Karen Kelsey (aka the butterfly lady) writes: This comic appeared in the Post-Dispatch, Monday, April 27. I couldn’t resist sharing it with my 2PC family! MACANUDO by Liniers

Back in November before this whole pandemic started, I was part of a 2PC worship retreat. One idea that came up in a discussion with Barbara Willock was making greater use of art on the front of the weekly bulletin. I mentioned, as an arbitrary example, a painting that I’ve always loved, Caravaggio’s “Supper at Emmaus,” for the relevant Sunday after Easter. Well, on Sunday Travis preached about the Emmaus story (Luke 24:13-35) and I was too distracted to get organized and we missed that opportunity to do anything with the bulletin. “The Supper at Emmaus” is a painting that can be found in London’s National Gallery and, growing up on the outskirts of London, I would visit both the gallery and the painting often. In my last year of high school and I did a project on Caravaggio – a mixture of sketches based on his paintings and an analytical paper on his technique – and my high school art teacher, Mrs. Finch, turned me on to the idea that a painting could read closely in the same wa...

Nancy Quigley writes: What with Earth Day this week and its reminder that we are all connected, and each part of creation has a voice, I liked this message from a tree in my neighborhood.

The photo below is from a recent Post-Dispatch story, “Priest fills St. Louis County church with photos of congregation to unite, despite pandemic.” It profiles the Rev. Bob Evans of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Maryland Heights, who has filled his church’s   pews with images of more than 400 photos of members of the congregation. "I saw an Italian priest who did this and I wanted to do this in my parish," said the Rev. Bob Evans, who celebrates morning mass in front of photos of parishioners on Saturday, April 4, 2020, at Holy Spirit Church in Maryland Heights. Evans asked parishioners to email him family photos so he could see them during live-streamed mass. Photo by Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Today I received a link from a monk with whom I work to an interesting piece titled, “We are All Monks Now.” The school where I work, St. Louis Priory, is under the auspices of a monastery of about 25 monks who follow the Rule of St. Benedict, th...

During Travis's Maundy Thursday homily, he challenged us to consider what kinds of everyday ritual can we create or adapt to aid us in our spiritual growth. Karen Kelsey had previously mentioned her newly acquired habit of singing "I am gonna live so God can use me" while washing her hands. Below is what came to mind for me - how about you? If you have something worth sharing, please consider writing a blog post about it. *** OK. Let’s see if I can do this without revealing my passwords that would give you comprehensive access to my email account and bank accounts! For the last few years I’ve followed the widely offered advice of creating passwords that are relatively long nonsense “passphrases,” using a key that means something to me and to me only. I tend to adapt arbitrary phrases that flit across my consciousness by taking the initial letters of the words and shaping them into a phrase. “Don’t forget to get milks and eggs” could become “Dftgmae” for instance...

Tim Woodcock writes: Today is the start of Passover. Here is a fascinating news article about what Passover looks like locally this year, given the current situation with coronavirus. https://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/a-pandemic-passover-st-louis-area-jewish-faithful-mark-holiday-in-a-year-different-from/article_a6225cd9-460e-5057-9ef9-714dd44a0d65.html This line in the Post-Dispatch article particularly jumped out at me: “We sing ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ during the Seder, meaning next year there will be freedom. But this year it also, to me, means next year we will be together again, next year I will get to see you, next year this will be over.” Nancy Quigley adds : In an article by Alana Newhouse (NYTimes, April 5) titled “The Power of Passover During a Plague,” she describes this religious observance as “an agglomeration of a long and global inheritance,” a story which must be told to the children. The Haggadah is a sort of narrative for Passover and i...

Daffodils in our garden, South City, St. Louis. Submitted by Elizabeth McDonald-Zwoyer.

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Tim Woodcock writes: This poem was recently passed around at the school where I work. I don’t know anything much about the poet, Saadi Shiraz, other than he’s a very big deal in the Persian tradition. As the note that accompanied the poem when I first encountered it earlier in the week said, the metaphor of “the limbs of one body” applies especially well during this time of a global pandemic.  Bani Adam The children of Adam are limbs of one body That in creation are made of one essence. When life and time hurt a limb, Other limbs will not be at ease. You who are not sad for the suffering of others, Do not deserve to be called human. by Saadi Shiraz, 1258 translated from Arabic