vigil

Sabbath II, 1988 — Wendell Berry
It is the destruction of the world
in our own lives
that drives us half insane, and more than half.
To destroy that which we were given
in trust: how will we bear it?
It is our own bodies that we give
to be broken,
our bodies existing before and after us
in clod and cloud, worm and tree,
that we, driving or driven, despise
in our greed to live, our haste
to die. To have lost, wantonly,
the ancient forests, the vast grasslands
in our madness, the presence
in our very bodies of our grief.

VISUAL POEM: Stripped from BibleProject: https://youtu.be/VHUBFfEzpEU


The adjective so often coupled with mercy is the word tender, but God’s mercy is not tender; this mercy is a blunt instrument. Mercy doesn’t wrap a warm, limp blanket around offenders. God’s mercy is the kind that kills the thing that wronged it and resurrects something new in its place.— Nadia Bolz-Weber

SONGS about CRUCIFIXION & the CROSS:

In Blackwater Woods (excerpt)— Mary Oliver

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones
knowing your own life
depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.


VIDEO POEM: From Tree to Cross: https://youtu.be/aQPVqcNVfM0

COMMENTARY on the GRIEF, the CROSS and HOLY FRIDAY

so it came time and
no day like that is ever
good in the coming

― Deborah Landau

To each one of us Christ is saying: If you want your life and mission to be fruitful, like mine, do as I do. Be converted into a seed that lets itself be buried. Let yourself be killed. Do not be afraid. Those who shun suffering will remain alone. No one is more alone than the selfish. But if you give your life out of love for others, as I give mine for all, you will reap a great harvest. — Oscar Romero

It was where, of course, the ultimate cry of human longing ran headlong into the silence of God, and was left, the cry was left out there like a huge, red hook trying to reach up into the heavens, but nothing received it. It’s a day of being touched by the void; it’s the day of the abyss. — John O’Donohue about Holy Friday

Good Friday is not about us trying to “get right with God.” It is about us entering the difference between God and humanity and just touching it for a moment. Touching the shimmering sadness of humanity’s insistence that we can be our own gods, that we can be pure and all-powerful. ― Nadia Bolz-Weber

And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn’t have to anymore. ― Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions:
 

What happens at the cross is a “blessed exchange.” God gathers up all our sin, all our broken-ass junk, into God’s own self and transforms all that death into life. Jesus takes our crap and exchanges it for his blessedness. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

[Jesus dying on the cross] brings us face to face with the finality of defeat. Sometimes things don’t have a happy ending in life. Sometimes we fail. Sometimes we’re beaten. Sometimes we’re lost. Sometimes we’re humiliated. Sometimes we’re misunderstood. Sometimes we are abandoned by the very people we love most in life and whom we thought also loved us. At that point, without doubt, something in us dies. There’s not going back to things as they were before. Then doors close in our hearts and the old breath goes out of us and all we can do is to surrender to the dark. It is not a pretty moment. It can take all the energy we have.
Am I able to accept the daily deaths of life, both the great ones and the small, knowing that death is not the end of life, only its passing over to something new in me? Hopefully, I learn from the Jesus who gave up himself, his mission, his life in ways that all seemed totally wrong, that the deaths I die may bring new life to the world around me as well.— Sr Joan Chittister

On the Day I Die — Rumi

On the day I die,
when I’m being carried
toward the grave,
don’t weep. Don’t say,

He’s gone! He’s gone.
Death has nothing
to do with going away.
The sun sets

and the moon sets,
but they’re not gone.
Death is a coming together.
The tomb

looks like a prison,
but it’s really
release into union.
The human seed goes

down in the ground
like a bucket into
the well where Joseph is.
It grows and

comes up full of some
unimagined beauty.
Your mouth closes here,
and immediately

opens with a
shout of joy there.

It Can’t Be Carried Alone” — Fr Richard Rohr (response to the collective suffering of the people of Ukraine).

How can we not feel shock or rage at what is happening
to the people of Ukraine—
As we watch their suffering unfold in real time
from an unfair distance?
Who of us does not feel inept or powerless
before such manifest evil? In this, at least, we are united.
Our partisan divisions now appear small and trivial.

Remember what we teach: both evil and goodness are,
first of all, social phenomena.
The Body of Christ is crucified and resurrected
at the same time. May we stand faithfully
Inside both these mysteries (contemplation).

