The Sorrow Tree

Mark 1:12-13

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts;

and the angels waited on him.

Winston Churchill once said, “If you're going through hell, keep going.

Chippie the parakeet never saw it coming. One second he was peacefully perched in his cage. The next he was sucked in, washed up, and blown over.

The problems began when Chippie's owner decided to clean Chippie's cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She'd barely said “hello” when “swwwooooooooooppppppppp!” Chippie got sucked in. The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie—still alive, but stunned.

Since the bird was covered with dust and dirt, she grabbed the little bird and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do...she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air.

Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.

A few days after the trauma, the reporter from the Galveston Press who had initially written about the event contacted Chippie's owner to see how the parakeet was recovering.

“Well,” she replied, “Chippie doesn't sing much anymore—he just sits and stares.”¹

The unfortunate story of Chippie the Parakeet has been told and retold by preachers and motivational speakers—who are not always the same people, by the way—for many years now. I can picture poor Chippie as each calamity arrived so quickly, so unexpectedly—the tornado and then the dust storm, the monsoon rain and then the hurricane—all of it leaving little Chippie less than chipper. On his perch, the parakeet tends just to sit there and stare. Poor, poor Chippie. The storms of life had stolen his song.

We can be sucked in, washed up, and blown over by life, too. None of us is immune from calamity. It crawls in under the cover of cancer, slithers forward with a smile on its face and then, at just the right moment, strikes with fangs and poisons so painful we cannot even find the breath to scream. It shakes our hands and twists our financial arms behind our backs so fast we are trapped. We can only sit and stare. Somewhere through the wild storms, our songs may be silenced, too.

The wildness experience of life is an equal-opportunity employer; none of us completely escapes. Jesus walked his lonesome valleys; he hungered in the wilderness; he questioned God's reasons--and so shall we: Why God? Have you forsaken me? Why that traumatic childhood abuse; why that difficult diagnosis; why the loss of love or the loss of my loved one; why trials and tribulation; why such insidious temptation coming at me to gain what I should not possess; why did I eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; why not trade all my sufferings upon a tree of sorrow?

So it was that when the Hasidim pilgrims vied for those among them who had endured the most suffering, who was the most entitled to complain, the Zaddck told them the story of the Sorrow Tree. On the Day of Judgment each person will be allowed to hang one's unhappiness and sufferings on the branches of the great Tree of Sorrows. After all have found a limb from which their miseries may dangle, they may all walk slowly around the tree. Each person is to search for a set of sufferings that he or she would prefer to those he or she has hung on the tree.

In the end, each one freely chooses to reclaim his or her own assortment of sorrows rather than those of another. Each person leaves the Tree of Sorrows wiser than when he or she arrived.²

Mark expends very little space to Jesus' temptation in the wilderness—thirty-three words!--when Matthew gives six verses. Does this mean that Mark is disinterested in the wilderness part of Jesus' journey? Is he more eager to just get on with the healing and teachings of Jesus? We might be tempted to draw this conclusion and give the whole “Temptation of Jesus” episode the same amount of brain power as it takes in the time to read verses 12 and 13. However, that would be a mistake. Mark does consider the wilderness temptations extremely important, just examine the language he uses.

Jesus didn't happily walk into the wilderness, drying his hair from the river and wondering where he would spend the night. This wilderness test was not just another item on Jesus' to-do list. Mark says the Spirit “drove him out” immediately! I see pushing and shoving, jabbing with sharp weapons in those words. In “Tempted by Satan,” I see relentless and harsh spiritual battering of the Lord, bruising him, bearing down on him without one break in the severity of Satan's salacious temptations, so that Jesus could barely catch his breath let alone gather his wits about him.

