Category Archives: The Weekly Word

We’ve seen many pictures of the archangel holding a balance. This is a depiction of something going on in us. We start using such a scale the moment we awaken in the morning. Can I indulge in a few more minutes of sleep? Pros in one pan, cons in the other. Oatmeal or toast for breakfast? Pros and cons. Or more seriously, Should I tell my friend the truth? Or, Shall I attend the Christian Community seminary? Or we may try to determine if something is true, or if something is good, or right, or not. The “evidence is weighed,” to use a courtroom phrase. And we have a universally recognized bodily gesture that depicts this process…(gesture: both arms up with palms upward).  We gather evidence from our sense perceptions of the world and the thoughts we attach to them. We weigh these all day long, whether for seemingly trivial or important matters. This is the essence of developing inner freedom. And Michael’s task has been to implant this weighing process in the evolutionary stream of humanity. It all began when we ate from that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Bad?) in the Garden.

But here’s the rub. We can’t gather enough information to be sure we have all that’s relevant. Sometimes we aren’t even sure on which pan to place some information. Sometimes a pro in one context becomes a con in another. Perhaps, without reflecting we just do the usual. Perhaps we do nothing and just wait for more information. Perhaps we make a wrong choice, perhaps a right one. It’s always a bit, or even very, risky, this freedom business! And so, we “gnash our teeth” in uncertainty. Scientists have even devised nifty statistical methods to estimate the “probability” that their findings are in error, and we, in our own ways, perform similar inner calculations constantly. Today computer scientists are developing Artificial Intelligence to try to alleviate us from this teeth-gnashing. Well, they do so while gnashing their own teeth in trepidation of unforeseen consequences. I wouldn’t hold my breath that the gnashing will stop anytime soon…  This life of gnashing with anxiousness, is the price we pay for the possibility of becoming courageous, free-choosing and free-acting individuals. But as a consequence, the glorious life and soul garments we wore when we still lived in marital communion with the world, began to fray and discolor.

What is the point of all this freedom and teeth-gnashing? Today we see how so many souls
cannot stand it and relinquish the process in favor countless “isms” and numbing distractions to provide relief from the uncertainty. But for those who sense that there must be a human purpose underlying this continual weighing of things, another problem may arise, and that is the blitz-fast comprehension that the use of logical weighing is ultimately a circular process that cannot break free to explore real guidance, or truth about the vastness of the world beyond the senses and cannot lead to a true knowledge of who we are or what the world is. It is a road towards truth that, while opening freedom, ultimately comes to an end without resolution because in the sense-perceptible world everything depends upon everything else. Thus comes another choice, a huge life-altering choice. One can either continue indefinitely in this circular teeth-gnashing that cannot bring peace, or in faith hear how there is, yes, a call to a renewed marriage, to a renewed communion with the world. There comes the call, O human being, know yourself and the world!

And so, as we attain enough inner freedom through using our sense-based thinking, the
archangel now seeks to awaken a “a freedom from freedom.” He points away from the brain,
and to our deep inner heart that yearns to wed itself to the flaming heart of the One Who,
through what was accomplished on the Cross will send the Holy Spirit to open the doors to the Truth of who we are and what the world is. Who will guide us, now as free human beings, to a love festival with God, and with healed, brightly shining garments. What does all this have to do with opening a Christian Community seminary? Well, welcome to those whose roadways have come to an end and who hear the call to the marriage and feel drawn to help resound the call to others who also seek entrance to the marriage festival.

Contemplation by Rev. Peter Skaller for the Opening of The Seminary 

 

Marriage Address for Rev. Peter Skaller and Phylis Skaller on their Golden Wedding~ by Rev. Susan Locey

Fifty years is a long time in today’s world! Yet you have traveled an even longer path together, all the way from the moon. When you first met in New York City those many years ago, something sparked between you—was it perhaps a flash from that sphere of the moon?

It continued to flash as you discovered more and more what each had carried from that sphere of the moon—the ideals, the interests, but also the challenges, the “imperfections.” And over the years and decades, you’ve helped unpack each other’s luggage full of treasures but also the garbage, tucked into the karmic baggage. And you’ve helped each other look at all that stuff. There were sparks of joy that guided you to value what to keep and to admire. But then the rest of it… what to do when there is no “garbage can” in the spiritual world to throw out karmic garbage? Especially the other person’s “stuff.”

