 St Alban’s Episcopal Church Bolivar, Missouri Friday, March 4 Lent 1  Ash Wednesday in retrospectIt was a quiet day – but both services included the imposition of ashes and Eucharist. The evening service was mostly made up of families – including course, Lindsey Walker, eager for communion bread, and Amelia Grainger who stood with me for the first part of the service and held the gospel book as if she’d done it a hundred times before! I wonder if you have thought about what it’s like to sign the cross in ashes on tiny children, especially when they don’t understand the words that signal the reality of their deaths? It’s poignant. Its also truth. When we remember our deaths it helps us to decide how we want to live the short lives that we are given. It is the privilege of parents to teach this to our kids, too. We shouldn’t be part of the American fantasy that death doesn’t – or shouldn’t – exist, or be named or seen. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us, after all: to fail to really live is infinitely sadder. And that’s the challenge of Lent – to discover the life we are intended to live, and to begin to turn all our energies towards that.   This week -Eve Woosley went to her first Father-Daughter dance at BIS last night. I’d say that both Eve and Jon look pretty terrific in this photo.  Today at St Alban’s Gale Robert and Becca Cox drove stakesto mark our clearly where the borders of the new tree lines will be. It is very exciting – the developing prairie area has stayed well under the tarp, despite all our wind; the garden area will be ready for planting soon; and the little trees will be here at the end of March or the beginning of April. We do need some idea for what to do with the border of that odd-shaped part that belongs to the lodge next door – Shall we plant trees there? Or a flower bed? Or put in a hedge or low fence? Because of the way our building is situated, it is weird…Ideas welcome! Also – we need to burn and brush-hog that area where the oldest garden was – which is plagued with wild raspberry canes about to start growing. It’s not a large area, but it is unsightly and dangerous for kids playing out by the playground. The original land use plan included a path out towards the prairie that would eventually circle around it – We might think how we a want to implement that. When the trees come, we will need all hands on deck to get 400 little trees in the ground and watered. And yes kids are welcome and invited to help! We will get the word our as soon as we know when they are arriving.    |
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