Holy Week and Recent Activities

 Catching Up With My Readers

Good Monday morning everyone!  I've been missing in action from the blog for a couple of weeks so I thought we could catch up today. I am a Certified Lay Servant in the United Methodist Church and every few years I need to recertify by taking a course. So, I have been busy with a course taken through beadisciple.com which is an institution associated with Southwestern College, a United Methodist Institution, located in Kansas. You may recall that I taught for Be A Disciple for quite a few years. 

Anyway, the course that I took was entitled, "The Arts in Worship," and was taught by a wonderful instructor named Cindy Curtis. Cindy brought so much to the course with lots of ideas for using the various arts to enhance worship experiences and I also met many lovely fellow students who also had great ideas to share. I'm looking forward to planning with my fellow staff members at church to see what we can incorporate into some upcoming services. I'm thinking along the lines of liturgical dance and sign language used in conjunction with the handbell choir I direct. Our congregation is mostly retired folks at this point, and it's a bit challenging to find folks who can/are willing/have the expertise to do liturgical dancing and sign language. I have some feelers out, though, so fingers crossed some folks come forward. God always provides, so even though my plans may happen later rather than sooner, that's okay. God's timing is always perfect! And, one of the points that Cindy emphasized, is that adding the arts is meant to enhance the worship experience for the congregation and not to put on a show. So, that is a point to remember in the planning, as well.

I don't know about any of you dear readers, but I'm finding that I can't juggle as many things at once as I used to do. Hence, I haven't been blogging the last couple of weeks because I was doing class assignments. When I combined doing assignments with household chores, social engagements, taking care of our furry family members and church activities, there wasn't lots of time left. 

Do you find there are periods of your life when some things just have to be put on hold? 

And, now, here we are at the beginning of Holy Week leading up to glorious Easter Sunday! I'm looking forward to celebrating Easter with lots of wonderful music, including the handbell choir ringing God's praises. I'm blessed to work with a wonderful group of folks in the bell choir. They are so dedicated in coming out each week to rehearse and we have lots of laughter and fun. One of our traditions in my church is to have Lilies on the altar at Easter in honor or memory of loved ones. I have arranged to have two lilies on the altar-one in memory of my parents and the other in memory of my sister who passed away a year and a half ago. As it looks now, Easter Sunday should be warm and partly sunny. I hope that weather stands as dreary Easters are a bit depressing. But, whatever the weather, we will celebrate that He Is Risen and that is the most important thing!

You may have noticed that many of the images on this post (taken by either me or The Mr.) are water images. As I inserted these water images, I was thinking of this scripture from Ezekiel 43:2

And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the east: and His voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with His glory.

There are other scriptures, such as Revelation 1:15, that speak to God's voice as being the sound of many waters or rushing waters. These scriptures are very meaningful to me. I have always found the sound of water to be calming, soothing, and exciting all at the same time. These scriptures remind me to listen for God's voice in my life. 

How is God speaking to you at this point and time?

The flowers that I planted on the back porch are doing well for the most part. I may need to add a few pansies to a planter or two for fullness. I have to keep reminding a certain four legged family member (River!!) not to eat the pansies. Wasn't there a show or song years ago called, "Please don't eat the daisies?" Well, in River's case it would be please don't eat the pansies!

I will close for now, as I am hungry and want my breakfast. Today is Monday and I will plan another post for Friday of this week so be sure to stop by then. I hope you all are well and enjoying the beginning of a fresh, new week. One of the things I learned in my course was how to construct a simple video using Canva, so I will close with the video I created. 

Please take a moment to leave a comment and let me know what you have been doing or comment on any part of this blog. You may want to give your own response to any of the questions in bold print. I always love hearing from you!

Until Next Time,

Debbie