Category: Uncategorized

From @thetinyjoyproject:

Have you ever watched the world when it’s windy? 

The trees don’t fight it. 

The flowers don’t freeze. 

The grass doesn’t panic. 

They all just… dance. 

Maybe that’s what we’re learning too. 

How to move with what we can’t control. 

And still be beautiful.

Peace Be With You. – Paul

Here are the Prayers Of The People from Sunday, June 1, 2025 at Mayfair Heights United Methodist Church.  

We celebrated Pride Sunday along with Mosaic Community Church as well as the birthdays of both congregations.  Mosaic was formed as the merger of the Leland Clegg United Methodist Church and the Epworth United Methodist Church congregations.  They began Mosaic on June 1, 2015.  

The Mayfair Heights United Methodist Church was formed on June 8, 1952 as the Mayfair Heights Methodist church with 8 families forming the nucleus of this congregation’s beginning.  

Knowing this may help us hear this Prayer a bit differently today. 

Prayer Of The People – A Prayer On Pride Sunday

Holy One, known to us in many ways but still unknown to us,

we are together and we ask for your blessings as we rejoice as a community.

Bless our pride together.

May it also be a humble reflection of gratitude for who it is you have created us to be, each of us and us together.

Bless our celebration that it be an expression of our joy in love and in health.

Bless our laughter and let it be something that builds friendships and relationships. Bless our tears also and for the same reasons.

If we encounter anyone who opposes us, bless them too. We humbly ask that fear and anger don’t find a voice today. We humbly ask that love gets the last word and the clearest expression.

Bless our differences as a source of our strength and a sign of our respect for one another and our love for you.

Bless those for whom it takes great courage to be here that they may feel the abundance of life in such a way that it’s no longer just words on a page.

We feel that we are called to speak and to hear your vision of justice and of peace. Help us do that well and do it faithfully.

Bless each one of us here today with your presence and our presence, one with another.

You are faithful to us, we want to be faithful to you, to each other and to the community around us.  Amen.

Peace Be With You. – Paul

From Dr. Amy Oden, writing in a blog for Church of the Resurrection, Kansas City:

What is Life-giving?

Amy Oden 

Church of the Resurrection Insights Blog

5.7.25

Philippians 3: 12-14

Paul makes sure that the Philippians know we are always on the way, always moving, always stepping into the future, a powerful invitation! The spiritual life is not a matter of thinking we’ve arrived. We are always growing, moving, leaning into the next life-giving step, listening for God’s call into the future. The earliest movement around Jesus was called “the Way” not “the Arrival.”  For me, one powerful question made this real.

I remember a time in my life when I felt very lost, when I was confused about which way to go, unclear about the path ahead yet aware I could no longer stay where I was. It was a painful and anxious time for me.

I remember so clearly the day my spiritual director asked me this key question: “Amy, what is life-giving for you?” This stopped me in my tracks. What is life-giving? What brings me life? I didn’t know right away but I did know that I wanted to sit with this question. I got excited just thinking about it. I knew that letting this question lead me forward was the way through the fog toward God’s voice, that this question would open my ears to “the prize of God’s upward call” (v. 14).  That upward call will always – always! – be life-giving. “I have come to bring them life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

So, I began to watch for what brings life. I began to notice what activities, people, places, practices, attitudes, expectations, anything at all that was life-giving, that is, that brought aliveness, energy, awakening. I began to focus on things that cultivated hope, love, peace, the capacity to care for others. This focus shifted my vision away from “figuring it all out,” or “getting it right.” I could let go of the things that had held me back (v. 13). Instead, this question helped me focus on how God was offering me life! This changed everything.

This one, focused question – what is life-giving? — orients me daily as I continue to grow and learn along this journey. Of course, this focus on what is life-giving does not mean the path will be easy or feel good all the time. I have walked through hardship and struggle and I’m sure there is more ahead, because I am human. But it does mean that I stay oriented toward “God’s upward call” as I take each step. I haven’t arrived, but I can hear God’s voice showing me the path of life as I live in this question and I’ve come to trust it.

