Back yard church

For years I have been threatening to hold church in my back yard. I've always felt that our backyard was a sanctuary--sometimes for the birds but also for us and our friends. So yesterday we finally did it.

Rhia has been writing colleges and researching seminaries in hopes of maybe becoming a reverend someday. We decided she should get a little taste of what that would be like. So we put up the screen tent on the top of the hill, built a very simple altar putting elements of earth, wind, water & fire and the 3 of us (guess who sat it out?) each took parts of the service to head up. Rhia was in charge of sermon, I was in charge of readings and Barry was in charge of music. Cory was in charge of cynicism....LOL

It was so fun. We sang our fool head's off--in fact, our neighbor came outside looking to see what the caterwauling was about. We lit candles, we took communion, we made an offering and wrote it down and put it on the altar to remind ourselves what we promised and then we burned what we needed to let go. Rhia's sermon was great--the readings were wonderful. She picked the topic of Faith so of course we had to sing Sting. It felt like what the early church must have been like when the disciples were thinking it up. Wherever 2 or 3 are gathered--He is there. We closed with one of my favorite poems--just in case you missed church yourself, I have copied it for you:

Do you need Me?

I am there.

You cannot see Me,

yet I am the light you see by.

You cannot hear Me,

yet I speak through your voice.

You cannot feel Me,

yet I am the power at work in your hands.

I am at work,

though you do not understand My ways.

I am at work,

though you do not understand My works.

I am not strange visions.

I am not mysteries.

Only in absolute stillness,

beyond self,

can you know Me as I am,

and then but as a feeling and a faith.

Yet I am there.

Yet I hear.

Yet I answer.

When you need Me,

I am there.

Even if you deny Me,

I am there.

Even when you feel most alone,

I am there.

Even in your fears,

I am there.

Even in your pain,

I am there.

I am there when you pray and when you do not pray.

I am in you, and you are in Me.

Only in your mind can you feel separate from Me,

for only in your mind are the mists of "yours" and "mine."

Yet only with your mind can you know Me and experience Me.

Empty your heart of empty fears.

When you get yourself out of the way,

I am there.

You can of yourself do nothing,

but I can do all.

And I am in all.

Though you may not see the good, good is there, forI am there.

I am there because I have to be, because I am.

Only in Me does the world have meaning;

only out of Me does the world take form;

only because of Me does the world go forward.

I am the law on which the movement of the stars

and the growth of living cells are founded.

I am the love that is the law's fulfilling.

I am assurance.

I am peace.

I am oneness.

I am the law that you can live by.

I am the love that you can cling to.

I am your assurance.

I am your peace.

I am ONE with you.

I am.

Though you fail to find Me, I do not fail you.

Though your faith in Me is unsure,

My faith in you never wavers,because I know you,

because I love you.

Beloved,

I AM there.

i am there - james dillet freeman - 1947