Picture it: Jesus has the driving Spirit and Satan, too, but then Mark adds the detail of wild beasts—I see saber-toothed evil around every rock and behind every bush, waiting to pounce hard and heavy with one intent only: to devour Jesus. Wild beasts in the ancient world were often considered the harborers of demons unleashed and frenetic, roaring and warring. The only comfort Jesus had came from angels who waited on him—maybe they dressed his wounds, but they could not prevent him from being wounded. And for 40 days, the Lord's pains and sorrows collected in one long chain of misery. Jesus was going through hell the whole time, yet he kept on going. He didn't stop, sit and stare. Jesus loaded up his sorrows and marched out into the wildness of civilization, to do what God sent the Son here to do: not to condemn the world—not to steal its song and end its life—but to save the world.

Satan and the wild beasts may have thrown everything possible at Jesus to break his spirit, end his mission and thwart God's plan for humanity; but in the end, Satan failed; he could not steal the Savior's song.

Sin can steal our song like nothing else. We are vulnerable, but we are not to give up; we are created for great things, not to spend the rest of our days sitting and staring, chirping out a note once in a while.

We all will travel in and out of songless wildernesses, yet shall we triumph, We all are vulnerable to the world's devils, yet we shall triumph. We all are prone to temptation, YET, triumph we shall because that is God's plan of salvation for us through faith in his Son, Jesus our Christ, who died on the cross, the ultimate tree of sorrow.

Jesus--taking all our sins and sorrows upon himself—was hung on that tree; he died on in our place so that we may live to sing God's praises not just for another day, but for forever.

The journey to the Tree of Sorrow is the purpose of the season of Lent; no matter how sucked in, washed up and blown over we may physically or spiritually be, Jesus has saved us from a silent and certain death. How can we keep from singing? We are wiser for taking this Lenten journey to the Sorrow Tree. Now we know that there will come the day, one glorious, triumphant day, when “poor, poor” Satan will be the one who never knew what hit him. Amen.

February 26, 2012

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, Maine

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

1Lucado, Max. In the Eye of the Storm: A Day in the Life of Jesus. Nashville, TN. 1991, p 11.

2Cavanaugh, Brian. TOR, The Sower's Seeds found at www.inspirationalstories.com.

TRANSFIGURATION

Mark 9:2-9

“This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

Even people with perfect hearing need hearing aids—perhaps not the kind that increases the decibels of a speaker, but the kind of aid that fulfills the first duty of love: the first duty of love is to listen.”¹ The syndrome of selective hearing is perilously “high-pedestaled” in our world; its roots burrow deeply—and with our permission. Is it not a sign of success … status... and superiority to multitask impressively, to use personal listening devices in spite of the occasion, and to flash the latest version of Apple technology indiscriminately?

Selective hearing, however, is not just a syndrome of the times; listening has been a challenge to humanity for centuries.

The story is told of King Edward VII. His grandson, Prince David, and the King had a good relationship. Still, David was a child, and adults in England during that period, particularly royalty, were not known to be attentive listeners to children. At dinner one evening, Prince David tried unsuccessfully to get his grandfather's attention. The child was reprimanded immediately for interrupting the king's conversation, so the child sat in silence until eventually he was given permission to speak. When the king asked the prince what he wanted, the young boy said, “It's too late now, grandpapa. It was a caterpillar on your lettuce, but you've eaten it.”²

When I was Youth Pastor in Georgetown, MA, I was given the opportunity to preach once every other month. First Congregational Church has a large sanctuary, complete with exposed beams and upper balcony. There was a good sound system to compensate for the expanse. One summer day, in the middle of a sermon, a husband and wife got up from their pew toward the back of the room and marched forward, to the third pew from the front. Everybody noticed; I kept preaching but my eyes were focused on them. When they reseated themselves, the wife shot me a poisoned flaming arrow with both eyeballs.

After worship, she treated me to one of those exotic excursions up one side of me and down the other. “I can't hear you; you need to speak up!” Turned out, Mrs H had eaten a caterpillar. The next week she secretly, sheepishly, confessed to me that the week before, when she “persnicketedly” paraded down the aisle, the real problem turned out to be that her hearing-aid batteries had died.

When Jesus paraded Peter and James and John up a high mountain, our Lord had been telling these disciples that he would soon suffer and die yet his message was rejected by them. Such teaching was simply too painful to hear, too hard to conceive; it was unbearable news. So, Peter took him aside and began to take Jesus on one of those exotic excursions (Mk 8:32a). Peter and the brothers James and John could hear what the Lord said, yet they would not listen. They were failing at the first duty of love.