Over the years you have both developed techniques for sorting and evaluating, by which we can all be inspired:

  • How to carry those irritants, learning how and when to be quiet.
  • How to create a family life to nurture and lead everyone to the good for the whole family.
  • How to strengthen rhythm in life, so disharmony has its place and can fit in like voices coming in at different places in a fugue.
  • And schooled by the peer counseling techniques of Re-evaluation Counseling, you both learned how to listen, to hear deeply through passionate arguments the still, small voice of conscience. The voice of conscience from both sides!

In time and with good will, your senses have been transformed and you have learned new ways of seeing, of hearing, of balance and movement.

The Spirit of our Age, Michael, has endowed your fighting spirits with power to fight for and against many causes, but ultimately the goal of life—that all-important sense of life—has shone before you. But this goal of LIFE has also exerted pressure out of the future, and begun to teach you transformation: you’ve been learning to spin gold from straw, diamonds from lumps of coal, pearls from your irritations.

When you could not do this on your own, you found friends all over the world, including Robert and Elena, who could stand by you and help to hold you during the dark times.

And now, after half a century together, you are preparing for the last great journey—not back to the moon—but towards the sun. And your suitcases will be very heavy with all the gold you bring. But don’t worry! The Being of the Sun, the Son Spirit himself, will meet you at the gate of community of life, and His light, love and peace will bless you.


Eulogy for Ralph Anthony Johnson
by Rev. Jonah Evans. Given on August 19th in Spring Valley, NY.

Ralph Anthony Johnson lived and died for love. His life journey led him to the profound mysteries of how it is that within this world of suffering and emptiness, loss and rejection – how it is that the human soul can find the source of love. And he found this source of love, and this source found him.

Ralph was both a man of the spirit and a man of the world. He lived in a dynamic tension between both the impulse to live well in this material world, leading, directing, organizing. And at the same time, carried the constant desire to give everything worldly away and devote himself to the life of silence, renunciation and devotion. These two impulses never found harmony within him. He was like a kind of warrior-monk; when in battle always longing for the monastery and when at the monastery always longing for the battlefield. These two lived in his soul, both wanting his full attention.

The name Ralph comes from Nordic-Scottish roots and means wolf, crafty wolf. Dealing with the world, Ralph was indeed crafty, intelligent and wise in the best sense. He was a gifted leader, a compassionate boss who deeply cared for his employees. I often remember him telling me stories of generous and loving things he would do for his employees. He had a knack for business. He was gifted at knowing how to get to the core problems quickly. He knew how to make something successful. He loved helping people and organizations learn business, learn how to manage and lead, learn how to work ethically in this material world.

Ralph loved health, health foods and healthy lifestyles. His whole work life was dedicated to spiritual and bodily health. He loved vitality and the experience of taking care of his body and mind. One of his favorite things to do was go to the Cayman Islands and bask in the warmth, walk on the beach with the crystal clear blue water.

However, at the end of his life, he often lamented to me about the strangeness of how even though his whole life was about health, it didn’t matter. He still got cancer. The absurdity of this he felt strongly. But at the end he wrote in one of his journals, “The truth is that no one really knows what heals some and others not. All I know now is that healing my spirit is the most important thing I can do, for no matter what happens, this path to old age, sickness and death is real. Sooner or later we all have to face this reality, I just have a bit of a head start…”

Ralph was loved by his family, his friends, his community. One of the gifts of the cancer was that it made him realize how much he never allowed himself to feel this love, how much there was in his soul that blocked this. Finally feeling this love from others was one of the biggest gifts of his life.

Ralph loved his family. He was deeply devoted to his wife Bonnie but struggled, as so many of us do, to selflessly love our partners in the midst of our own weaknesses. He deeply loved his children. But he struggled, like so many of us fathers do, with how to discern between what our children really need and what we think is best. He struggled to know the depths of his love and be able to express it to them.

He came to understand all of this most profoundly after he received the diagnosis of stage four colon cancer. He wrote recently, “The most striking thing of all has been my lack of true appreciation of love in my life.… In these days I have come to know love more intimately than ever before, I have come to see how much love I have for those around me and my own deep emotional heart which is so tender and full of love. I see now that I was limited in my understanding of love. I have for the longest time lived on the surface of love due to my own fear, weakness, shame and doubt, not that I wasn’t a loving person, but I never let myself feel the true depth of love .… I didn’t know that I had the capacity to love deeper than I do now, for my wife, my children, the people I work with.… For me now there is no more fear of rejection, shame, holding back, worries, insecurity, which doesn’t serve me anymore. My heart just wants to feel every ounce of love around me. …to touch others with my heart and let them know how much I love them. Even now I know there is still depths of love I’m not aware of, but I’m heading towards these depths…..”

Ralph loved sports. The first time I met Ralph was on the Green Meadow Waldorf School basketball court. We coached the 7th and 8th grade girls team together. He coached for many years and left deep impressions on those young women. We spent many evenings together watching football, basketball…and one of his favorite things to do was playing tennis with Skip at the park.

He loved humor! He loved to laugh and make people laugh. Ralph used humor to help ease tensions and lift spirits…and sometimes he used it to avoid intimacy.

Ralph was a Buddhist. He loved the teachings of the buddha and sitting in meditation. He loved the teachings on impermanence and emptiness, non-self and renunciation. He loved Taoism, the Sufis, the wisdom of Judaism and Hinduism. He loved St. Frances and Mary. And despite his difficult Catholic upbringing, he even loved a Christian priest! More than once he would tell me that at the root all religions is the same, and all paths lead to the top of the mountain.

But I want to return to his name. For the name Johnson means Son of John. Ralph was also spiritual son of John. Spiritually, to be the son of someone means to take after or repeat the same spiritual pattern but on a different level. John is the writer of the John Gospel. And one of the secrets of this fourth gospel is that John is Lazarus, Lazarus the disciple whom Jesus loved. And the initiation-pattern of Lazarus-John was to touch death and then to be awakened by the being of love. At the end of his life, Mr. Johnson followed this pattern, this path. For in the depths of Ralphs despair, in the depths of the darkness of his realization of death, like John, Ralph was awoken by the being of love.

This is how it happened:

A few months ago, Ralph called me one evening and told me that that day he was feeling completely lost. He was consumed with despair, feeling completely alone and helpless. He felt so angry that this was his reality. As he lay in his bed, he told me, overwhelmed with anguish and darkness…he called out to Christ with all his heart… , “Help me…”

What he then described was one of the most touching moments I have ever had on the phone with a person. He told me that in that darkness, a presence came to him. It was a powerful presence, but so tender at the same time. This being, this presence, he described, didn’t speak to him in words, but simply came close. This being place his hand on his head and embraced him around his heart. In this embrace, Ralph said that he felt the most profound love he had ever experienced. He said that it was the feeling of finally finding home.

In this moment, we both knew that this was why he got sick, this was why he had chosen to be born, to know for himself the reality of love.

Some days after this experience he wrote, “In the past few nights, the image of the depth of love has continue to haunt me. When I think of Christ or the Buddha I am perplexed with the depth of love they showed towards the world. I ponder how this kind of love can manifest in myself, beyond my own personal desires. And try as I might to stay connected to this kind of love and the softness of a heart that could exist within a person, the complete wholeness of such a soul is way beyond anything I can realize. Yet, there is a place within me that wanted to know what this experience must be like. In the past few days I find myself melting away in the soft heart of Christ, the softness I feel is so powerful and all consuming, melts my whole being.  Experiencing something so unfamiliar to me, beyond anything I know, which causes me to feel uncomfortable with the sensation of such an overwhelming love, to allow my entire being to accept this powerful grace…..I so desperately want to know this place, this level of love and compassion. I often think about it and think I’m doing my best, but so often I fall short of staying in that place. In so many ways I want to exhibit this place of love all the time, to be gentle, understanding, compassionate, kind and loving. To live in a place of pure unadulterated love. When I think of this I can feel this tingling within myself knowing that this is my goal, that this is my deepest passion at this time in my life, is to be this loving being in the world. That all my personal needs and wants will vanish and I would be blessed to service and find the never ending love, which goes beyond this world. When I reflect on my life, for me it has always been my personal white whale, which has haunted me my entire life, knowing that the depths of love is within my grasp in this life…. A mixture of grace and suffering sharing the same place.”

Ralph Anthony Johnson lived and died for love. May his spirit continue to grow in this light. And may his spirit continue to inspire us; that life is about encountering the depths of despair, suffering and absurdity…and finding in this darkness the strength and grace to love.

 

We all know that everything in this world receives it’s life from the sun- everything comes from the sun. And people of faith also know that everything we have, everything we are comes from God- everything is given by God.

And yet, in our gospel this week (Lk 17), Christ tells the Samaritan leper that it is his faith that has healed him. Earlier, Christ tells the disciples that it is their faith that could bestow forgiveness, their faith that could command the tree to move, if they had but a little seed of it. Even though we know everything comes from God, the gospel tells us that we must begin to grow a seed in us if the power of faith is to be effective.

But what is this seed that we are responsible for? What is this faith that only we can give?

A famous philosopher, Johan Fichte, wrote, “Faith today is no longer believing in a truth that you cannot prove, faith today means that we begin to live what we already know, to give confidence to what we believe.’

Faith means is giving confidence to what we have experienced to be true.

Dear friends, may we all learn to let go of crippling self doubts that sap our confidence. May the seed of confidence grow in our hearts so that we can live what we know, so that we can mean what we say. Then the faith that is ours to grow will become a power in us. Together with the light of the Son, we will have the power to forgive-the power to heal.
Contemplation by Rev. Jonah Evans

Having been ill and getting better, healing, is a process. A process that requires time and active effort. In the case of a cold or flu this might happen relatively quickly. But with a more serious illness comes a greater effort. Taking care of oneself, looking for a cure, going through treatment, maybe even having to look for more unorthodox therapies is a long road and it can be hard and exhausting. It may also be ultimately rewarding, maybe in unexpected ways.

In Luke 18, the blind man, sitting at the wayside in Jericho is not resigned to his fate. He has a keen awareness of what is going on around him. He hears the commotion when Jesus Christ is drawing close and inquires what is happening. He calls out to Him, who passes by. The One he has faith in and knows brings healing. And he is not deterred by those who consider him a nuisance and want him to be quiet. When Jesus Christ summons, he comes willingly, when he asks, the blind man has an answer – and he is healed. Jesus Christ brings us the ‘healing medicine’. This is not a medicine that will find us “no matter what” –wherever we are or whatever we do. We may be sitting by the wayside and Christ may pass us by. Not because he does not care but because we are not paying attention. We need the willingness to pay attention to Him. To look for Him. The persistence in doing do. To ask for Him and to seek Him out. To learn to understand the very nature of His being.

If we go looking for Him, if we open the doors of our soul to Him, He will answer us without fail. For Christ is always aware of us.

Contemplation by Rev. Inken Contreras Koelmel

Oh Christ!

May our hearts learn to feel your presence.
May our heads learn to think your living thoughts.
May our limbs learn to serve your aims.

Stay close to us. Live in us.

For we know that without you, our efforts bear no fruit.
We know that without you, all of our knowledge and wisdom is in vain.

Bless us with Your trust – trust that the Father knows all of our needs
Bless us with Your strength – strength to live what we know and to mean what we say
Bless us with Your love – love that bears all things.

Oh Christ, stay close to us.

Amen

Prayer written and spoken by Rev. Jonah Evans

Contemplation inspired by Matthew 7:1-14

August 4, 2019

To hear this Gospel with the weight of Christ’s word: “Judge not lest ye be judged,” may trouble us deeply. We can hardly live without judging—after all, every noun we utter is fundamentally a judgment. We identify all the time what is in our world; that is a house, that is a tree, this is a man (or woman)! All of our sense perceptions give us a basis for these identifications, which lead immediately and naturally to judgments.

So, what is it that Christ is urging, in the founding of a new morality and a new world-order, that we refrain from judging? And how can we find security in a social organisation when we abstain from the judgment of our fellow human being? What could replace or evolve from the “either-or” trap of our judgments?

Let us look at the process of judging. It is based first of all on the information through our senses. And our senses work from us, through a medium such as air, vibrations, light, etc. We especially use light in seeing, but in fact all of our perceptions are mediated. Light is both a medium and a power. Everything we grasp about the world goes through a light process of focussing and becoming conscious, regardless of whether we perceive through seeing or hearing, smelling, feeling, etc.

We “cast a light” when we focus and become conscious. We are not so aware of how this light actually goes both ways, from us to the people and objects in the world, but then also reflecting back to us, which in turn forms our understanding, and even refines our organs for recognising and identifying. If we have already identified, then we carry a concept, and this concept is a judgment that we easily recognize again and again in our experiences.

Light includes all shades of light and dark, everything comes into relationship to ourselves through this medium. But light by itself is not necessarily “good.” We know how lasers, intensified light, can cut or destroy life. We have a slang expression about “gaslighting” someone, and this is not positive!

We use light, but there is One who could say, “I am the light of the world.” And He pronounced this in the very moment of withholding judgment of the adulteress in the Gospel of John, chapter 8. In that world-changing revelation, He the Sun-God shone into the judgment of the world, lighting up the path of growth in destiny. Sunlight gives power and pictures for future growth to the plant beings. Son-Light gives a new light to the I-am of the human being, that we too may be empowered and grow into our potential of becoming angels.

In our ordinary judging we create more darkness than light. The One who is the true light can shine into our “non-judging” hearts and minds, and reveal to our struggling, our judging and forgiving, the light of love. The judgment of love gazes into the world. We may well ponder, “What—or how—does love see the world?” And this beholding also reflects back to us: “How does ‘love’ see us?”

Contemplation by Rev. Susan Locey

Where do the Gospels come from?

This may seem to be a strange question, but if we answer it “from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,” and some apocryphal gospels by Thomas and others—then we still have not answered or realised how they could have written these accounts of events that they had not personally witnessed. Especially Mark, who was only a child while Christ preached and performed his deeds.

One way to consider this question is to imagine the gospel writers could open their hearts and minds to the “eternal gospel,” which began to shine in a new way when Christ rose from the kingdom of death and 40 days later ascended—expanded—as far as the realm of the stars. In a real way, the Gospels come from the stars!

One of the early Christian Community priests, Professor Hermann Beckh, wrote an incredible spiritual research on the progression of the life and deed of Christ as written in the Gospel of Mark, from the point of view of the progression three times through the zodiac. (This book is available in English as “Mark’s Gospel: The Cosmic Rhythm.”) In his introduction Beckh described the progression of higher consciousness: “Such a beholding in pictures through which a spiritual reality is revealed, will be named here as Imagination.” And Beckh goes on to unfold yet higher stages of revelation as “Inspiration” and “Intuition,” based on anthroposophy.

Through the relationship to the houses of the starry zodiac, this dramatic event of Peter being the one to recognize and confess the Christ, and then denying what that meant—this earthly event reveals its meaning through the stars: Scorpio, the double constellation of the scorpion and the eagle.

The coming of the Christ had long been foreseen and awaited in the mysteries. Even the shepherds in the fields knew of this. Peter tapped into this ancient wisdom. He soared with the borrowed wings of the eagle!

But he was unprepared for what followed from this, as Christ himself foretold of the arrest and humiliating death on the cross. Peter vehemently rejected the cosmic necessity in Christ bringing into death the light and life, which He alone could bring. The scorpion side of the constellation darkened Peter’s consciousness, and Satan stood behind him.

The Son God fulfilled the second round of the great sun progression through the zodiac, with the confession and denial of Peter.

We too may echo this “double-take” of Peter. We too may suddenly grasp the immense significance of the deeds of Christ, and then also—suddenly—be overwhelmed by what that means. Our life cannot remain the same when we are touched by the cosmic significance of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Christ rejected—put in its place—the adversary who stood behind Peter’s denial and resistance to re-thinking. And Christ set Peter in place as the “rock” on which the community of Christians could evolve into the present! Christ depends—builds on—our turning from the adversary, turning towards Him!

The Weekly Word

Sermon July 21st, Gospel reading Matthew 11: 2-15

Today is the last Sunday of celebrating John the Baptist this year. The compelling presence of John lingers in his mysterious call to change our heart and mind, change our consciousness. Nearly 2000 years have passed, but the urgency resonates as much today as to the crowds who gathered around him then.

What did he mean with changing consciousness? What form of consciousness would we change? How do we change our consciousness in a healthy way?

We can recognize three levels of consciousness:

  • There is consciousness in the body, but limited, and it has evolved over aeons through the working of higher consciousnesses and beings.
  • There is consciousness in the soul, with all the pleasure and pain, the memories, the feelings and thoughts and impulses. Based on the foundation of the body, the soul experiences so much! The life power of the soul is movement, going from one sensation to another.
  • And cradled in the foundation of body and soul, the spirit—while awake—is a centre of conscious thoughts, concepts, ideas… thoughts that relate to us, interpret our experiences, great moral truths, but also abstract concepts and shadowy ideas. Our spirit swings between waking consciousness and sleeping unconsciousness, with a transitional consciousness in dreaming.

Consciousness may be the awareness of many perceptions and experiences, but ultimately consciousness turns out to be more the vessel that holds the content of what we think and feel and want. Our consciousness is actually a cup or even a chalice that holds something. The chalice is not the same as the wine! But the cup of consciousness must be sound, for we can see that a leaky cup will not hold content.

So we can help the chalice of our heart and mind become stronger and have integrity. We can, for example, create sacred moments of stillness in that constantly moving inner life. We can raise our heart and mind to the light. We can choose the content of a prayer or meditation. We can honour our consciousness in the way we tend it, and our consciousness may become healthier. But have we changed our consciousness?

Our consciousness is more than a cup that remains a cup, no matter what we pour into it. Our consciousness is changed by what—and how—we fill it! And all this leads us back to the wonder of what John the Baptiser did to prepare the way for the Lord. He baptised to initiate consciousness of what needed to change in each individual.

Today, too, the change in our hearts and minds, in our consciousness, to which we can full-heartedly say ‘yes’, leads us not to heights of joy but to the depths of intense longing. Striving for a change of consciousness leads to a miserable awareness of our incompleteness, our weaknesses, straying, unworthiness. But in the depths of our despair we come to the same threshold as John’s baptism opened up—we discover we are flawed, indeed sinful. BUT WE ARE REAL! And in the darkness of self-consciousness, the light shines on the missing part of our incomplete being, safe in the hands of Christ.

Contemplation by Rev. Susan Locey

 

The meeting of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth was a turning point for both of them. They came together where the Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea, at the lowest place on the continent, over 400 meters below sea level, where the atmospheric pressure is intense—even metamorphic!

John had called out in words of flame to a great following of people, as he preached to them of the fallen state of humanity. He clearly perceived how far humanity had fallen. He who “bears the Father-Spirit” held in his consciousness the ideals of the original creation. He strove to bring people to the shock of awareness of their own falling away from the ideals of the creation. John urged them: change the course of your life — he called it ‘metanoia’—see the threshold of the spiritual world, lift up your thinking, feeling and willing to the divine-spiritual and become true human beings, as God had created. John the Baptist spoke as the powerful voice of world-conscience.

What was the consciousness of John as he saw Jesus come to be baptised? John saw the only human being who did not need to be baptised! Here was the one who was not fallen. Jesus knew the sufferings of human beings as a result of the Fall, and he had experienced how even the wise teachers and priests had lost the connection to God. Nowhere could human beings find a way to pray for help and healing. The altars were empty, even taken over by evil spirits, cut off from wisdom and comfort. And he, the purest Soul, suffered with them—us. He did not restore the old wisdom, he offered love. In suffering, Jesus, the embodiment of the Logos, had become the silent one. The Word was burning in his soul, but he could not speak from that. His hour had not yet come.

He had poured out his heart to the mother, and she could not comfort him. But she could send him to John the Baptiser. Intensely silent and burning with longing to save humanity, Jesus went down to John at the Jordan River, and asked him to baptise him.

John, the greatest of all born of a woman, knew his task was not to rule but to prepare the way for the Lord. When he saw the silent one without sin, John wanted to refuse Jesus, saying, ‘You must baptise me.’ But Jesus, with his complete awareness of the will of the Father said, ‘Let it be so, to fulfill what destiny requires.’ And so it was… Time was reaching the turning point. The great baptism was not to cleanse this Jesus, or to bring his soul to the threshold. The baptism had a unique effect, and John was the only human being capable of seeing what took place—the great offering of Jesus for all who are “needy of healing on the field of earth’, and the Spirit descending like a dove into the open chalice of his soul, and the great union-communion of Christ and Jesus that turned the course of time.

This took place once for all time. But it is not over, for a great archetypal form was created at this turning point: today heaven and earth meet in a new way. And we can turn the course of our lives to this new impulse, and we can ripen in community in the Christ-Sun.

Contemplation by Rev. Susan Locey