Wednesday Festival: Many Things

God's Glory
I find myself unable to start this post in words, given what has occurred in our world this week. So instead, let me share the contents of Gord's vision of God, seen in an e-mail.

This is a fire rainbow- the rarest of all naturally occuring atmospheric phenomenona. The picture was captured recently on the Idaho/Washington Border. The event lasted about 1 hour. Clouds have to be cirrus, at least 20 000 feet in the air, with just the right amount of ice crystals and the sun has to hit the clouds at precisely 58 degrees.

Praying

All of us continue to pray for the victims of Monday's horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech University, their families, the shooter and his family, and everyone in the Blacksburg community. There is lots of writing about it going around the ring. In addition, yesterday's Preacher Party discusses whether and how to address this issue in this week's service, and that discussion has been linked in the resources section at The Text This Week.

Sr. Steph's community could sure use our prayers, also. Her school has had a terrible spate of tragedies of its own.

Called by Name

Carmen shares a wonderful post about a realization she had: the ONE WORD that changed Mary Magdalene's world - and hers.

Books for Fun

ReverendMommy shares the first and second chapters of a work in progress: Death and Taxes in Carlton, Georgia. It's the story of Reverend Fiona Marie Tolliver Claiborne Anderson. RevM says: "I've written about 20,000 words -- it includes a discourse about Methodist communion practices, a Bio-ethics consult about an end of life issue and a whole bunch of Methodist church politics. I've included the chicken salad sandwich thing, lots about little old ladies, the conflicts between this particular clergy woman and her husband and so on."

As her commenters note, how in the world does she have time to do this...in addition to being a wife and mom, being an Assistant Minister, doing all the other things she does, AND being a seminary student set for graduation (in 25 days!!)? I've got a clue for you...look at the times these things are posted. The truth is out, folks: RevM doesn't sleep, she plugs herself in like Seven of Nine. And writes all night.

Quotidian Grace has done a trenchant review of Thomas Cahill's latest book, Mysteries of the Middle Ages.

Sermons and other Writing
Mother Laura gives us her sermon from this past week, which breaks open the risen Jesus' commission to his disciples on Easter night-- to forgive and to retain sins--through the actions of the Rutgers women's basketball team.

Sally tells about a surprising outcome to her sermon about Doubting Thomas. Also, she has an important interview coming up, and is working on a short thought for the day based on a Charles Wesley hymn. She would appreciate any constructive criticism you would like to share.

Sue shares about her call to ministry. Man, I love to read these stories!

The 100 Things Contest
April's contest over at Salt for the Spirit brought forth some wonderful writing, particularly these two pieces: The winner, by Leah, and another favorite, by Hedwyg.

God's Glory Again
To finish up, thanks to Sally for posting these gorgeous photos of Fenland skies. The Fens are wetlands in Eastern England which, as Sally says, some find ugly and boring. But with skies like this, "who needs mountains?"

Blessings on us all.