Reaching out from Grand Lake Community Chapel

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Greetings in Christ!

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!  Let us rejoice in the last full day of winter (the vernal equinox occurs at 5:01 am on Thursday), and let us be glad for the promise of spring that will be ours to embrace!  In some communities on the East Coast, there’s a tradition of “sock burning day” on the first day of spring, when people exchange their boots and heavy socks for Sperry Topsiders (or boat shoes of your choosing) and no socks for the upcoming boating season, but we don’t recommend that here in God’s Country… winter weather has a way of hanging around for a little while after the beginning of spring!

As one meteorological season ends and another begins, the season of Lent continues.  This time of preparation, contemplation, and prayer is so special because the pace of life in this day and age is so hectic that we are rarely free to sit in stillness with our God.  It may seem as if we’re beating the subject of Lenten practices to death, and maybe we are, but it’s all too easy to give the season sort of a cursory glance and say to ourselves “I’ll get around to it later,” and then never get around to it.  It’s not “normal” for many folks in the 21st Century to make time to be still for any reason, let alone matters of faith, but it is so very important.  And so, we talk about Lent a lot, because Lent is good for you!  It’s good for your soul, it’s good for your physical health, and its’ good for your mental health to stop scrambling around and be still, so that you can prepare, contemplate, and pray.  Whether you’re wearing socks or not.

Blessings,

Karen and Greg

Home: (989) 474-9116, Cell:  (734) 502-5969
revgregrc@yahoo.com  /  revgreggl@yahoo.com 
revkarenrc@yahoo.com / revkarengl@yahoo.com

“Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him.” Psalm 62:1

Reaching out from Grand Lake Community Chapel

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Let us rejoice in the days getting gradually longer, and let us be glad that the switch to Daylight Savings Time is behind us for another year! We know that it takes a few days for things to begin feeling “normal” after the time change, and so we hope that everything is going well for each of you. We’d like to think that we got all of the clocks in our houses changed, but there’s almost always one or two clocks in an obscure corner of the house (or in a car!) that we missed, which can cause just a wee bit of excitement! Maybe someday we won’t have to adjust our clocks twice a year…

We are now fully into the Lenten season; the paraments in the sanctuary are purple, and the scriptures point directly to Jesus’ journey to the cross. We’re only a couple of days away from the infamous “ides of March,” which really only means the middle of the month, and are infamous only because Julius Caesar had a really bad day about 2,000 years ago. In a week (plus one day), it will be the vernal equinox, the beginning of spring, and incidentally is also “Mr. Rogers Day.” A week into the journey with Jesus, how far have you come? A week after Ash Wednesday, has the imprint of the cross faded away? This isn’t meant to scold anyone, only to ask how it’s going; the 40 days of Lent are exactly that – 40 days. There’s a lot of time left to continue the journey, or to start it as the case may be. The imprint of the cross may no longer be visible on your forehead (or back of your hand), but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still there. In a perfect world, at least a perfect church world, we would all be laser-focused on the path to the cross, having set aside any and all distractions that might bump us off-course, and we would constantly feel the burn of the ashes reminding us of why we’re on this particular journey. Alas, the world isn’t perfect, and so our Lenten journeys are not perfect; and that’s really OK. Every day is a chance to start again, and so if you aren’t where you’d like to be on the journey (or if you haven’t started yet), get going! It’s never too late.

Greetings in Christ!

Blessings,

Karen and Greg

Home: (989) 474-9116, Cell: (734) 502-5969
revgregrc@yahoo.com / revgreggl@yahoo.com
revkarenrc@yahoo.com / revkarengl@yahoo.com

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5

Reaching out from Grand Lake Community Chapel

Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Greetings in Christ!

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it! Let us rejoice that we’re only two weeks away from the spring equinox, celebrating the beginning of spring, and let us be glad that March came in like a lion, which means that it will go out like a lamb! Or so conventional wisdom tells us… In the remaining days of the “official” winter season, let us continue to be thankful for the road crews who keep us safe on the highways; they are unsung heroes. And let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start putting away the snow-fighting equipment, OK? That could have very unpleasant consequences!

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season, and an opportunity to come together in worship so that we enter the holy season of Lent unified in our resolve to focus on our relationship with our God. For the next 40 days, let us listen to, let us watch for, and let us sense the presence of the Divine in our lives; if that requires you to set aside a favorite activity to eliminate a source of distraction, so be it. What you’ll gain for having been intentional about your connectedness to God will far outweigh what you might miss out on. If that requires that you add something to your routine, like prayer or a devotional reading, so be it; what you’ll gain for having prayed and studied will far outweigh any benefits that you might accrue by keeping your familiar routines in place. Ideally, your Lenten discipline(s), should you choose to engage in something new and different, will be transformative; you’ll know God better, and you’ll know yourself better. Lent can be a wondrous time of growth; take full advantage of these 40 days.

Blessings,

Karen and Greg

Home: (989) 474-9116, Cell: (734) 502-5969
revgregrc@yahoo.com / revgreggl@yahoo.com
revkarenrc@yahoo.com / revkarengl@yahoo.com

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6