So as yet another week comes around and all my intentions of writing and publishing a weekly worship post fly out the window, I'm left again this week wondering what God has in mind for me. This week, on Wednesday, I gave out ashes to staff and patients for Ash Wednesday. I found it particularly striking to pray about "considering our mortality and penitence" while working in End of Life Care. I want to sit with those thoughts and find God among the moments, but this week I didn't have time. Another example of this: the scripture this week talks about covenant and baptism, and the Quaker meetings that I'm part of are deep in discussion about membership. I wanted to sit in worship and hear God speak about these topics, but amongst the patients and the meetings, the diaper changes, the middle of the night tears, and the chaos of my house, again I didn't have time.

Every year when we come around to Transfiguration Sunday, which in the modern liturgical world falls the Sunday before Lent begins, the word transfiguration leads me to think about the spaces available (and lack thereof) in theology, in society, and in this world for the people who are trans and gender non-conforming.

We here at in the Guaraldi house have been sick with the stomach bug this past week and many things have had to be left undone. While all three of us are on the mend, there's still a lot of catching up to do. So I've had to release the hope of getting out a post this week. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we all get back into the normal swing of our lives and stop by next Friday for a new worship post for this Online Programmed Meeting for Worship.

Reading this in the wake of last weekend’s women’s marches led me to spend time with Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise. In a time of political and environmental darkness, we need the beacons of hope that shine forth ahead of us. Whether through song or scripture, poem or thank you speech, God has been and continues to rise up among us. It is the experience of the daily resurrection—the everyday rolling away of the stone and seeing that Jesus is not dead, hope is not dead, our future is not dead. No—for this death gave way to life and Jesus rose up.

This week I’ve been drawn to the contemplative practice of walking labyrinths. Walking meditatively is used in many different religious traditions. Walking in circular, meandering circuits can be found in ancient rituals and ceremony. Maybe I’m a little bit restless being inside when it’s so cold out. Or maybe the darkness turning into light is prompting me to look inside myself, then at the world around me, and then inside myself again. Either way, in my prayer life and in my work as a chaplain, the practice and mystery of the labyrinth is very present right now.

How often in our lives are we Eli? Asleep to injustice, to prejudice, and to violence? How many times do we need a Samuel to come to us, to wake us from our sleepiness, in order to figure out what is going on? What does it take to wake you to the ills of the world? What does it take to wake you to the prophecies that may not put you in good favor? What does it take to wake you to the work of God in the world?

Throughout this week I’ve been drawn to light. Lighting candles in the chapel where I work, lighting candles to celebrate lives that have passed on, lighting candles in the darkness of a snow storm, lighting candles to bring light. St. John of the Cross writes “The endurance of darkness is preparation for great light” and during this wintertime, I must remind myself of that; I must remember the sparkling crisp days that come after storms, the spring flowers that will blossom when the snow melts, and the sound of the rushing brook when now the silence of the snow is deafening.

While the season of Advent is chock full of pregnancy allusions and references—spiritual pregnancy, spiritual birth, physical pregnancy, physical birth—the season of Christmas, which begins after the birth of Christ and lasts until the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord (this year January 8th), is a time to talk about parenting. The Bible doesn’t give much information about Jesus’ upbringing. We know the story from this week about Jesus being presented at temple, for which he was most likely a newborn infant. We also know the story of Jesus going to temple when he’s older, conversing with the leadership and getting so hopelessly lost that his parents can’t find him (Luke 2:39-52). In the latter story Jesus is 12 years old. Besides those stories there isn’t much that we know of Jesus until he is thirty. Most of the stories in the Bible about Jesus take place in a period of three years.

During this time of Advent, we turn our spiritual imagination to the birth of Jesus as well as the pregnancy of Mary. I gave birth to my own son a little over a [year] ago, which makes my mediations on Mary’s birth particularly special. As I listen to the song “Mary did you know?” I find that I am brought to tears—especially with the lines “That the child that you delivered will soon deliver you.” and “when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.” Quakers believe in an incarnation theology, the belief that there is that of the Divine, that of God in each of us. So that in essence, when I kiss my son, that of God in me is kissing that of God in him. It is a holy moment.

This week, the scripture invokes the image of light coming through darkness as well as the sound of a voice coming through silence. These are calls to be awake to that which is emerging, attentive to God’s call, and aware of internal and external landscapes through which we walk.

