Palm Sunday 2010

potpourri

- Work has been quite demanding this week in a lot of ways, so not much coming out on the creative front.

- I'll get back to posting Holy Week stuff this weekend. Still have photos from Easter Vigil to clean up, as well as some thoughts about my experience with Lent and Holy Week.

- Feeling sad tonight at the loss of a dear childhood/college friend, Gregg Fulkerson. Gregg was among the most talented people to come out of my hometown. He was an amazing, extremely talented singer-songwriter/musician who will be missed by many. My heart goes out to his entire family, especially his son, Carter. He was one of those people that I've known my entire life. While I love living in Colorado, it's times like these I wish I was back in The South.

- Chances are as great as not that I'll begin my day shoveling show tomorrow. Wet, heavy snow.

- Off to bed in hopes of starving a cold that is lurking.

- Weekend, come quickly.

Good Friday

Tonight we had our Good Friday service at House. Upon arrival, each person was given a purple tulip to lay on the cross during the time of adoration.

We chanted the psalm and did a responsive reading of the Gospel text, which was John 18 & 19. Not having much Scripture as part of corporate worship in recent years (last several months excluded), I am enjoying anew hearing the text read aloud. (Although 'enjoying' isn't quite the word to describe hearing this text.)

Following the sermon and prayers was the Proclamation of the Cross and Adoration. After which people had a chance to visit the stations of the cross and scribe a response to each station, before leaving in silence.

The times of silent reflection were quite meaningful to me, yet the whole service felt very haunting and sparse without the Peace, Alleluia, and Eucharist.

Following the service, a few of us took the tulips downtown to the site of the last shooting (that we could recall) and placed them at the site and offered a prayer.

I am liking this liturgical rhythm that I have seemingly fallen into.

Maundy Thursday

It's late, so I'm just gonna let the photos of our Maundy Thursday service at House for All speak for themselves with just a few quick details:
- We did the gospel text as a narrative reading and then incorporated the foot washing and Eucharist into it. It was powerful.
- Yes, those are condoms you see. We put together over 200 bleach kits for Praxus, a street outreach that is part of the Colorado Network to End Human Trafficking (CoNEHT).
- At the end of the service we stripped the altar bare and covered it with a black cloth.
- As people left in silence they dropped 30 silver coins into a bowl by the door, to be given to a group that has been betrayed. We'll be giving the money to the Four Winds Native American community, who we rent our space from.
A holy evening.