This week we continue our sermon series "Seven Words for Living" with perhaps my favorite - and certainly most frequent - word of the series: "Help!" It's really a prayer, or perhaps a request, we all make more frequently than we will admit.
Theologian Carol Zaleski wrote a helpful essay on prayer in times like these. She feels these days not like a theologian preparing scholarly opinions, but like a mother huddled in a cave with her children and finds herself turning to traditional prayers for protection - for her family, her community, her nation, and herself, prayers that "speak to a legitimate need to encircle ourselves in a mantle of grace." We'll explore these and other honest prayers this weekend in all our services.
We'll also have the great privilege of baptizing three children, all of whom came into the world
prematurely and relied on parental love, the prayers of this congregation, and the support of medical professionals to make it to this day. We'll celebrate the gift of their lives, recognize God's claim on them - that they are deeply loved - and give thanks for the communities of support that advocated for them before they could do anything for themselves.
It will be a great weekend to bring your questions, hopes, and longings.
