Greetings my dear friends and family.
Word Made Flesh believes in time around the table. If you've spent much time with me, you know that this is something I appreciate. I love to cook for friends-more so, eat with friends-and I love the fellowship found in those times. It's time you spend facing each other rather than facing the same direction. You get to see others' faces and are seen, whether or not you want to be.
The morning of Maundy Thursday, several WMF office staff gathered on the red shag carpet in the set-apart space of the chapel where we gather each week with socked feet and sleep-tinged voices. The morning sun and candles warm the room, and the gentle fog and smell of incense remind us of the prayers we send up to our Father.
I think this space in the week is where our community comes together most vulnerable. We are tired in many ways and ready for the embrace we find there. And we come together, though vulnerable, to strengthen the others, both present and around the globe. Appropriately, we spent the morning of the day that commemorates the Last Supper in a circle, facing each other, and shared communion.
We discussed what communion has become in many churches: the ushers pass around trays of pill-sized tablets of bread and cough-syrup-size cups of grape juice. Chris [Heuertz] led us in wondering, How did communion, the root of which is community, become single-servings of medicating ourselves?
Our contemporary tradition was especially strange to Chris as he celebrated a Passover Seder with a Jewish friend. In that celebration, the door is kept open. Anyone passing by who is hungry could come in and feast. How could anyone be filled if they came into a communion service offering tablets of bread? And it is sad when the congregation doesn't even go forward together. Of course I realize that communion is no longer intended to be a meal, and sometimes having everyone get up and move around can be a logistics nightmare…I just found these reflections from Chris interesting.
As our time together drew to a close, we passed around a loaf of leavened sesame bread. In WMF, we tear off the piece of bread that our neighbor will eat. Chris tore mine, a mighty chunk, and it took me several bites to finish it. May we always offer each other time filled with real substance.
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Ways you can pray:
The Heuertzes (we never know how to pluralize this!) are going on the first part of their sabbatical for the month of May. Please pray for their time together and with God, and pray for us, in their stead.
The Bolivia field lost the building they were renting and had poured lots of love into. Pray that the Lord would make clear the appropriate next steps for this already weary team.
Please join me in prayer for supporters who can commit to monthly giving. I truly am grateful for all that has been given to me, and I am excited to see what will happen. Thanks for joining with me in this time.
Things I've been enjoying:
The music of Amos Lee. The novel The History of Love (Daphne gave it to me for Christmas and I love it, and even though I haven't finished it yet-I'm drinking it slowly-it may be my favorite story of all time). Snow in April-just kidding!!
I remember you with joy.
Thanks for reading,
Mandy Mowers
“The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, 'Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.'” -Mark 6:30-31