"What is Believed and What is Received"

I have insomnia, I have no shame, and I'd promised to send more details about my Thanksgiving sermon to the worship committee in question by this morning... so I'm stealing my own subtitle to placet for my sermon title, that's how shameless I am (and because I am fascinated by the concept of gratitude and how/if/whether people wrestle with what they anticipate/expect/believe vs. what actually transpires -- and because, driving home at midnight, I'd locked into how that fits in with yet another somewhich-or-other I need to outline, and because given how many other discussions are going on around the blogosphere at any given time on neediness and feedback and reciprocity and recognition and such, I'm inclined to believe I'm far from alone in pondering the slippery beast).

( And, speaking of 'Placet'.... )

( Yes, yes, I'm babbling... )

( service details )

Here's McTigue' s benediction:

May the light around us guide our footsteps,
and hold us fast to the best and most righteous that we seek.

May the darkness around us nurture our dreams,
and give us rest so that we may give ourselves to the work of our world.

Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives,
the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.