At our 8:30 service each Sunday, we light candles during the Prayers of the People. They are small beeswax candles that we light from a larger common candle, all placed in a bowl of sand that resides in the middle of our gathering. These are the words I say before the prayers: "As we enter into a time of prayer, I draw your attention to the bowl in the middle of the room. It is filled with sand, which represents our ancestors' journey through the desert and our own desert times in our lives. In the middle is a candle, representing the Light of Christ. If you have a special prayer to bring to the Light of Christ today, you are invited to light a candle and place it in the sand."

Things are hard right now, across the country and especially here in Minnesota. Gut-wrenching and scary and heartbreaking, at times. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and isolated. But I think it's helpful to remember we aren't the first people to go through difficult times. We stand on the shoulders of ancestors who walked through their own deserts. People who also feared and doubted sometimes. People who came to know that God did not abandon them in the wilderness, but dwelled with them there, and called them to carry Light for one another. We stand on their shoulders, we lean on their strength, and we are wrapped in their care.

When we light our 8:30 prayer candles, the Light of Christ does not float magically above our struggles, it is planted right in the sand with us. What we're doing is boldly claiming that love can be found right in the middle of pain, fear, and worry. And all the candles together in the same bowl remind us that we belong to one another, that no one walks in the desert alone, and that together we are brighter and bolder and more hopeful.

I'll miss you while I'm away from Saint Anne's over the next few weeks. My prayer for you is to be bright, and bold, and hopeful, and together. My prayer is that you remember that you are held you are held by the energy of goodness and promise that we call God, you are held by the ancestors, and you are held in my prayers, too, every day.

Blessings,
Jennifer