Each of us can recall a time when we were too preoccupied with our own issues to listen to someone who needed us to hear them. Listening, authentic listening, requires us to put down, tune out, move away from anything that distracts our listening to the one who desperately wants us to hear them.

Writer and preacher Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it.

“I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day....Before long, things around hour home started reflecting the patter of my hurry-up style. It was becoming unbearable.

“I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, 'Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin' and I'll tell you really fast.' Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, 'Honey, you can tell me, and you don't have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.' I'll never forget her answer. 'Then listen slowly.'”³

People in general spend about 40% of our waking hours listening, yet most of the time we are listening at 25% of our actual capacity. Here are three hearing aids that will help all of us:

• Listen with your eyes. Approximately 80% of communication is nonverbal. Facial expressions and body language usually tell the real story. Look at people when you listen to them.
• Listen with your heart. Be sympathetic. Tune into the emotions behind the words.
• Listen to the people around you—your family, your friends, your coworkers, even strangers. Every moment of every day each of us wants not only to tell our story but to have our story really heard.

Listening is hard work. Peter, James and John found that out. They loved hearing what Jesus had to say until Jesus said some things that were too hard—not just to hear, but also to bear for the words filled them with fear and the meaning was not clear. No wonder they were so frightened on the Mount of Transfiguration! Enters God, in a cloud.

I was in the mountains near North Conway earlier this week. It is hard to take in the complete view when one is driving. If you get lost in the awe of God's creation, you're apt to crash right into it! Winding through a steep mountain road, I could see ahead of me the presidential range, and there was the snow I've been longing to see, shining so brightly before me even though the distance was very far.

Thing about the mountains—whether in New Hampshire's February or Montana's July—is that clouds, dark or bright, can become suspended there, along the steep peaks and hidden plateaus—so that they actually seem to lay down upon the mountains, reposing to consider their next flight.

“Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (Mk 9:7). If the first duty of love is to listen, then the Christian's primary duty is to listen to Christ. To listen truly to Jesus Christ means this: to trust what he says, to use what he teaches, and to practice what he preaches. Christ is the beloved Son, the only Son, and God sent the Son to us not only to suffer and die for our sin, but after three days to rise again so that death is conquered and we who live in him also rise. God's love for us through the sacrifice of his son, the only son, must not be kept under cover, locked up in temples and tabernacles, frozen in sanctuaries and mosques.

God's message through Jesus Christ is meant to transfigure the world—to change the world in which we live so that it shines, shines, shines. Jesus is the light of the world, and his light is spread not by building booths to hold him in and keep him for our eyes and ears only, but by speaking his word in ways that the deaf may hear, the blind may see, the prisoners, freed; the sick, healed; the hungry fed; and the thirsty satisfied—beyond all measure.

To Christ, let us listen with our eyes—to see what the Lord desires to show us. Let's listen with our hearts, to receive and believe in God's Son, the beloved. Let's listen to him!”

What does Christ have to say to us that we need to hear?

Perhaps Christ wants to talk with us about how we are treating family members, co-workers or friends. Maybe he wants to talk to us about our discipleship or our faithfulness to his Church? He may want to talk with us about some undesirable behavior that has crept into our life. Or maybe, and quite likely, Christ wants to offer us encouragement as we live our lives.

The time is now for the syndrome of selective hearing to give way to the power of elective hearing. We lay ourselves down on God's mountain, we listen to the Son's teaching and desire to understand; and as clouds move out, we shine with God's great light; and we can do it with our own two hands, and our own two feet, when we listen with our own two eyes, and our own two ears, responding to the message we have heard from the one true heart that loves us all.

Friends, check your batteries. Listen slowly! To hear is to see, and to see is to know, and to know is to love, and to love is of God. If we fulfill the first duty of love and listen, we won't be eating any more caterpillars and better than that, we shall hear the voice of the Lord, for God is truly still speaking. Amen

February 19, 2012

The First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

1Paul Tillich, 1886-1965, a German-American theologian.

