Bulletin 4.14.24

“The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic shrines to thirst.” 

Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder and Other Stories

"There is no truth about me other than the truth of Jesus. One dimension of being in Christ is thus very practical. It changes the hermeneutic that we use to read our existence and interpret our experience; it renews our minds and allows us to see ourselves as we truly are: creatures who know ourselves only in relation to Jesus. There was therefore never a time when who we were was determined by the particular neurological configuration of our brains. We may have thought there was, but we were quite wrong. Who we are is who we are in Christ, and, crucially, that is hidden... 

There is a crucial Christ-centered continuity and discontinuity with what we have been in the past, what we are now, and what we will be in the future. The time before our trauma was the time when we were who we were in Christ. The time after the trauma is a time when we remain in Christ. Jesus holds the center.” 

- John Swinton, Becoming Friends of Time 

St. Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy 1.8-10 

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel...

(Prayer)