In loving solidarity, we each bear what is ours to carry,
the unjust weight of crucifixion,
in expectant hope for God’s transformation.
May we be led to do what we can on any level (action)
to create resurrection

When Death Comes —  Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Your Excellency  […]

Tonight, with the world in doubt, with this Commonwealth drawing into its lungs with every breath the difficult air of doubt, with the eyes of Europe turned westward upon Massachusetts and upon the whole United States in distress and harrowing doubt — are you still so sure? Does no faintest shadow of question gnaw at your mind? For, indeed, your spirit, however strong, is but the frail spirit of a man. Have you no need, in this hour, of a spirit greater than your own?

Think back. Think back a long time. Which way would He have turned, this Jesus of your faith? — Oh, not the way in which your feet are set!

You promise me, and I believe you truly, that you would think of what I said. I exact of you this promise now. Be for a moment alone with yourself. Look inward upon yourself. Let fall from your harassed mind all, all save this: which way would He have turned, this Jesus of your faith?

I cry to you with a million voices: answer our doubt. Exert the clemency which your high office affords.

There is need in Massachusetts of a great man tonight. It is not yet too late for you to be that man.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, letter to governor of Massachusetts

… And you are right; it is well to forget that men die. So far we have devised no way to defeat death, or to outwit him, or to buy him over. At any moment the cloud may split above us and the golden spear of death leap at the heart; at any moment the earth crack and the hand of death reach up from the abyss to grasp our ankles; at any moment the wind rise and sweep the roofs from our houses, making one dust of our ceilings and ourselves. And if not, we shall die soon, anyhow. It is well to forget that this is so.

But that man before his time, wantonly and without sorrow, is thrust from the light of the sun into the darkness of the grave by his brother’s blindness or fear it is well to remember, at least until it has been shown to the satisfaction of all that this too is beyond our power to change…

These men were castaways upon our shore, and we, an ignorant and savage tribe, have put them to death because their speech and their manners were different from our own, and because to the untutored mind that which is strange is in its infancy ludicrous, but in its prime evil, dangerous, and to be done away with.

These men were put to death because they made you nervous; and your children know it. The minds of your children are like clear pools, reflecting faithfully whatever passes on the bank; whereas in the pool of your own mind, whenever an alien image bends above, a fish of terror leaps to meet it, shattering its reflection.

— Edna St Vincent Millay, November 9, 1927, The Outlook:  “Fear”

Photograph from September 11th
—Wislawa Szymborska,
translated by Clare Cavanagh and
Stanislaw Baranczk


They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.
          I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

HOLY WEEK: Palm Sunday, April 2  to Easter, Sunday, April 9

April 2-9: WAY of the CROSS

  • VIA CRUCIS – Way of the Cross
    Ongoing • JCC Sacntuary
    • Self-guided. 
    • Crosses used in this personal pilgrimage, most hanging in the windows, come from around the world. 
    • Front doors open and unlocked 24/7. Come whenever your schedule permits. Several written guides are available, tracing the Via Crucis journey with specific concerns in mind: healing, environmental care, recovering from addiction, surviving trauma, discerning prayer. The guides also include ones written specifically for women, children, refugees, seniors, LGBTQ+ allies, and using perspective from St Teresa,
      St Francis, Ignatians, and using Biblical versions offered by Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis.
  • 24/7: Daily during Holy Week • JCC Sanctuary

Sun, Apr 2: PALM SUNDAY  

  • INTERFAITH WORSHIP 
    8am • JCC Sanctuary & Zoom
    • Join us for poetry, conversation, and prayer.
    • Zoom link and password required.
  • PALM SUNDAY WORSHIP with Communion 
    10:30am • JCC Sanctuary & Zoom
    • Zoom link and password required.
    • Music: Sharon Novak
  • HOSPITALITY @ JCC
    11:30am • Parish Hall
  • BYZANTINE ART, ICONOGRAPHY & ARCHITECTURE Tour with John Heropoulos, MDiv. 

    2pm • Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, Berlin, NH
    • Led by John Heropoulos, MDiv., retired Greek Orthodox priest.

