Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656
Welcome
Welcome to our gathering on this very special night. This first day of the season of Lent is also Valentine’s Day. How rich we are to hold these two special times in the darkness of this night!
The word Lent comes from the Old English “lencten,” meaning springtime, and lengthening, for the lengthening days of the coming season. The light is growing, it is clear to see, and as the final weeks of winter pass, it will grow more and more. And in these lengthening days may our hearts turn, like plants toward the sun, to the Love from which we sprang, to the Love that holds us fast, to the Love that is our life.
Opening Prayer: Ephesians 3:17-17
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Opening Song
Root of the Root by Sara Thomsen, video by Denise
Reading: From “The Monastic Way” by Sister Joan Chittister
Love is something learned only by the long, hard labor of life. It is sometimes over before we’ve even known we ever had it. We sometimes destroy it before we appreciate it. We often have it and simply take it for granted.
Every love, whatever happens to it in the long run, teaches us more about ourselves, our needs, our limitations, and our self-centeredness than anything else we can ever experience. As Aldous Huxley wrote: “There isn’t any formula or method. You learn by loving.”
But sometimes, if we’re lucky, we live long enough to grow into it in such a way that because of it we come to recognize the value of life. As the years go by, we come to love flowers and cats and small infants and old ladies and life on the dock and the one person in life who knows how hot we like our coffee.
We learn enough about love to allow things to slip away and ourselves to melt into the God whose love made all of it possible. Sometimes we even find a love deep enough, gentle enough, tender enough to detach us from the foam and frills of life, all of which hold us captive to things that cannot satisfy. Sometimes we live long enough to see the face of God in another. Then, in that case, we have loved.
The poets and storytellers across time have told us about the dimensions of love that last. The poet Rumi wrote:
From myself I am copper,
through You, friend, I am gold.
From myself I’m a stone, but
through You I am a gem.
Intentions
At this time please bring any blessings or concerns you would like the community to share.
We place all of these prayers in the welcoming hands of our Beloved.
Amen.
Closing Prayer
Beloved, in this holy season let us return to the root of your Love. As we turn our faces toward the growing light of the sun let us turn our hearts to you, and let us put our hands to the work of your Kin-dom. Amen.
Closing Song
Love Changes Everything, Video by Denise
https://youtu.be/MQEVx6plEI0
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