2John Kramp, Getting Ahead by Staying Behind (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), p 137.

3Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 13-14.

BOW THE KNEE

Mark 1:40-45

A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, “If you choose, you can make me clean.”

The leper came to Jesus begging him, kneeling in front of him. This untouchable knew what he was asking, thus he begged; and he knew of whom he was asking it, thus he kneeled. There's no doubt in the leper here. When he uses the “if” word, it's not the way you might be thinking. The “if” is not a word of uncertainty. The “if” is a statement of faith. “Teacher, I know that you have the power and authority to make me clean; there's no doubt in my mind that 'if you choose, you can make me clean'” (Mk 1:40).

Where did the leper come by his faith? He certainly did not get it from his religion. After all, leprosy was a punishment from God. Moses had said so. According to the Old Testament book of Leviticus (13:45, et al), the person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!'”

In one touch of Jesus' healing hand, with one soft and cleansing caress, not only is the leper healed of his disease, but he is also restored, body and soul, not just to health: he is alive again to family, community, and temple. The leper is brought back to life—working and worshiping and living among those to whom, the moment he was diagnosed,he was as good as dead. In fact, no one on the “inside” even knew if the one they had cast “outside” was dead or alive, nor did they care much, so long as they themselves did not sin before the synagogue.

We are much more enlightened nowadays, we have so much more knowledge about medicine and diseases and healing. We have made the connection between body and spirit and have started attending to the needs of each for the one who is ill. We have figured out that the touch to patient's body, mind and spirit—these three—is all important. Attending to all these needs can make a huge difference between curing and healing, surviving and thriving, wholeness and holiness.

Today, there hang on doors to patients' hospital rooms canvas bags with pockets in them, and each pocket contains a different supply for the staff and visitors to put on or use before having contact with the patient. In one pocket are yellow plastic gowns, another face masks, another holds gloves and still another looks like it holds some clear tubing. Outside every room is a canister that dispenses antibacterial foam, which we use before we enter that room and after we leave it.

When I was first starting out in chaplaincy last fall, I came to a room with this apparatus on the door, I confess that a couple of times I passed that patient by. I was worried, I guess, that I might catch physically whatever contagion that patient had, and I walked on. Yet, not two steps did I take before I felt it: that crashing, crushing wave of guilt. I felt my steps grow heavy, and my heart felt even heavier. I had let a millisecond of doubt in the form of the big question, What if? deter me from my mission.

Unlike the leper, my “if” was not a statement of faith; it was a matter of spiritual malfeasance. And so I went back, not to the rooms but to the people. So many hands reached out for mine—some were shaking from weakness brought on perhaps by age or alcoholism; some could not look at me and some could not understand why I was there. Yet even those who could not speak nor find courage, reached out for the touch of a hand, the touch of a hand that was not mine but his.

Compassion is not a requirement, a law; a mandate; it is the open door of discipleship. Compassion is the cross upon which Christ's disciples carry the leprous ills of humankind before the Lord, begging because we know the depth of what we are asking and kneeling because we know the glory of whom we are asking. If you choose, Lord, to make us clean then we exchange ritual for righteousness, we are liberated for your work and humbled by your majesty.

As the dreaded disease slid off the leper's oozing skin, so did the perpetual, painful punch of being banished from community begin to slide from his spirit. The man who had become a leper, unclean before all, becomes a man again, acceptable and accepted. And yet, God's son, who had become a man to make us all clean became unclean, unaccepted and unacceptable, in that one gesture of extending his hand. When Jesus touched the leper, Jesus exchanged places with him. Jesus took the man's un-cleanness upon himself, and he carried it the same way he carried the sins of humankind, our sins, to the cross. Why did he do it?

Christ's ministry in the world was all about touching peoples' souls for God; for bringing hearts and minds living outside in rejection by choice or by shunning to the center of the healing, holy circle of the beloved community that God created for all.