Today ask yourself: what is life-giving for me? See what you notice, see what God shows you.

Peace Be With You. – Paul

In the midst of chaos, I will be peace.

In the heart of anger, I will be love.

In the presence of despair, I will be hope. 

Those are my assignments. 

Not imposed on me, but taken up willingly as a witness to what I believe is true for all of us. 

The circle of life needs and deserves

peace, love and hope. 

Our shared calling is to embody that grace, to live

what we pray, to be the blessing we ask of others.

• Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston

Peace Be With You. – Paul

From Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston: 

Make it better. 

That is one way to describe our purpose in life. We want to make things better. 

Whatever those things may be: the condition of the Earth, the state of global peace, the daily needs of our family. 

In every way, we strive to nurture, to repair, to make better.

Peace Be With You. – Paul

Courtesy of Rev. Kathy Brown:

A beautiful benediction from Rev. Steven Garnaas-Holmes, Unfolding Light 

Peace

Peace I leave with you; 

my peace I give to you. 

I do not give to you as the world gives. 

Do not let your hearts be troubled, 

and do not let them be afraid. 

—John 14.27

This is the peace of Christ

that will never be taken from you:

You are God’s Beloved.

God is at peace with you, always.

Christ accompanies you, 

and will be kind to you. Always.

The Spirit is in you.

You are always free to choose kindness.

Go in peace,

and do not be afraid.

Peace Be With You. – Paul

Let My People Seek Their Freedom

The United Methodist Hymnal Number 586

Text: T. Herbert O’Driscoll

Music: Thomas J. Williams

Tune: EBENEZER, Meter: 87.87 D

Let my people seek their freedom

in the wilderness awhile,

from the slave pens of the Delta,

from the ghettos on the Nile:

So God spoke from out of Sinai,

so God spoke and it was done,

and a people crossed the waters

toward the rising of the sun.

Let my people seek their freedom

in the wilderness awhile,

from the aging shrines and structures,

from the cloister and the aisle:

so the Son of God has spoken,

and the storm clouds are unfurled,

for God’s people must be scattered

to be servants in the world.

When we murmur on the mountains

for the old Egyptian plains,

when we miss our ancient bondage,

and the hope, the promise, wanes;

then the rock shall yield its water

and the manna fall by night,

and with visions of a future

shall we march toward the light.

In the maelstrom of the nations,

in the journeying into space,

in the clash of generations,

in the hungering for grace,

in the agony and glory,

we are called to newer ways

by the Lord of our tomorrows

and the God of earth’s todays

Peace Be With You. – Paul

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”~ Mother Teresa

Peace Be With You. – Paul

Paradox Blessing

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, superficial relationships,

so that you will live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice,

oppression and exploitation of people,

so that you will work for justice, equity, and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed

for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in the world,

so that you will do the things which others tell you cannot be done.

– From “Celtic Daily Prayer,” Book Two

Peace Be With You. – Paul

God, That Madest Earth and Heaven

The United Methodist Hymnal Number 688

Text: Reginald Heber 1783-1826 (st 1); Frederick Lucian Hosmer, 1840-1929 (st 2)

Music: Trad. Welsh melody; harm. by Luther Orlando Emerson, 1820-1915

Tune: AR HYD Y NOS, Meter: 84.84.888.4

1. God, that madest earth and heaven, 

darkness and light, 

who the day for toil hast given, 

for rest the night: 

may thine angel guards defend us, 

slumber sweet thy mercy send us; 

holy dreams and hopes attend us, 

this livelong night.

2. When the constant sun returning 

unseals our eyes, 

may we, born anew like morning, 

to labor rise. 

Gird us for the task that calls us, 

let not ease and self enthrall us, 

strong through thee whate’er befall us, 

O God most wise!

Here is a link to the hymn:

God That Madest Earth and Heaven (UMH688) (September 1, 2024)

Peace Be With You. – Paul