have LOTS of questions. We’ll get to the eventually, together, I hope.

Take care!