Thurs, Apr 6: MAUNDY THURSDAY

  • SOUP SUPPER & MAUNDY THURSDAY WORSHIP
    6pm • Parish Hall of JCC
    • Worship at table as communion meal
    • Discussion over the meal
    • Scripture: Last Supper & Prayers in Gesthemane
    • Special song written & performed by Sharon Novak
    • Soups prepared by Sue Carrigan & Wendy McVey
    • Event hosted by the deacons
    • Close with stripping of the altar

Fri, Apr 7: HOLY FRIDAY

  • VIGIL on HOLY FRIDAY 
    Noon-3pm • JCC Sanctuary
    • Scripture readings offered aloud in the sanctuary at noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm.
    • Texts narrate final hours of Christ
    • Traditional day to experience Stations of Cross (also offered in sanctuary during this time and throughout Holy Week).
    • Virtual stations of the c ross will be posted to Facebook and the website.
  • ECUMENICAL WORSHIP for HOLY FRIDAY
    6pm •  Christ Church Episcopal, North Conway, NH
    • Tenebrae service
    • Last even words of Christ
    • Putting out candles
    • Scirpture and song
    • This service is offered by Clergy of the Eastern Mountain Slope in Mt Washington Valley.

Sun, Apr 9: EASTER SUNDAY

  • SUNRISE EASTER SERVICE 
    6am • Presidential Drive Cul-de-Sac, Jackson, NH
    • In-person only
    • Scripture
    • Singing
  • EASTER WORSHIP with Flowering of Cross @ JCC
    10:30am   • Jackson Community Church
    • Zoom link and password required.
    • Featuring harp with Dominique Dodge and special music by Gia Osborne
    • Flowering of Cross @ JCC
  • HOSPITALITY @ JCC
    11:30am • Parish Hall
  • COMMUNITY EGG HUNT 
    11am-2pm  JCC and around village

LENT & EASTER SCHEDULE

  • Ash Wednesday: Feb 22, Ashes to Go at various location in Glen and Jackson (see Facebook or updated schedule)
  • Palm Sunday, April 2, 10:30am Service, Jackson Community Church
  • Maundy Thursday Soup Supper & Worship, April 6, Parish House
  • Holy Friday Vigil, April 7, Noon-3pm, Jackson Community Church
  • Easter Sunrise Service, April 9, 5:45am @ Presidential Drive, Jackson, NH
  • Easter Service with Flowering of Cross & More, April 9, 10:30am, Jackson Community Church

HOLY WEEK with JCC and around Town

April 10-17

Sun, April 10 – PALM SUNDAY

  • INTERFAITH GATHERING
    8am • Old Red Library & Zoom
    Join us for poetry, prayer, and conversation.
  • VIRTUAL CHOIR REHEARSAL
    9am •  Zoom
    Join choir director Rebecca Moore to prepare Palm Sunday & Easter Sunday songs.
  • WORSHIP with PALMS
    10:30am • (zoom & in-person)

Wed, Apr 13 

  • EASTER EGG-STUFFING
    10:45am • JCC Council Room
    Deacons and volunteers meet after Laurie McAleer’s fitness class to stuff Easter eggs which will be hidden on our campus as part of the village-wide Easter egg hunt held by Chamber of Commerce on Easter Sunday. Thanks to Deacon Sandy Louis for connecting us to this event.
  • C3: COCKTAILS & CHRISTIAN CONVERSATIONS / HOLY WEEK STUDY SESSION
    5pm • Zoom link required. Contact church: jcchurch@jacksoncommunitychurch.org
    Bring your adult beverage and your curiosity for a conversation about our sacred text

Thurs, Apr 14: MAUNDY THURSDAY

  • SOUP SUPPER & TABLE WORSHIP
    6pm • JCC Parish House (in person & zoom)
  • OVERNIGHT VIGIL
    8pm (Thurs) – Noon (Fri) – virtual / hold vigil in your own place or come to JCC and hold vigil
    • Virtual vigil:  People email the church and sign up to meditate on words from scripture throughout the night.
    • Each household takes one hour.
    • Meditate on a whole Biblical passage, or read and choose one word or image on which to focus. Be active or contemplative. Walk, knit, play music, stay quiet, pray, cook, make something, stay home, go outside.
    • Vigil commences after the soup supper & worship and ends at noon on Friday, when the final three hours are observed in the sanctuary.

Fri, Apr 15 – HOLY FRIDAY

  • FINAL HOURS: Vigil
    Noon-3pm • JCC Sanctuary
    • Also live-streaming to website & Facebook
    • Scripture will be read at the top of each hour: Noon, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm .
    • People often traditionally experience the Via Crucis / Way of the Cross during this time.
       
