Each morning we stand on the threshold of a new day with its possibilities for change. Some changes we celebrate. Others we mourn or regret. God is with us in each and every change.

Moses stood at a threshold of change as he gave his farewell address to the Hebrew people before sending them across the Jordan River into the land of promise. He led them for forty years, out of slavery in Egypt and through the wilderness pilgrimage. Yet, he could not go with them across the Jordan. At one hundred and twenty, he was on the threshold of death, and God gave the people a new leader, Joshua, for the new pilgrim journey. Change! At a very tough time.

Moses told the people that God would be with them as they encountered enemies in the new land. Don’t we often think of “change” as an enemy? I do…it can be jarring when I want to be comfortable, it can engender hard work when I think I am tired to the bone, it can stir up emotions I don’t want to feel. Yet change has also provided the threshold for the most life-giving events that have blessed me beyond measure. Not that I always recognize the blessings immediately. That can take a while.

Change also teaches me that I am not in control. I am not the Queen of the Universe that someone forgot to consult. (And would I really want all that responsibility anyway?!) I am a pilgrim on a journey through this life with the Holy One as my guide. I make choices, yes, however, my highest calling is to respond to the calling of God that may lead me into unknown territory, to thresholds that I did not expect.

As a congregation we have been called to face SO many changes over the last year. I know that has been exhausting and still is as we look for the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. We have also faced church staff changes. Three of our staff who were with us a year ago, Mark Lee, Mandy Hall and Yendra Tenzca, have answered God’s call to work and ministry in settings that may have surprised them as much as us. And now, we face another staff change with the departure of Carla Cain. I hope you join me in praying for Carla as she moves toward new ministry opportunities back in Iowa and give thanks for the many gifts in ministry that she gave Plymouth in her time here.

Our Leadership Council chose a theme for Plymouth this year that is telling, "Standing at the Threshold: The Pilgrim Journey Continues." Moses would have understood this theme when he addressed his people. I leave you with his words – adapted just a bit by me.

Be strong! Be fearless! Don't be afraid and don't be scared by your enemies, [by change], because the [Holy One] your God is the one who marches with you. He won't let you down, and [She] won't abandon you. (Deuteronomy 31:6 from the Common English Bible).

With you on the journey,

In the scripture texts above, two prophets and a psalmist prophets and a psalmist call us to begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday. They call us to ancient rituals and spiritual practices of repentance. To repent is to come to God with a need for change, with, hopefully, a humble need to turn around in some way and get back on a better path of relationship with the Holy One. Repentance does not mean beating ourselves up with unproductive guilt. It means opening our hearts to transformation.

What needs transforming in your life, in your heart and mind this year? How do we enter the repentance of Lent this year – after the pandemic and political trauma of the last 11 months – heeding the call of the prophets and the psalmist to fast with social justice, to bring a contrite heart ready to be torn open with Love?

We find time to be with God and one another in gentle, humble ways. We lay down expectations of what needs to happen next and learn to wait for the surprising ways the Holy shows up to transform us from the inside out. Waiting with patience for “a slow wind to work words [and works] of love around us as an invisible cloak to mind our lives" as the poet, John O’Donahue, reminds us to do in his poem, “Beannacht.” We go slow and steady as we continue to move through this tedious pandemic, as one by one we are vaccinated, as bit by bit we are able to come back together in community. We slowly, steadily and faithfully repair the breaches of racism, incivility and hatred in our country with education, understanding and communication.

To help you in your slow and patient journey through Lent this year:

