We will resume In-Person Worship beginning Sunday, February 27th. Our Live Stream service will continue to be offered on our Live Stream YouTube channel at 10:30am each Sunday.
To reserve your place at worship, go to EVENTBRITE and sign up. Remember to only reserve ONE SPACE for your self or family group.
February 27th is Transfiguration Sunday and the final Sunday before the beginning of Lent. Holy Communion will be celebrated.
The Recognition of Joseph by his Brothers. Fresco by Peter Cornelius, 1816
To join our Live Stream @ 10:30am, click HERE. A copy of the Worship Guide can be downloaded here: Epiphany 7C 2022 2.20.22 bulletin
WELCOME TO PEACE – WE’RE GLAD YOU FOUND US!To join our Live Stream @ 10:30am, click HERE. A copy of the Worship Guide can be downloaded here: Epiphany 6C 2022 2.13.22 bulletin
Our PASS THE HAT Partner during February is the Duwamish River Community Coalition, based in South Park. Established in 2001, the DRCC provides resources, knowledge, and action to build more just environmental futures. Their mission is to elevate the voice of those impacted by the Duwamish River pollution and other environmental injustices for a clean, healthy, equitable environment for people and wildlife.
DRCC Executive Director Paulina Lopez will join us via video on Sunday to share more about their mission. To gain a deeper impression of the work of the DRCC and the work on cleaning up the Duwamish River, you can view this recently produced VIDEO, featuring Duwamish Cleanup Manager James Rasmussen.
Peter listens to Jesus, and the result is astounding.
This Sunday we hear two Call narratives, one from Isaiah and the other from the Gospel of Luke. In the reading from Luke we meet Peter, the fisherman, for the first time and watch as his life is forever changed.
To join our Live Stream @ 10:30am, click HERE. A copy of the Worship Guide can be downloaded here: Epiphany 5C 2022 2.6.22 bulletin
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
– Isaiah 43:18-19a
Beloved of God,
It’s called “S.O.B. DAY”—but it’s not what you may think. At Holden Village, S.O.B. DAY = Sun Over Buckskin Day—the first time in the New Year that the sun, in its circuit across the sky, rides high enough that its light is no longer blocked by the pinnacle of Buckskin Mountain, allowing its rays to shine directly on the Railroad Creek Valley floor and illuminate the heart of the Village. Occurring later in February, SOB Day is an occasion for celebration as Villagers dig shorts and tank tops out of their closets, pull out the barbecue, and bask simultaneously in the long-awaited sunshine as well as in the astronomical certainty that summer warmth will, in fact, return.
Within the life of our parish, when the calendar flips to February it means that the Annual Meeting is now behind us. We’ve reviewed the year past, shared a snapshot of the present, and have begun turning our focus toward the NEW THING that awaits in 2022. The prophet’s words (above) remind us that keeping our attention mired in the past is not a good strategy. True, we draw lessons from the past—but if we allow ourselves to be anchored there we run the risk of missing that “new thing” springing forth from God’s hand. Congregations that dwell on the past instead of focusing on the future tend to languish.
One of the items that reached my email inbox this week was an article on assisted migration for trees from the Trees for Seattle program. The article points out how populations of trees migrate to areas with more favorable conditions after change occurs in their environment, especially climate change. Human-caused climate change is more extreme than natural changes and is happening more quickly than many trees can adapt. Communities and scientists are concerned that if tree species can’t keep up with these changes, they may be lost entirely. One response to this reality has been to assist trees with migrating by planting them in places they would likely move to given enough time. This process is called assisted migration. Trees are planted in these new places with the hope that they will flourish and carry on the legacy of their species. Like any intervention to natural systems, assisted migration comes with risks. As the peril for tree species increases across the globe, communities, scientists, and land managers are forming networks to compare ideas for how to reduce risks and develop best practices for supporting tree survival in the face of our rapidly changing climate.
Reading this article set me to wondering whether we, as people of faith, could offer “assisted migration service” to folks who find it hard to adapt to the new realities constantly cropping up in our world. Might we be the kind of forward-looking community that anticipates the challenges that 21st Century realities bring and that offers up the resources of faith to help one another negotiate those changes and challenges? It’s worth pondering.
WELCOME TO PEACE – WE’RE GLAD YOU FOUND US!This Sunday we hear Scripture texts from 1 Corinthians 13 and Luke 4. The story in Luke follows the drama that ensues after Jesus’ hometown sermon in Nazareth goes off the rails.
To join our Live Stream @ 10:30am, click HERE. A copy of the Worship Guide can be downloaded here: Epiphany 4C 2022 1.30.22 bulletin
(1) by joining our live stream meeting @ 12 noon via this LINK.
(2) by joining via the ZOOM link that was sent to congregation members on Friday, January 28. (The same ZOOM invite will be sent again to members on Sunday morning.)
If you would like a copy of the Annual Bulletin of Reports, please make your request to Pastor Erik Kindem.
CREATION CARE AND CARBON NEUTRALITYAt our congregational meeting on January 30, 2022, the Creation Care Team of Peace will present a resolution on carbon neutrality for consideration. The text of the resolution and the background leading to its creation can be found here: Resolution 2022-1 carbon neutrality
To PREVIEW the Video introducing the resolution, click below.
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For more information:
– About Creation Care at Peace Lutheran Church
– About our Creation Care Team
WELCOME TO PEACE – WE’RE GLAD YOU FOUND US!To view the Live Stream recording of this service click HERE.
