"What is Believed and What is Received"

[bronze_ribbons]

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, catrinella bunnied me last night with chat about Vane Parker (that would be Charles and Mary Parker's great-grandson to you Wimseyphiles) that now has me wanting to plot a fic about him being quiet, solid, dependable, and so very tired of being expected to be the perfect prefect and his charismatic cousin Phoebe's keeper, which somehow eventually leads into a discussion with Snape or Lupin about the failures of a certain other quiet prefect long ago. But I can't afford to dwell on the "somehow eventually" until I slay a certain other plot-hydra... *whimper*)

Yes, yes, I'm babbling: it is almost 4 a.m., and I'm also somewhat frustrated because there's sensing the themes I want to cover vs. figuring out what can actually be articulated with some measure of justice and originality (within the frame of fifteen minutes, in the case of the sermon). Talking about how deaths and disasters and disappointment can shake people's faith in God -- if the faith was even there to begin with -- that's something worth exploring, but it's volatile stuff and I'm just not sure how much dynamite I want to pack into this thing. Mmmrhph.

Anyhow, I at least have a summary now:

As we collectively recover from Thanksgiving and charge our way (sometimes literally) into December, it is worth taking a look at what the holidays demand from us -- however actively or passively we choose to approach them -- and what we, in turn, hope and expect from them. What makes our holidays holy-days, and what might we ask -- or need -- to sustain our faith in them?

And I've selected almost all of the readings and hymns, except for the meditation poem (numbers refer to Singing the Living Tradition). I heard "Rev. McTigue a couple of years ago in Boston and really liked her homily, so I'm rather pleased that the two most fitting texts to bookend this service turned out to be hers.

Opening Words #435 by Kathleen McTigue

opening hymn #349 We Gather Together (tune - Kremser)

responsive reading #656 A Harvest of Gratitude

hymn after responsive reading #322 Thanks Be for These (tune - Transylvania (16th century Hungarian))

closing hymn #411 Part in Peace (tune - Charleston [but at least twice as slow as the midi!])

Benediction #706 by Kathleen McTigue

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.