  • ECUMENICAL HOLY FRIDAY TENEBRAE SERVICE
    6pm • First Church of Christ, UCC in North Conway, NH
    All are welcome. Virtual live-streaming info will be provided once it has been shared by planning team.
    Planned and hosted by Clergy of the Eastern Slopes (of which Rev Gail is a member).

Sun, Apr 17 – EASTER SUNDAY

  • SUNRISE WORSHIP 
    5:45am • End of Presidential Drive off Tin Mine Rd, Jackson
    • In-person & live-streaming to Facebook / FB
    • Sunrise = 5:58am
    • Donuts & Coffee @ service provided by deacons
       
  • EASTER SUNDAY WORSHIP with Flowering of the Cross
    10:30am • JCC (in-person & zoom)
    • Zoom link required. Contact church: jcchurch@jacksoncommunitychurch.org
    • JCC Virtual Choral Anthem: Easter Song
    • Guest musician: Dominique Dodge, Harp
    • Flowering the Cross
    • Alan Labrie’s last day as organist
       
  • EASTER EGG HUNT
    11:30-2pm • JCC Campus and around the village loop
    Part of Jackson-wide egg hunt sponsored by Chamber
  • FLOWERED CROSS OUTSIDE
    Flowered cross will be placed outside the church with bucket of flowers for people to add as they pass. Will be returned inside by late afternoon.

PEACE CAIRN: Vigil for Ukraine

PEACE CAIRN (and vigil) for the Ukraine: Sun, Mar 13 @ 1pm in Schouler Park.

Plus: 2 local Fryeburg Academy students set up fundraising campaign and site with additional resources. Details in email. Also: Donate, pray, stay informed, and advocate! Many ways to get involved.

Sunday, March 13th
1:00 PM
Schouler Park North Conway, NH
The Peace Cairn

“Let there be peace on earth…”
 
       In Ireland there is a tradition known as the “Peace Cairn”.  Stones, in this view, symbolize ancient weapons and the Peace Cairn is a heaping pile of stones laid down to stop war.  Each stone is balanced against other stones that represents the balance necessary for peace to exist.  Officially, the Peace Cairn is designated as ‘laying down primitive weapons – – turning them into building blocks for a better future.”
 
       On Sunday, March 13th at 1:00 p.m. people are asked to bring stones to Schouler Park in North Conway to build a Peace Cairn.  You may write a one-word, or a few-words of prayer, (if you choose), to help build a balanced heap of stones.  It is part of the Prayer Vigil the “Clergy of the Eastern Slope” are organizing to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine.  (Please feel free to wear clothing or scarfs of yellow and blue if you desire) … There is no dress code, we are just looking for kind souls to offer prayers for peace.
 
       Whatever your prayers are for those who live in fear, for refugees who wander, for families fractured and frayed, for the innocent to survive, for diplomats to build trust, for peacemakers on all sides, come to Schouler Park, add your prayers to ours, and help build the Peace Cairn.Vigil will include Prayer, Music, and the building of a Peace Cairn


United Church of Christ/UCC with its GLOBAL PARTNERS

The United Church of Christ is issuing an appeal for the people of Ukraine and will be working with global partners to assist vulnerable communities within that country. (more info: https://www.ucc.org/ucc-issues-appeal-for-ukraine-calls-on-u-s-to-provide-humanitarian-aid/)

What you can do through the UCC and its partners:

  • DONATE: Donate to the UCC Ukraine relief effort here.
  • READ & LEARN: Access daily updates from Ukraine. Global Ministries will be posting daily updates provided by the Reformed Church of Hungary here.
  • PRAY: Access the UCC officers’ call to prayer here.
  • ADVOCATE:  Action alert directed to current administration for direct forms of assistance in this crisis: https://p2a.co/OKUfu7z

The appeal joins an earlier call to prayer issued by the UCC’s executive officers and an invitation from Global Ministries to pray with the worldwide interfaith community. The national ministries are also encouraging people to call on the Biden administration to offer Ukrainians more humanitarian assistance, both in the U.S. and abroad.

