It is the eve of St. Mary’s annual celebration of the Feast of St. Mary. For fourteen days, we’ve prayed daily for God’s presence in the lives of each member of our parish family.  Tomorrow, as we come together for worship and fellowship, we begin to listen for another year of God’s yeses.  And God’s noes.

Today is the day before everything changes.

After over sixty years of walking with God, I am keenly aware of how quickly things can change.  In small and not so small ways.  It is thought-provoking to think about where we are one moment, and then it seems as if one thing happens, and everything changes.

One minute you are pregnant.  The next minute you are holding your baby in your arms.
One minute you are driving to work singing along with the radio.  The next minute you are changing a tire beside the road.
One minute the power is on, the next moment a fire hits the local power plant, and you are without electricity for eight hours.
One minute you have a bowl of milk, honey, and melted butter, then you add yeast, and the next minute there’s a bubbly mixture ready to leaven bread.

The truth is, we know that it is not only one minute of passing time for changes to occur.  All of those one minutes are actually a myriad of minutes involving an assortment of people and actions.  It can feel like like a snap of time, and everything changes, but we know that each change is the result of layers of choices and decisions.

Each minute is a moment of change, an opportunity for change, based on a trove of factors.

Prayer in the mix may be the most important change agent.  After that, comes our own yes and our own no in response to God’s yeses and noes.

Today, take a moment to pray.  It will take less than a minute.  And, yes, everything will change.

Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. 
Strengthen the faithful,  arouse the careless, and restore the penitent.
Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Today is my Sabbath and I am at my mother’s farm, having celebrated my brother’s birthday with dinner last night, prepared by my mom, and eaten with her and both my brothers. Of course the dinner included pie, very delicious pie, made from pears from my mother’s neighbor’s tree.

Strengthen the faithful,  arouse the careless, and restore the penitent.
Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

One of the gifts of serving in a church called St. Mary’s is having a mom as our patron.  I think of Mary trying to get Jesus up in the morning.  Cleaning up Jesus’ spilled beverages.  Packing his lunch.  Washing his clothes.  Cooking food that Jesus may or may not have liked and listening to his complaints.  Mending clothes torn in play.  Answering Jesus’ questions after school.  Listening to his stories, especially when she was too tired to do so.  Tucking Jesus in at night and praying prayers with him.

It’s good to have Mary as a companion wherever we are in our parenting journey, whether being a biological parent, an adoptive parent, a godparent, and/or a parent in Christ.

Today many students go back to school in our area.  Teachers and school staff have been back for at least a week.  At St. Mary’s, on Sunday, as has been our custom for a number of years, students brought backpacks to be blessed.  Blessings were bestowed on all students and school staff by our whole congregation.

And, as is our custom, we gave out backpack tags with the prayer that the children of St. Mary’s (which means children of all ages) pray:

Moms and dads have told me about praying this prayer with their children in the car on the way to school. I know that it’s the first prayer that comes to my lips each morning.  It’s the breakfast prayer I pray with my grandsons.

I love this prayer.  When I pray it, I hear the voices of the St. Mary’s children praying it with me.  It feels like a new start no matter what has happened the day before.

There’s a commercial on tv that shows a group of children preparing to have a good beginning to a new school year.  They are singing an adaption of the Whitesnake song, “Here I go again.”  It’s the hopeful, kid-friendly version:

I don’t know where I’m going,
But I sure know where I’ve been
I’ve made up my mind,
I’m not wasting no more time
Here I go again on my own,
Going down the only road I’ve ever known

On this first day of school, many children go to school wearing brand new clothes.  They carry new bags to hold lunches and new book bags or backpacks.  However, other children don’t because of economic and social challenges, and we pray for how we can make sure they have the clothes, food, and supplies they need and containers to carry their food and supplies.  How can we share our blessings with all children and help them feel confident and secure?

In God’s kingdom, each day is the first day of life.  Each day, God gives us the garment of Christ to wear, the spiritual food we need, and hands, hearts, and minds to carry everything we need.

And so we pray for our parish family as we are parents to a whole world of children, with Mary as our holy model:

Almighty and everliving God, ruler of all things in heaven and earth, hear our prayers for this parish family. 
Strengthen the faithful,  arouse the careless, and restore the penitent.
Grant us all things necessary for our common life, and bring us all to be of one heart and mind within your holy Church;through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen