710: don’t leave light footprints in this radiant country on ground that is not yours.
Day 710: Thursday February 24, 2022
Everything taken up with you, don’t leave light footprints in this radiant country— on ground that is not yours.
(Ukraine sunset)
Announcement #1:
On the Synod process of listening and responding by Enid Macken and Denise Dixon:
Our shared homily during February 13’s liturgy was a good introduction for a conversation on the synod process of reshaping the Church through deep conversation in which we discuss our individual faith journeys, listening to each other and responding to the need to reinvigorate the Church.
Enid Macken and Denise Dixon are deeply committed to the synod process so please let Enid Macken (enid@macken.com) and/or Denise Dixon (denise@miralee.com) know if you are interested in participating in a more in-depth discussion.
The comments will be submitted to the Vatican as part of the listening phase of the synod. As a first step a Zoom meeting could be scheduled on the first or third Sunday in March or on a weekday afternoon or evening. Please also let them know your preference for a meeting day.
Announcement #2:
A note from Pat O'Connor, Steve Lyman and Tom Bachelder about this Sunday's Emmaus Celebration:
Can you believe it? It seems that we just celebrated Christmas and here we are with Ash Wednesday staring us in the face. Our theme for the coming Sunday is “Cultivating Listening.”
The liturgy committee recently decided on Listening as our overall theme for the year and we hope we capture many aspects of listening in this liturgy. With the Lenten Season upon us we want to ask:
- What tugs at your heartstrings for spiritual attention?
- If you were to lay your ear upon the breast of Jesus just as St. John did at the Passover meal, would you hear the heartbeat of God,? what would be stirring in you?
- What is stirring in our Emmaus Community?
Our liturgy will provide a prolonged period of silence, a time for quieting the mind and contemplating what each of us needs. We want to welcome all to the table for this celebration. We hope to see you on Sunday 02/27/22. We join Zoom at 4:45 pm for conversation and fellowship and the liturgy begins at 5:00 pm. See you soon!
Grace Note:
Our dear sister Melva Freeman is back and better than ever. I got a call from Melva yesterday and she sounds wonderful. She thanks us all for our prayers and cards and good thoughts. We will see her on Sunday on ZOOM!
As the sun sets and hills grow dark,
as the birdsong ends and fields fall silent,
as the people laugh and take their rest,
I watch.
My heart hurries to the twilit gardens of Ukraine.
And I hurry.
O, how I hurry with my thoughts,
as my heart yearns for rest.
As the fields grow dark,
as the groves grow dark,
as the hills grow dark,
I see a star.
And I weep.
Hey, you star! Have you reached Ukraine?
Do dark eyes scour the blue sky for you?
Or don’t they care?
May they sleep if they don’t.
May they know nothing of my fate.
- Taras Shevchenko
1847
Taras Shevchenko was born into serfdom in 1814 in Moryntsi. He was a political dissident, an artist, and is now considered the national poet of Ukraine. His poetry collection Kobzar has appeared in hundreds of editions with poems translated into 147 languages, including Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. After a decade in remote penal colonies, Shevchenko returned to Ukraine before being imprisoned again. He died in St. Petersburg in 1861 and is buried by the Dnipro River in Kaniv, Ukraine.
