Reverend Ref +

THE BAD, THE GOOD AND THE SURPRISING

THE BAD: I lost an entire day of work yesterday. If you aren't paying attention, Holy Week preparations will mess you up. Am I working on Maundy Thursday? Palm Sunday? Holy Saturday? Maundy Thursday? I wasn't paying close enough attention; and because of that, I lost an entire day of productivity.

THE GOOD: My Good Friday sermon for next year is finished.

THE SURPRISING: For Soup & Scripture last night, I pulled an activity from Groundwork II. We looked at the five questions of the Baptismal Covenant, what sins keep us from living out those promises, and what corrective action we might take to help us better live into them. One discussion centered on prayer.

One of our parishioners was raised Baptist and she was saying that when she first started attending St. Paul's she was taken aback by the BCP and all of the written prayers.

"I know how to pray, I don't need some book to tell me what words to use," she said.

But then she went on. "After my eye surgery I couldn't see well enough to read from the Prayer Book. And for the first time it struck me how beautiful it was to hear everyone praying the same prayer at the same time."

So, I've got next year's Good Friday sermon in the bank and a realization that corporate prayer isn't so bad after all. It was a good day.