Pay attention. Christ did not heal because he was supposed to, he healed because he wanted to. IT is his choice. Look again at verse 41: “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean.”

Knowing who the Lord who gives you life is and what it is that the Lord requires of you is to be touched by holiness. We are changed. We may be loathed to kneel in subservience to earthly powers, but there is no better way to come before heaven. Bow the knee. In every gift—in every poverty—in every circumstance and every victory, bow the knee. I leave you with the words of a Christian hymn that has come to mean so much to me:

There are moments on our journey following the Lord Where God illumines ev’ry step we take. There are times when circumstances make perfect sense to us, As we try to understand each move He makes. When the path grows dim and our questions have no answers, turn to Him. *Bow the knee; Trust the heart of your Father when the answer goes beyond what you can see. Bow the knee; Lift your eyes toward heaven and believe the One who holds eternity. And when you don’t understand the purpose of His plan, In the presence of the King, bow the knee. There are days when clouds surround us, and the rain begins to fall, The cold and lonely winds won’t cease to blow. And there seems to be no reason for the suffering we feel; We are tempted to believe God does not know. When the storms arise, don’t forget we live by faith and not by sight. Bow the knee.... February 12, 2012 !st Parish Federated Church The Rev Donna Lee Muise, Pastor

SOMEONE WE CAN FOLLOW

When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”

A woman in St Petersburg, Florida, saw the image on a potato chip; someone else saw it on a piece of toast. Another saw it in a water stain. A couple in Canton, Ohio, thought they saw it in the wood grain of a door in their house. The image was so striking that the couple cut it out of the door and took it with them when they moved to another house, because just the thought of it encouraged them.

What is this image all these folks have seen that they cannot bear to part with it: “it” is the image of Jesus Christ. Usually these images make the news; are auctioned on Ebay; or even passed on to give encouragement to others, as was the case with the image in the wooden door. In an NBC online poll, 41% of the people who responded concerning the image claimed that they saw Jesus, too. It makes sense that Jesus' image should appear in a door, after all, Jesus did say, “I am the door” (John 10:7).

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus appears on the covers of Time and Newsweek? Statistics have shown that when Jesus appears on the cover, there is a spike in the magazines' sales. Considering the cultural conversation these days, Jesus is still a very popular person. If we can find him in a taco, a cheese puff and a potato chip, people must be looking pretty hard to find him.

Why look for Jesus in a rock slide, tree trunk or building reflection? Perhaps we are looking for the same miracles that all those who brought their sick and demon-possessed families and friends to the home of Simon Peter's mother-in-law. The word of Christ's whereabouts and the miracle he performed for the woman must have spread like wildfire through the countryside because within a matter of hours, Mark tells us, “That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door” (v 32).

The townspeople were smart to seek the Son of God, for Jesus came out from behind the door, and then and there “cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons” (v34a). The people kept arriving all through the night; good news travels fast even without Facebook, twitter and email.

People of the 21^st century are not so different from those who lived in the 1st century. Everyone needs

to heal, to get rid of the demons that have taken up residence in our bodies and minds, hearts and souls. How desperate we are to find him, for many marvel at the miracle of his face on the facade of a building, a tree root or a brain scan. Such things make the news, sell magazines and gets the world wondering. How is it that we can see his face on the inside of an orange but not acknowledge his sacrificial love bleeding out on a tree? Why is it that we will be healed by Jesus of the deadliest disease of all, sin, and yet not respond to this unmerited gift of being saved from death as Peter's mother-in-law did by getting up at once and serving him? Serving Jesus means to follow him not only during the times we are confident and secure but most especially in the dark nights of faith, terrifying times of wandering in spiritual wildernesses, and across the many battlefields in life.

In December 1944, the US Army and its Allies were on the offensive. For six months they had rolled on with relentless precision across Western Europe. There seemed to be no stopping them. But suddenly one day in that December, a major portion of the mighty Allied juggernaut ground to a halt. A brilliant counter offensive had been launched by the Germans.

