Dear Friends,

This week as we read of God being with us, the memories of the
Boston Marathon bombings echo in our hearts. This week we have heard
those injured speaking for themselves. What has struck me

is the
determination—to keep healing, to keep being "rehabbed", to run the marathon
next year—the determination and the resiliency!

We have chosen this poem by Joseph Campbell as one of our
readings for this Sunday's Eucharist. Like the determination and
resiliency highlighted above, Campbell, too, says everything depends on the
lens through which we look at reality. He advocates for "sanctifying the
place you are in!" God is with us!

Follow Your
Bliss  Joseph Campbell

The divine manifestation is
ubiquitous,

Only our eyes are not open to it.

Awe is what moves us forward.

Live from your own center.

The divine lives within you.

The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.

Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen,

but experienced, unity and identity in us all.

Today the planet is the only
proper "in group."

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.

We cannot cure the world of sorrows,

but we can choose to live in joy.

You must return with the bliss
and integrate it.

The return is seeing the radiance is everywhere.

The world is a match for us.

We are a match for the world.

The spirit is the bouquet of nature.

Sanctify the place you are in.

Follow your bliss. . . .

As a community, we give each other hope, when any one of us runs
thin on hope. We lighten each other's load, by walking together and
helping in any way we can. We invite you to come and experience "All are
Welcome" "You are Mine" and "Sing a New Church" as we contemplate in prayer and
move with justice at The Spirit of Life. Through our time of prayer and
sharing together, we work together to grow in our self-understanding and in our
relationships with God and with God's people. We celebrate the gift of our faith
and the responsibility that is ours as followers of Jesus Christ.
It is our prayer that what we as a community experience in our praying together
will overflow into the rest of our lives, making us more fully human and more
'whole'....holy!  We invite you to join us in this endeavor and
journey with us as we seek to grow in our love of God and to grow in our
capacity to be living expressions of God's loving peace and justice in our
world.

May you be blessed with a deepening awareness of Christ's presence
within you....of your own goodness, and the Divine Energy which fuels that
goodness. May you be strengthened to be that Presence of Christ....a Good
Shepherd....in our world.

Jean & Ron