All of us spend time as a rolling coin, a dawdling lamb, a distracted preschooler … lost, whether we know it or not – and be sure that Jesus also tells these parables for us. Jesus reassures us God’s capacity for Grace has not diminished because we ended up between the world’s sofa cushions. Jesus tells us that God never calls off the search, promises that God’s patience, persistence, and grace will always overcome our wandering.

Thanks be to God, we do not undertake this righteous prayer alone! We bind what is to what might be, and we seek Grateful Hearts and Gracious Lives in our Trinity Church community. Sunday by Sunday, we gather as a parish family to practice our thanks and praise, to share with one another the gracious plenty God has shared with us. Peering into this new Program Year we look forward to singing together, to learning together, to serving together … to challenging the world’s depravity with the joys of our companionship and the generosity of our spirits, together.

Others’ affirmations or discouragements, others’ dismissals or acceptances – those do not determine our worth! God’s Love has already assured our value and charged us with a purpose, sent us into the world as emissaries of kindness, compassion, and grace…

In a world covered by shadow, the demoniac becomes the very gift of light. And as we can, where we can, even in a moment such as this, we must choose life and walk in that light.

By those graces we can pray, Come Holy Spirit, and enkindle in the hearts of your faithful the fire of your Love … and we can mean it.

Instead of focusing on our “production” – our doing – we affirm our place in God’s fold, and we love one another.  We nurture dispositions of compassion and generosity.  We cultivate graciousness and mercy.  And when we love well, that love – God’s love of us, and our love of one another – it’s that love that will inspire our service and collective action: we cannot reorder this process and fulfill God’s hopes for the world!

For only kindness can win the world for kindness, only generosity can win the world for generosity, and only love like lightning can win the world for love.