A few days before the Allied operation, German soldiers dressed in American uniforms, together with American jeeps, were parachuted behind American lines. They carried no weapons; their only mission was to discover the roads over which reinforcing Allied armies might travel and change all the signs which pointed to strategic towns and villages. And this simple task of turning signposts to give wrong directions had deadly consequences.

When the Allies called for help as the Germans attacked during in the Battle of the Bulge, many of the reinforcements never arrived. You see, whole battalions were lost trying to find their way across a countryside where the signposts were either down or turned in the wrong direction.

We live in a time when many of the important signposts have been torn down or turned around—moral signposts, ethical signposts, theological signposts. It is no wonder that we lose our way in life; it is no surprise that many believe they are following Christ onto the serving fields, yet find themselves lost and defenseless on the battlefields because they thought they saw his image on a slice of toast, a dried and brittle leaf, a cookie. Some elements of our daily lives have caused us to go in wrong directions. We are so easily fooled, so inexplicably lost, so utterly confused.

Jesus has told us where to find him. He is with the sick, the hungry, the oppressed; the frightened, the lonely, the lost. No image can cure ailments give strength or protect from harm—even if you cut a hole in the door and carry that image with you wherever you go. Only the saving Lord, the one real healer and the granter of amazing grace will do. Imagery in water stains and rock slides can never bring and be Christ to the sick and sorrowing, the hurt and the hungering, the frightened and the thirsty; no, that ministry belongs to those of us who keep our eyes on him, follow him in the direction he leads, serve those along the way who desperately need to personal touch of God.

Yesterday, as I was beginning to write this sermon, I was called to the hospital, to ICU, where a gravely ill woman and her family had just been through a horrendous night. I did not know them; I may never see them again, for the patient was going to be transported to a hospital in Boston to save her life.

As I leaned over the bed to let her know a chaplain was with her now, I looked into her frightened eyes. I held her hand and her grip on mine let me know that she would not let go. She was intubated and could not speak with her voice, but she said volumes to me with her eyes.

A chaplain goes into a hospital ICU with clear and certain purpose during a most uncertain time: to bring the presence of God, the power of prayer and the gift of strong faith to the person in the bed and those gathered around it.

The one thing I was most aware of at that particular time, yesterday, was that I was a vessel for the presence of Christ to flow through. We are not the Christ, yet the Christ can be seen and felt in us, through us, around us. I needed and wanted to be the living image of Christ for this woman in that hour. In other words, I turned myself over to Jesus, so that it was he in my eyes looking into her eyes. It was his hand with my hand holding onto her hand.

If 41% of pollsters can see Christ's image in a piece of wood, then it seems pretty clear to me that they are desperate to see him; so desirous are they that they settle for an inanimate image. How unsettling this knowledge should be for those who serve the Lord. If everyone is looking for Jesus, then the way for him to be found is embodied in the living flesh and blood of those who follow him to serve him.

When Peter went out early that morning to hunt for the missing Jesus, he went out because he was nervous about the crowds gathered around his mother-in-law's house. Peter was very anxious about the innumerable needs of the people, and he was fearful of what they might do if they learned that the healer they sought was not available to them. Simon found Jesus in prayer, and he was a bit impertinent with the Lord. “Everyone is searching for you” (v 37). If only Peter had understood that Christ could comfort and heal through him, perhaps he would have avoided his anxious fever and done as his mother-in-law had done, that is, to rise up and begin to serve the Lord's people himself.

Christ is the Lord, someone we can follow all of our days. There is much to be done, and the path is not always level and smooth. There will be rough places to travel; mountains to climb and battlefields to cross for the sake of the one who poured out his life on the cross and then rose from the dead. Christ is Lord and invites us to his table today, that we may eat and drink of his passion, filled with his spirit to serve all those who are in need of a Savior. When we come to this table of the Lord, let us eat his body and drink his life's blood, that he may love and heal, forgive and uplift all who are looking for the direction, power and strength that only the Son of God can give. Be the eyes, be the hands, , be the very image of Christ alive in this world. Amen.

February 5, 2012

First Parish Federated Church of South Berwick, ME

The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor