"Bread For The World"
Reading & Collect
This week's readings can be found here for this Sunday, the fifth of Lent, Passiontide begins John 12.1-8
Our weekly reflection will be part of our Online Service on our Facebook Page on Sunday
A Special Prayer for the Crisis in Ukraine
Poem
Comfort Animal
Joy Ladin A voice says, “Your punishment has ended.” You never listen to that voice. You really suck at being comforted.
Another voice says, “Cry.” That voice always gets your attention, keeps you thinking
about withered flowers and withering grass and all the ways you’re like them. Hard to argue with that.
Death tramples you, an un-housebroken pet trailing prints and broken stems, pooping anxiety, PTSD, depression.
It’s better to be animal than vegetable but best of all is to be spirit flying first or maybe business class
with your emotional support animal, your body, curled in your lap, soaring with you above the sense of loss you’ve mistaken
for the closest to God you can get. You want to cry? Cry about that. Who do you think created
the animals to whom you turn for comfort, dogs, miniature horses, monkeys, ferrets, hungers you know how to feed,
fears you know how to quiet? I form them, fur them, it’s my warmth radiating from their bodies,
my love that answers the love you lavish upon them. Your deserts and desolations
are highways I travel, smoothing your broken places, arranging stars and constellations
to light your wilderness. Sometimes I play the shepherd; sometimes I play the lamb;
sometimes I appear as death, which makes it hard to remember that I am the one who assembled your atoms,
who crowned your dust with consciousness. I take you everywhere, which is why, wherever you go, I’m there,
keeping you hydrated, stroking your hair, laughing when you chase your tail, gathering you to my invisible breasts
more tenderly than any mother. You’re right—you never asked for this. I’m the reason your valleys are being lifted up,
the source of your life laid bare. Mine is the voice that decrees— that begs—your anguish to end.
When you suffer, I suffer. Comfort me by being comforted.
To Pray for
Continued hope of a peaceful resolution between the Ukraine and Russia and for the people of Ukraine and Russia living in fear
Love
Mindfulness in all that we do
The Queen and the Royal Family following the Thanksgiving Service for Prince Philip