TEXT

Ephesians 4:2-6, 29-32

  TAKEAWAYS 1 Life is awful beautiful   2

Be gentle with our souls

3

Let them love you.  I know you don’t always believe it, but your limp makes you even more beautiful.

4

Pay attention.  It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all could be so exciting, so much fun.

 

BENEDICTION 

Let us praise the grace & risk of Fire.

In the beginning
The Word was red,
And the sound was thunder,
And the wound in the unseen
Spilled forth the red weather of being.

In the name of Fire,
The Flame,
And the Light:
Praise the pure presence of fire
That burns from within
Without thought of time.

The hunger of fire has no need
For the reliquary of the future;
It adores the eros of now,
Where the memory of the earth
In flames that lick and drink the air
Is made to release

Its long enduring forms
In a powder of ashes
Left for the wind to decipher.

As air intensifies the hunger of fire,
May the thought of death
Breathe new urgency
Into our love of life.

As fire cleanses dross
May the flame of passion
Burn away what is false.

As short as the time 
From spark to flame,
So brief may the distance be
Between heart and being.

May we discover
Beneath our fear
Embers of anger
To kindle justice.

May courage
Cause our lives to flame,
In the name of the Fire,
And the Flame
And the Light.

Amen