• Worship with us tomorrow in our Ash Wednesday Zoom service at 7 pm. Bring a small amount of vegetable oil to anoint yourself and/or family during the traditional imposition of ashes ritual. (Link to Zoom service will come in an email Wednesday afternoon.)
• Worship with us on online Sundays: at 10 am (on our website or on the YouTube premiere page) and at 6 pm (by Zoom). Note: the non-website links change each week and will be in the Saturday email.
• Join and/or create a book group with Plymouth friends…Marty Marsh and Anna Olsen will be leading a Wednesday morning group starting 3/3 at 10 am to study Love is the Way; Holding on to Hope in Troubled Times by Bishop Michael Curry. Their group is limited to 8 participants. If it fills and you would like to gather another Zoom study group on this book, let me know! I can help you make a new group happen. Don’t let technology stop you! We have people to help. And you can choose your own book on spiritual practices, Black Lives Matter, white privilege, or Bible study
• Get a group together to read and discuss the Lenten devotional booklet, “Again & Again; A Lenten Refrain.” If you haven’t received your copy, contact the church office. We have more. And I can help you with a Zoom room.
•  Read David Petersen’s Lenten Bible Blog to help the Ash Wednesday, Sunday and Holy Week scriptures come alive for you! Pick out one of the biblical themes Dr. Petersen gives us each week to pray with and ponder how it connects with your daily living.
• Check out Fort Collins’ World Wisdoms Project and their FREE March 4th online program, “You Do What? Spiritual Practice in Times of Crisis” (While it is a stand-alone organization, the World Wisdoms Project has been “adopted” by Plymouth as one of our ministry teams under the Christian Formation Board because of Plymouth members involvement.)
• Starting Sunday 2/21, come by the church and put a prayer on the Again & Again Lenten prayer tree located outside the north door. See specifics in Thursday’s Plymouth Overview.
• Call a church friend you haven’t seen in 11 months! Contact one of the ministers if you would like to help run errands for someone.
• Check out Larimer Food Bank or Habitat or Neighbor 2 Neighbor or another social justice agency for volunteer opportunities.
• Light a candle and be still. Just for a moment. Stare out the window and marvel at the beauty of our world, broken as it can be. Slowly read the whole of John O’Donahue’s poem, “Beannacht,” mentioned above. It is perfect for times such as we are living in.
• And know that you are not alone! The pastors and all of Plymouth’s staff are here for you. Reach out!

May we all find ways to answer the call to Lent, to open our hearts to God’s surprising changes, to turn around and find a new way home to our center in the heart of the Holy One.

With you on the journey,

I love the tongue-in-cheek comment from our Sunday Forum Ministry Team: “Haven’t we been doing Lent for a year now? I’m tired of giving stuff up!” Yep…it sure feels that way, but for most of us, we’ve been giving up stuff perhaps without much spiritual benefit.

So, maybe don’t give anything up for Lent this year! Maybe this season of spiritual deepening (which starts in only 8 days!) can be an opportunity to offer yourself something more nourishing than further deprivation. If there is one thing none of us need this year, it’s a more-abrasive hair shirt or flagellum!
Soon, you will receive a Lenten devotional in the mail from Plymouth. Like our Advent devotional booklet, this comes from a group of young clergywomen called A Sanctified Art. I hope that you enjoy it and engage with it!

One of our members, David Petersen, a renowned Old Testament scholar and formerly dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University, will begin offering a weekly reflection on the reading from the Revised Common Lectionary. You’ll be able to find it online at plymouthucc.org/lent2021 as the season begins. We are amazingly fortunate at Plymouth to have such scholars among us!

If you are feeling in a crafty-prayerful frame of mind, I invite you to join me for a two-part Prayer Bead workshop, February 20 & 21. We’ll learn how to create a strand of Anglican Prayer Beads (all tools and materials provided…a $43 materials fee is requested) on a Saturday morning and then pray with them and write our own prayers on Sunday afternoon via Zoom. You can learn more and sign up at plymouthucc.org/adults (I’ll also be doing beads with our Middle School and High School Youth Groups.)

And the aforementioned Forum Ministry Team has great plans for you on Sunday mornings in Lent at 9:00 a.m. via Zoom. Their first foray on February 21 is an exploration of the themes of Lent (wilderness, searching for God, grief, repentance) have been a part of our pandemic journey. The following week, Wayne Carpenter will offer “How to Be Sick,” an exploration of chronic illness, its losses and discoveries.

As I invite you to engage your spiritual journey fully, I leave you with this offering from the cycle of Celtic prayers I use with Anglican Prayer Beads:

You are the love of each living creature, O God.
You are the warmth of the rising sun.
You are the whiteness of the moon at night.
You are the strength of the waves of the sea.
You are the life of the growing earth.
Speak to me this day, O Lord, speak to me your truth.
Dwell with me this day, O Lord, dwell with me in love.
Amen.

Blessings to you!

P.S. Our Ash Wednesday service will be on Zoom at 7:00 p.m. on February 17…look for an email invitation.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
                                    From St. Patrick’s Breastplate
 
I write to you today sitting at my kitchen island as we all hunker down further into this time of self-isolation and quarantine. I just heard that my gym was closed for 30 days and my acupuncturist for 1-2 weeks. We will hold staff meeting today by Zoom conference calling. It seems there is another confirmed case of Covid-19 in Loveland. (Please pray for those involved! You can read about it here at the Larimer County website.) These are different, interesting, anxiety-producing times. 
 
Yet life goes on...And good things happen! Today we will celebrate Christopher Chorpenning’s 19th birthday with pizza and Guinness and Torte della Nona, our favorite Italian dessert! (Hal is making it as I write....wish I could insert the wonderful smells of custard and toasted pine nuts into this reflection!) Yesterday I walked in the sunshine and took pizza to a friend who had just moved and broken her hand in the process. Today we are receiving moisture that we always need in Colorado. What are you celebrating today?  
 
The quotation above from St. Patrick’s Breastplate, an ancient Irish loricaor hymn, reminds me that God in Christ is always with us, protecting, accompanying, healing. I have prayed with it often. The Breastplate is a very long 5th century hymn in the style of Druidic poetry that is attributed to St. Patrick. Each verse begins with the phrase, “I arise today” or “I bind to myself today” and calls for the divine protection of God in the Trinity, God as Creator, God as Christ, God as Spirit. (You can read the whole of it at this link.) 
 
Legend has it that St. Patrick sang this when an ambush was laid against him and his followers by the High King Learyto prevent him from going Tara to share the faith at the High King’s seat of power. A miracle happened and it appeared  to those lying in ambush that St. Patrick and his monks were wild deer with a fawn following them. (Thus, the hymn is also called, The Deer’s Cry.) They were protected because know that Patrick and his followers shared the faith all across Ireland. 
 
I invite you today to and in the coming days to use the portion of St. Patrick’s hymn quoted above as a prayer of protection when you are anxious You can also sing it! Below are words from a hymn in our hymnal that uses another portion of the Breastplate. And there is a link in the first line to an American choir singing the same tune in our hymnal. 

I sing as I arise today! 
I call on my Creator’s might: 
The will of God to be my guide, 
The eye of God to be my sight,
The word of God to be my speech, 
The hand of God to be my stay, 
The shield of God to be my strength, 
The path of God to be my way.
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia,
Alleluia, alleluia.

I leave you with a final link on the very Irish morning here in Colorado...our weather fits what they call “a soft day” in Ireland....I arise today. This is a beautiful contemplative rendition of St. Patrick’s hymn with prayerful pictures of Ireland and people celebrating the joy of God’s love. 
 
Beannacht! Blessings in Gaelic!

With you on this wilderness journey,

PS....Don’t forget our livestreaming worship coming to you Sundays at 11 am on our Facebook page!

We asked you to go to the Wilderness for Lent, and I wonder how it is going for each of you.

I wonder because this is a time of deep spiritual questioning.

The wilderness is a metaphor that encourages us to let go of what our expectations of those things that prevent us from fully experiencing God. What are those questions you are wrestling with?

Questions rarely come with an easy answer, which is why letting go of what keeps us separate from God and living into our fullest self is a faith journey. Faith can live in the darkness of the wilderness and it can also bring into light the unknown of what we are searching for.

To wonder in the wilderness and to wander with our faith, we may struggle to trust God enough to live without absolute certainty about who God is. This is how we slowly begin to understand the nature of God in our lives.

I pray that in your wondering, answers to your deepest questions are providing a sense of surprise and awe.

Blessings,
Carla

The season of Lent has two faces: one that is a lead-in to Holy Week, the crucifixion, and Easter; and another that reflects the 40-day journey of Jesus in the wilderness. There are conflicting theories about the origins of Lent, but a 40-day period of daytime fasting (as our Muslim sisters and brothers do during Ramadan) was discussed at the Council of Nicea in 325. In the Reformed Christian traditions (of which we are a part), Lent was abandoned as non-biblical…but we have been trying to reclaim some of the baby that was tossed out with the Reformation bathwater.