A copy of the Worship Guide can be downloaded here: Epiphany 2C 2022 MLK 1.16.22 bulletin
“O blessed spring, where word and sign embrace us into Christ the Vine:
here Christ enjoins each one to be a branch of this lifegiving Tree.
Through summer heat of youthful years, uncertain faith, rebellious tears,
sustained by Christ’s infusing rain, the boughs will shout for joy again.
When autumn cools and youth is cold, when limbs their heavy harvest hold,
then through us, warm, the Christ will move with gifts of beauty, wisdom, love.
As winter comes, as winters must, we breathe our last, return to dust;
still held in Christ, our souls take wing and trust the promise of the spring.
Christ, holy Vine, Christ, living Tree, be praised for this blest mystery:
that word and water thus revive and join us to your Tree of Life.”
– O Blessed Spring, Susan Palo Cherwien, b.1953—d.2021
Beloved of God,
I’ve found myself deeply moved in recent days by the passing of hymnwriter and poet Susan Palo Cherwien, author of the marvelous baptismal hymn above. Her death on December 28 at age 67, after a diagnosis of metastatic uterine cancer last April, came too soon.
I began becoming more acquainted with Susan’s beautifully crafted hymns when eight of them were included in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (the red hymnal) in 2007. What attracted me to them was her gift for distilling spiritual conviction into compact language while telling a story. Her hymns have an arc to them; they are layered; they are theological grounded while remaining totally accessible; they speak the truth in love about our human condition and, most of all, testify to God’s unshakable commitment to love us through all the messes of our lives, no matter what. I have no doubt that her hymns will nurture the life of the church for generations yet to come, and for that I am grateful.
At her Requiem Eucharist Funeral on December 31, the first hymn, a Hymn of Lament, was one she wrote in 1994—In Deepest Night. It is a hymn that marks, unflinchingly, the depth and truth of loss while paying homage to the All Tender One who shares our tears and holds us close.
In deepest night in darkest days, when harps are hung, no songs we raise,
When silence must suffice as praise, yet sounding in us quietly there is the song of God.
When friend was lost, when love deceived, dear Jesus wept, God was bereaved;
So with us in our grief God grieves, and round about us mournfully there are the tears of God.
When through the waters winds our path, around us pain, around us death,
Deep calls to deep, a saving breath, and found beside us faithfully there is the love of God.
It was while planning worship for our Season of Creation in the spring of 2020 that I began corresponding with Susan. The new All Creation Sings hymnal was set to be published by Augsburg Fortress the coming fall and several hymn samples from the new collection were being distributed to congregations. One of them was Susan’s, In Sacred Manner May We Walk, one of her earliest hymns (1990) and a fitting companion to our Creation theme. The first verse follows:[1]
“In sacred manner may we walk upon the fair and loving earth,
in beauty move, in beauty love the living round that brought us birth.
We stand on holy ground. We stand on holy ground!”
In the ensuing weeks our correspondence moved us from being strangers to being collaborators, and led to her share a brand-new hymn she’d written that spring honoring Dr. Anton Armstrong, conductor of the St. Olaf Choir: Infinite Beauty. We sang that hymn to the tune of Shades Garden on our final Season of Creation Sunday.
1 Infinite Beauty, Love that moves the heavens,
Maker of all things, present in creation,
From the beginning, all Your works reveal You,
Stirring to wonder.
2 Holy this garden, worthy of protection,
Blue pearl in deep space, due our true affection,
Dwelling and parent, elegant in balance,
Growing in wonder.
3 Sacred all creatures, marvelous companions,
Elders and teachers, all of our relations,
Rocks tell earth’s story, plants reveal earth’s wisdom,
Living in wonder.
4 Blesséd our bodies, kindred gift of starlight:
Eyes to see beauty, ears to hear the heart sigh,
Hands to give healing, hearts to bind together,
Breathing in wonder.
5 Infinite Beauty, Love that moves the heavens,
May our minds wisen, may our hearts awaken,
That we join all things, one and interwoven,
Singing in wonder.
Through this and other creation focused hymns Susan spoke eloquently about the great challenge of our time to become reconnected to the whole of God’s good creation and to seize upon our first vocation of caring for all life on this planet home, mirroring God’s generosity.
As we mark the Baptism of Our Lord on January 9th, we are reminded of God’s declaration to us in the sacred waters—that we are truly and forever God’s beloved children, a status and truth no one and nothing can alter or destroy. This baptismal declaration grounds us in this life and buoys us past the boundary of death and into the life to come. “Life is changed,” wrote Susan, “not taken away. Nothing disappears without a trace.” And so we sing:
As winter comes, as winters must, we breathe our last, return to dust;
still held in Christ, our souls take wing and trust the promise of the spring.
Christ, holy Vine, Christ, living Tree, be praised for this blest mystery:
that word and water thus revive and join us to your Tree of Life.”
With deep gratitude,
Pastor Erik
[1] Eight of Susan’s hymns are published in All Creation Sings, and we have sung a number of them over the course of the past year. To hear and see the recording of In Sacred Manner, set to a tune by Thomas Pavlechko, follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuvk1HM6bNg
To join us this Sunday @ 10:30am, click HERE.
A copy of the worship bulletin can be downloaded here soon.
We are a
What does this mean?