Our last service of the regular church year is Sunday, June 8. We will be recognizing the volunteers who have given of their time and talents to the church this past year. We will welcome five new members and celebrate communion.
Many of us will be traveling this summer. The pastoral prayer each week will include a petition for those who are traveling. If, in your journeys, you experience an especially moving landscape or any other event which you would like to share, take a digital photograph and send it to the church email address, office@universalist.org We will include the image in a summer Anchor or maybe even in one of our weekly UNMC list serve messages.
I plan to take a week in June and a week in July for spiritual retreat. I’ll be going to an ashram in Oklahoma which is a couple of hours from Oklahoma City where I will attend the Christian Universalist Association annual conference. And in July, I will spend a week in a log cabin in the deep East Texas woods. This will be a solitary, silent retreat. The only time I will talk to another person will be when I meet with my spiritual director each day and at meals. I’ve been to this retreat center before. It is so deep in the woods that one can hear the coyotes howling at night. The first time I went it was a little scary, but I’m thinking this time it won’t be as frightening—sure! Of course, I’ll have my dog Skeeter to protect me!
My hope for all of us this summer is that we take to heart Jesus’ message from Matthew 6:25-34, which we explored this past Sunday. The radical rabbi exhorts us to trust God to provide for us amidst all the anxiety and worry of our lives. The sermon is on our website, but essentially I suggested that worry separates us from God and by worrying over things we don’t need to worry over, we are withholding our trust in God. The only way to trust God to provide is to put God first. Once we make our relationship with God primary, all other relationships fall into place—our family, our friends, our career.
This summer, make room for God. Everyday take some time to explore your relationship with the Ultimate Source, that presence of Universal Love which sustains us. It will look different for all of us, but the end result will be the same—a stronger spiritual self—grounded in a God-centered life.
Have a great summer!
See you in church, Rev. Lillie