This year we are working with a Wilderness theme. Wilderness for Jesus was a place of testing and clarifying and preparation for his ministry. Wilderness for us may be a metaphor for wild-ness and the glories (and the threats) of Creation. Wilderness can also be a metaphor for chaos and the unknown.
Come and join us this Lent as we worship using Wilderness themes now through April 5 (Palm Sunday).…I guarantee that you’ll hear some new perspectives that will cause some new growth on the branches of your faith.

Tomorrow evening, you are invited to a simple soup supper (generously provided by a ministry team under the Deacons) and to a service at 7:00 p.m. If you have never been to an Ash Wednesday service, I’d encourage you to come and give it a try! You might be surprised at how meaningful it is.

Also, there are Lenten devotional booklets using the Wilderness theme available in the Fellowship Hall at Plymouth, containing poetry, visual art, reading suggestions from your Bible, and space for your own reflections.

May our journey together through the Wilderness bear the fruit of faith.
Shalom!

Being part of a congregation makes each of us aware of the transitions of life: births, baptisms, confirmations, graduations, marriages, retirements, and deaths. Being an intentional part of a community of faith exposes us to the exigencies of what it means to be alive. Just by being engaged during Prayers of the People in worship, we tend to hear about and pray for more people experiencing illness or loss than many of our neighbors do.

We are in a time of passage for three of our members: John Geter, Ruth Minter, and George Bryan, for whose lives we offer God thanks with the rites of the church, helping provide a ritual marker at the close of this life. Jake led John Geter’s memorial service on March 30, and I hope that you will join us for memorial services for Ruth Minter this Saturday at 11:00 a.m. and for George Bryan on Holy Saturday at 11:00 a.m.
​
When Jane Anne and I arrived in Tokyo at the end of March, a few cherry blossoms were just beginning to emerge from the buds on early-blossoming trees. Viewing the cherry blossoms is a major celebration in Japan called hanami, which dates back centuries when the aristocracy would have viewing parties that included food and drink under the white-and-pink canopy of blossoms. While today thousands crowd into parks and picnic under the trees on blue plastic tarps, the spirit of hanami remains.

A woman we met in Tokyo explained the Japanese fascination with cherry blossoms. “The blossoms are with us for only a short time each spring,” she explained. “They burst into bloom and very quickly, they fade, and their petals fly like snow. The cherry blossoms for us are like looking at life: we are born, we live, and we die. It is all part of the process.”
​
We had wonderful travels around Japan with my son, Cameron, and got to spend a few days with him and his wonderful girlfriend, Aki Regan, in Akita Prefecture, where they both teach English. We returned to Tokyo as we concluded our two weeks in Japan, and by then many of the trees were a profusion of pinkish blossoms, though some trees had begun to lose their floral array. As the wind came up, the blossoms swirled through the air like so many large snowflakes, and I felt a sense of melancholy rising up as the season was drawing to a close. I was standing in Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo when I filmed the video clip below, so the end of life was already present in this place of beauty and remembrance.

Our own tradition, though without hanami, acknowledges the transitory nature of life. The first hymn in the New Century Hymnal, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” contains these lines: “We blossom and flourish as leaves and as flowers, then wither and perish – but naught dims your powers.” The nature of life is indeed transitory. And our tradition also tells us that in the midst of every transition, the power of God and companionship of the Spirit are within and among us. “In life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone,” says the New Creed from the United Church of Canada.
​
As we move into spring in Colorado, and as we walk through the pattern of Holy Week, going from the triumph of Palm Sunday to tragedy of Good Friday to the triumph of Easter, may we each remember that death is never God’s final word. Thanks be to God.

Shalom,

​Our Mother, this Lent we journey in the desert with you again
to remember our story of faith, and our connection to each other.

We are a joyful people,
grateful for family,
for opportunities to serve each other,
for Spring coming again.

But we are also an anxious people,
a fearful people,
a grieving people.

We are thirsty.
We are hungry.
We need your water, waters of healing and comfort, waters of hope, waters of welcome.
We need your fruit, fruit of commitment, fruit of determination, fruit of inspiration.

We pray for people waiting in actual deserts,
deserts of water in the Midwest flooding, and deserts of sand.  
Searching for a new home,
grieving the homes they were forced to leave behind,
praying for a new community to welcome them.  
Help us to remember Jesus' ministry as bringing together all people,
calling us to sit together at the same table and be One Human Family.  