While Quakers did not traditionally observe holidays, they were quite familiar with the idea of preparation. Friends were encouraged to prepare themselves for worship on Sunday. That preparation was done throughout the week and included Bible study, small worship groups, prayer, and time alone with God. It was expected that you came prepared for worship. A gathering of prepared Friends sank quickly into the deep waiting silence and gathered together under the Spirit of God to listen to the messages that emerged. 

The observance of Advent though has helped me create space for this new birth and all its various feelings. This week I’ve been particularly drawn to contemplate what “expectant waiting” means in my life. What does it feel like to sink into the place of now and not-yet?

Gratitude itself is more than a feeling or something that we should do on Thanksgiving each year. Gratitude is a powerful way of life and state of mind. Study after study has shown that people who consistently engage in the practice of gratitude lead happier and more fulfilling lives. It’s a state of feeling enough and feeling like you have enough even if that’s only for a moment. 

The scripture this week reminds us though that stories are part of both our life blood, that is who we are as people, as well as part of God's call. We are called by the Divine to tell our stories of faith, of persecution, of freedom, and stories of doubt, of miracle and of revelation. For it is in these stories that we teach, we carry on and we revel God's wisdom. That magical divine Sophia known as wisdom in the feminine form comes to us through our stories, the stories that we carry in our own bodies and the stories we share with others. 

This past week in the United States we celebrated Halloween on October 31st and many traditions celebrate All Saints’ and All Souls’ days on the first days of November. These are times to remember and to honor those who have died over the past year or years. Some Christian traditions separate the observance of honoring recognized saints from the remember and honoring of ordinary people. Other traditions and cultures combine the two celebrations. For this week’s worship time, I invite you into a time of remembering those who have gone before us, into a time of gratitude for the presence and lessons that have been passed down to us, and into a time of listening to the threads of God’s presence in the lives of others and in our own precious lives.

The picture at the top of this worship service is a picture from the top of Mt. Moab looking out over Jordan. This is where the scriptures tell us Moses brought the Israelites and where Moses died. To come so close to the promised land but to not enter feels unjust. Moses had atoned for the sins of his early days and he had been a faithful prophet of God’s will for decades. Still, he brings the people to the edge, and he himself goes no further.

Over last weekend social media filled up with posts using the hashtag #MeToo. Stories about women, men and genderqueer people experiencing sexual violence dominated my Facebook feed. So many posts. It seemed like almost all the women I know, many friends who identify as genderqueer, and a few men posted. The magnitude was impactful. Which, of course, is part of the point. 

It’s that time of year here in New England when the leaves change color and drift off down to the ground. Days are gradually getting cooler, pumpkins and mums adorn the steps up to houses, and the smells of warm spices permeate the air. As Halloween (also known as All Hallows’ Eve or Samhain) approaches, many people feel that this is a “thin” time of year—a time when the spirit world feels close. “May Pagans believe a membranelike veil separates the world of the spirit from the physical world and that it thins the most in late autumn. Things pass through that membrane. Those things might be spirits, faeries, or even the departed ones we wish so much to see again.” (Samhain, Rajchel and Llewellyn, 2015, p. 15-16)

Another week and another tragedy. And yet most of us continue on our daily routine. How do we process these events? How do we feel? How do we heal? How do we deal with everything? How do we find power which admits the powerlessness? As I prepared for this week's worship, I came across a page that lists the "deadliest" shootings in the United States since 1984. It seems like just yesterday we were reading about the Orlando and San Bernardino shootings. Sandy Hook, Columbine, and Virginia Tech weren't so long ago either. People of color, gay, trans, and otherwise marginalized people are killed everyday by people using guns. In an instant, life is extinguished. In an instant, generations of pain are seeded among the victims’ loved ones. In an instant, someone becomes a killer. In an instant, worlds are changed forever. 

As a child, I had a copy of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume. It was years before I actually read the book, but growing up seeing its title on my book shelf prompted me at an young age to ask that question, “Are you there, God?” It’s a young adult novel about puberty and coming of age. And to this day, when I hear that question “Are you there, God?” I can’t help but think of the book.Our scripture this week from Exodus describes for us the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert wilderness asking just that question: “Are you there, God?” Moses is frustrated because his people keep asking that question. They’ve asked it over and over and over again. Even after the plagues, even after the seas part for them to walk through, and even after manna is sent from heaven, the people keep asking, “Are you there, God?”