Launching A New Adventure

I have entered the blogosphere! At least I think I have. This is a new adventure for me - Oh not the whole business of writing "stuff" for and about the church. I came up in the era of church newsletters and I suppose that this isn't a lot different, except of course that this will be available to everyone with a computer and an accidental slip into this blog. Well enough with the "mia culpa" for this first outing and on to something more creative.



My goal will be to update the blog each week and include as much new information as possible each time. Sometimes I will include inspiritational items from other folks. Sometimes I will share opinions that are strictly mine. Usually I will share information about what is going on both at Epiphany Lakewood as well as in the larger network of Epiphany. Always I hope that you will find it interesting - so onward and upward!



This coming Sunday will be the Fourth Sunday of Easter and to set the tone I would share with you the following Poem:

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Christopher Marlowe, English 1564-93

The focus for this Fourth Sunday of Easter is on Christ the Shepherd and it allows Marlowe's pastoral love poem to be read as a kind of English Song of Songs, in which Christ the shepherd woos the beloved soul in whim he delights.

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my Love.

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delights ech may morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my Love.

kirtle - a coat or skirt; swains - young men, lovers

The truth is that I have not always been able to receive sentiments of love from the Great Shepherd who I know loves me beyond my ability to comprehend. I am able to take the words of Marlowe and to offer them as a prayer aknowledging the love of Jesus, seeing myself as the object of the Shepherd's love and to know that Marlowe and I have become partners in this prayer. I would invite you to partner with us and offer this prayer of Shepherd love as we prepare to come to worhip this Sunday.

Please join us this Sunday for a wonderful blessing in worship.