May we live into that vision he gave us
by saying together the prayer that Jesus taught us: The Lord’s Prayer...

As an organist, the spring equinox inevitably brings up J.S. Bach, who was born on March 21, 1685. To celebrate, I took to the console and binged on Bach's organ works for about an hour last Thursday. Afterwards, I thought, what is it that makes this music so wonderful, grand, and powerful? One can always point to his masterful contrapuntal writing (considered never surpassed by music scholars), but to me it's much more. It's the intent. Two quotes from Bach sum it up well: 

“I have always kept one end in view, namely ... to conduct a well-regulated church music to the honor of God.” 

and

“The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

The Doctrine of the Affects was a popular theory of aesthetics in music during Bach's life. Based on ancient  principles of rhetoric and oratory, the composer sought to embody concepts such as joy, sadness, or sorrow into their music through the outward constructs of notes and rhythm. Bach's intent of channeling the divine through his music then was given a viable path to our ears. For myself, playing Bach is always an experience where new ideas for interpretation happen each time I revisit a work of his. And I look forward to those opportunities in the new works I undertake. It is because he has given us all so much to decipher in the notes and rhythms themselves, waiting to be discovered and released. 

But now on to you, the listener. While music is no doubt subjective, there is a remarkable amount of consistency in our reactions to most music. This Lent I have offered music that is slightly more introspective during this penitential season. Perhaps no one has consciously noticed, but it is true. The big reed stops during the postlude have taken a leave of absence and the choir anthems include more serene and sublime selections, such as the Maurice Duruflé Kyrie on Lent I. All of these approaches signify a new affect in Lent, one that will be soon replaced with the joy and ecstasy of Easter. 

Music is a potent and reliable partner in our journey through the liturgical year. Bach and generations of church musicians after have understood this but it is nothing if it is not shared with those who wish to listen. Soli Deo Gloria.

​Mark Heiskanen
Director of Music/Organist 

If you were at Plymouth last weekend, you saw some different-looking things in our sanctuary: a root-structure art installation along the rear wall and tree roots emerging from the base of the cross above the chancel. These and other pieces were produced by your fellow Plymouth members (even me!) during the Lenten arts retreat led by our visiting theologian/artist, the Rev. Linda Privatera. (Kudos to my colleague, Jane Anne, for orchestrating the whole weekend!)

All of this art was a theological reflection on our 2019 congregational theme: Go Deeper. All of us are rooted in the soil of Christian spirituality, but to get down into the richest nutrients and the aquifers of the Spirit, we need to go deeper in our faith. And Lent is a great time to do that!

Many of us in the Protestant traditions of the Christian household are less familiar with spiritual practices beyond daily Bible reading that will help us to go deeper in our sense of God’s presence in our lives. What’s more, we often don’t know where to turn. And even though I often hear from our members that they want deeper spiritual lives, we are seldom overrun by crowds when we offer spirituality workshops and retreats.

Want to try it out on your own? That’s certainly a place to start during Lent. One entry point is the UCC Lenten Devotional that our deacons are offering to you each Sunday…it’s available between services with a suggested donation of $5…but if you don’t have the five bucks, don’t sweat it!

Sometimes, I wonder if, as Anthony de Mello suggests, “People would rather have a definition than an experience.” However, definitions won’t help us go deeper in our faith. Another resource for you to read (and most people at Plymouth love to read!) is from UCC author and clergywoman Jane Vennard, who formerly taught at the Iliff School of Theology (and she was my spiritual director, too!). Fully Awake and Truly Alive: Spiritual Practices to Nurture Your Soul is a fantastic volume that will help you explore spiritual practices that will allow you to go deeper. Maybe you want to dip your toe into Centering Prayer at Plymouth (Mondays, noon – 1:30 or Tuesdays, 5:30 – 6:30)…it’s a great way to enter the quiet center! Or drop by our outdoor Labyrinth and walk anytime it’s not covered with snow!

Whatever your spiritual practice this Lent, I hope that it deepens your relationship with the Holy One, who is there to meet you, befriend you, and guide you.

Lenten blessings!