Sunday, February 7, 2021
Dear St. Luke Family:
Our Scripture passage this Sunday describes Jesus’ performing a healing miracle, and then heading off to be alone to pray. Thinking about our current situation, stuck at home in the pandemic, it seems that more isolation might be the last thing we’d want. But prayer – now, maybe we could use more of that.
In Sunday’s sermon we’ll look at prayer, how it can take many forms, and why it’s important. I ran across a poem by Lynn Ungar, entitled “Pandemic,” that functions as one kind of prayer, even though it doesn’t begin with “Dear Lord” or end with “Amen.” I’m sharing it here, as my prayer for you, for all of us:
Pandemic
by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath —
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love —
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
Grace and peace,
Joanne Whitt
Interim Pastor