  • Interfaith call to prayer issued by the UCC’s executive officers and an invitation from Global Ministries to pray with the worldwide interfaith community.
  • The UCC, through Global H.O.P.E. and Global Ministries, will be collaborating with ACT Alliance and the Reformed Church of Hungary (RCH) to bring aid to Ukraine. RCH is responding to the situation in the war-torn country through its agency, Hungarian Reformed Church Aid. That group has been offering humanitarian assistance since Russian troops first attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24. It’s working with elderly and other vulnerable communities inside the country who have not been able to leave, including immigrants and migrant populations who are experiencing difficulties crossing into other European countries. HRCA is also working with refugees who are leaving the country. 
  • Gifts to the UCC Ukraine Emergency Appeal will provide shelter, food and other care to war refugees and internally displaced people. It also will help refugees and asylum seekers from African, Middle Eastern and other countries who had sought refuge in Ukraine and now are twice displaced, as well as other citizens of more than 125 countries living in Ukraine. Donate here.
  • The UCC’s advocacy office in Washington, D.C., is encouraging people through this action alert to: providing significant humanitarian assistance, both in terms of financial support and operational personnel, rebuild a robust, well-resourced refugee program that can effectively process refugees from a variety of regions across the globe, including Ukraine, designate Ukraine for Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to protect Ukrainians already in the U.S., grant Special Student Relief (SSR) to allow eligible students from Ukraine to remain in the U.S.

SOME PATHS to HELP

NEW: Fryeburg Academy students set up website to make donations toward resources for Ukraine. Anna Bondar, 17, a junior at the school, and Daryna Serediuk, 18, a senior are both from western Ukraine. One thing they did was to create online “Help Ukraine Now” posters with built-in QR codes that direct people to a website where people can donate to causes like the Armed Forces of Ukraine as well as humanitarian causes or buy Ukrainian Army themed merchandise. The link is linktr.ee/help_ukraine_global.

Full article in Conway Daily Sun: https://www.conwaydailysun.com/news/local/fryeburg-academy-students-from-ukraine-holding-fundraisers/article_62101efc-9e5e-11ec-8837-7b4d619c6fb6.html

Recommended by other congregation friends and members. Note: These are suggestions about how you might contribute to the relief effort, should this be something you feel you’d like to do. We are not prioritizing any one agency or group. Here are several organizations with excellent reputations for supporting refugees or assisting with on-the-ground relief work:

PRAYER CONCERN & PERSONAL SITUATIONS

If people have prayer concerns or specific situations to bring to our community’s attention, we will continue to share such information. We will trust that all such recommendations are authentic.

Caution: We remind donors that such personal fundraising initiatives are not monitored or supervised, so it is best if you have a direct connection (or at least know and trust the person making the request) if you are moved to support these personalized campaigns. Sadly, even in the midst of crisis, people will also try to use this as a chance to scam others for money.

Kimberli Jo Lewis’ Family: Additionally, this is about a friend and neighbor of a member of our congregation. Sue Carrigan brought to our attention to a specific Ukrainian family’s plight and the Go Fund Me page set up to assist them (they are family to a neighbor in NH): https://gofund.me/8b517a9f.

Updates:

  • “Update is the family is in a shelter near me in Prague, my apartment is too small for 2 adults and 2 children. We supply most to them but the 7 year old is traumatize with entire situation , so is Grandma who is same age as many of our friends. All had to flee their home, each had one bag.  It is nothing we can think about other than our for 100 years many of our families did the same.  We appreciate the support as there is a long way ahead of them.”
  • I spent 2 hours yesterday at the embassy, we are doing everything we can.  Thank you, everything helps.  We have some people in RI reaching out to the state department.”
  • … I just traveled to to pick up Lena’s Mom, Sister and 2 children 7 and 19 months.  They are now with me, and we are trying to get them to US and … despite what is on TV, they can not get to the US because the 19 month baby has no visa. I hate to ask you this but in your friend group if you know anyone who would give 25 USD it will help us.  Personally, it has costed me until now 5000, to get them this far, and to start a new life once we get them in is horrible.  If you in your church group know anyone 10 dollars helps I would appreciate it. I am so tired and so stressed, I remember when you did fundraiser after the accident , I get it now … I have now done 1 intensive week to get them out, I attach the story, anyone who can give 10 dollars we would appreciate, it is not to reimburse me, it is for the next step once we get through the US BS,
    Please read the story of my best friend, a devoted Catholic who gave his live for 1 week to save my family.  Please say him in your prayers, he got them to me without one ounce of selfishness the story I need to tell you in person.  I called him for advice and he said no advice “action.”
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