The Gift of Love

 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

 

    

Faith and Hope

DONATELLO

1427-29

Bronze

Baptistry

Siena, Italy

 

Of the six figures of the virtues that were commissioned for the baptismal font in the Baptistry, including ones from Giovanni di Turino, and Goro di ser Neroccio, Donatello created those of Faith and Hope. Both figures are positively moving out of the tabernacles in an extreme sideways turning. These statues show a lyrical grace that is different from the relief of the Herod's Banquet on the side of the font, suggesting that his temporary collaboration with Ghiberti on the decoration of the font may have caused Donatello to return to earlier methods of expression that had long been abandoned.

Hope was traditionally embodied in the form of a woman who is raising both hands and gazing upwards, towards God. Donatello omitted all other attributes in his sculpture.

https://www.wga.hu/html_m/d/donatell/1_early/siena/1font_3.html

 

And

LOVE!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love is holy because it is like grace —

the worthiness of its object

is never really what matters.

~ Marilynne Robinson

 

 

 

The mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way  to love the world as God did and does.…If we are able to love the world, that will be the best demonstration of the truth which the church has been given.

~ Parker Palmer

 

 

 

 

GROUNDHOG DAY PARTY!!!

Saturday, February 2, 2019

 

 

Scott Keen, Suzanne Koczon-Shipley 

We had cocktails at Suzanne’s and a potluck at Scott’s.

 

Johna McLean, my neighbor in # 8, and Robyn Mangham,

my neighbor in #6.

 

Jimmy and Robyn Mangham

 

Scott shook our entry balls for the Grand Prize winner.

 

Sidney Gray Kurtz watches as Janet Way opens 

the GRAND PRIZE envelope!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our society is much more interested 

in information than wonder,

in noise rather than silence 

And I feel that we need a lot more wonder

and a lot more silence in our lives.

~ Fred Rogers *

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 3, 2019   Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Year C

                  Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time      

 

Previous OPQs may be found at: 

     http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm

 

 * If you have a few minutes, please listen to at least the first third of The Best of Mr. Rogers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSbYQz3rluM



 

Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

Luke 4:21-30

 

Agnus Day, by James Wetzstein

 

 

 

 

Agnus Day appears with the permission of www.agnusday.org

 

 

 

Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30

 

 

 

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
   "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
       and before you were born I consecrated you;
    I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

Then I said, "Ah, Lord God!
   Truly I do not know how to speak,
      for I am only a boy."
But the Lord said to me,
   "Do not say, 'I am only a boy';
      for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
      and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
    for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord."

Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth;
     and the Lord said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
    See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
        to pluck up and to pull down,
        to destroy and to overthrow,
        to build and to plant."

Psalm 71:1-6

In you, O God, 
  I take refuge;
let me never be put 
  to shame.

In your righteousness
   deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me 
   and save me.

Be to me a rock 
   of refuge,
a strong fortress, 
   to save me,
for you are my rock 
   and my fortress.

Rescue me, 
   O my God,
from the hand 
   of the wicked,
from the grasp 
   of the unjust and cruel.

For you, O God, 
   are my hope,
my trust, O God, 
   from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned 
   from my birth;
it was you who took me 
   from my mother's womb.
My praise is continually 
   of you.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Luke 4:21-30

Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.