A Holy Week for Spiritual Exiles: March 28-April 4

Every thing is sacred.

When Divine Love expanded into matter, holiness was embedded into the whole of the material universe. The fullness of the Great I Am, resident in everything from quarks to supernovas.

Every rock, every leaf, every droplet of water, every molecule of air, every sentient creature bears the imprint of the One who loved it into being.

The Sacraments are sacred moments when we participate in the holiness of all things. We enter into the waters of baptism. We consume bread and wine that comes forth from the grains and fruits of the earth, nourished by soil, sunshine, and rain. A sacramental view of the universe sees all of reality through a holistic lens and perceives the divine nature of it all.

This Holy Week, our community will celebrate the sacredness of all things by entering into sacred moments with ordinary objects and ideas.

For our practices this week, you are invited to select a random item and reflect on its holiness:

• How does it fit into the wholeness of the universe?
• How is it a part of you, and how are you a part of it?
• How does it help you see beyond yourself as well as deeply within yourself?

Your item could be anything that helps you encounter and experience the Divine. Here are a few suggestions:

• an object from nature
• the view from your back porch
• a monument or landmark
• a painting or photograph
• a crafted item
• a song lyric
• a verse of poetry
• a passage of scripture
• a selection of literature or film
• a conversation with a friend or neighbor

You may wish to employ one or more of the practices from our Lenten journey together: fasting, prompted writing, storytelling, ecological reflection, or iconography. Feel free to engage with something different each day, or pick one thing and encounter it through different practices and perspectives.

Then, through your observations and experiences, consider how we can symbolically journey with Jesus to the cross and beyond by observing how Jesus embodies the sacramental nature of the cosmos. You might consider some or all of the following:

• How unpretentious palm branches and fabrics became the holy pavement of the triumphal entry.
• How water and ordinary cloth removed the dirt of the Palestinian landscape from the disciples’ feet.
• How the aromas and flavors of the Seder meal underscored the Last Supper.
• How the rocks and olive trees of Gethsemane provide the backdrop for Jesus’ final prayers and the betrayal of Judas.
• How leather from the hides of animals woven with shards of clay and thorns from a living tree inflicted the physical pain of the journey to Golgotha.
• How wood from once majestic trees held the flesh of the Human One as he breathed his last.
• How the air of the garden would have smelled when the women discovered the empty tomb and encountered the resurrected Jesus.

At the end of Holy Week we’ll mark Good Friday with a brief visual liturgy, Reformulating All Possibilities, from The Work of The People. Then, on Easter Sunday, we’ll reflect briefly on our experiences of the Sacramental Universe together through the practice of the Love Feast, an ancient representation of the sacramental meal.

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New Wineskins meets via Zoom every Sunday evening.

6:00pm: Zoom connection opens for Happy Half Hour social time
6:30pm: Conversation begins

*PLEASE NOTE: Good Friday & Easter Sunday gatherings will be held from 6:00-6:30pm

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