January-Ordinary time

 

Yesterday the liturgical calendar for most Christian churches brought an end to the season of Christmas, with the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. So, I guess that means it's a return to "normal" or average days or something other than huge celebrations!

This reality of "Ordinary Time" is never really calm, ordinary and Polyanna-like. One thing that's coming up this week is a return to Take Back the Site prayer vigils, as homicides for 2025 have already begun. In 2024 the City of Erie counted 5, though the number is larger if you expand to the boroughs and townships of the County. Now on January 1st we started a new year with one. Very sad reality for us and possibly for where you live, also.

We are in between lake effect storms (!) and as such we had a larger number of people attending our Sunday service this past weekend. There was a rousing version of "Go Tell It On the Mountain" to end the celebration--helped in no small part by our organist who is now 98% recovery from a broken knee cap a few months ago. Speaking of last year, we have begun celebrating the one-year anniversaries of four sisters who died last January. The concept of dying, passing on to the next life, however you see it, has one very difficult piece for me: we miss them--terrribly. Also the mystery of passing time, be it 1, 5 or 15 years always takes me by surprise, as in "How can it be 10 years?"  

I recently saw that Disney has produced a new version of the Lion King. So here I am humming "The Circle of Life" again. But it really fits, not just in the Disney world.