Worship Time Sunday at 9:00 

Wild Rose Congregational Church will now meet one hour earlier at 9:00 am every Sunday.  We are still at the Senior's Resource Center, 5120 Highway 73, Evergreen, CO.  We still have fellowship afterwards at 10:00 am!

Pentecost A:  Numbers 11:24-30, Psalm 104, Acts 2:1-21  “In Praise of the Spirit”

There is a wonderful rendition of the flames of the Holy Spirit on display in our worship space today.  Mary Rossi Noonan found a way to enlarge the form with a projector and our kids colored it one year.  The pencils they had were not particularly bright or vibrant, so the next year they worked on it again and made it come alive even more.  In my own life, I have found that relying on the Spirit, when I can bring myself to do so, makes me more alive, more light, more free.  Throughout history, we find that the Spirit can greatly influence people and their abilities to communicate.  The Holy Spirit, often characterized by wind, flame or dove, can heal us and rekindle a fire in us, a prophetic fire, a fire that can make even the most ordinary person into a powerful orator, a person who has found his or her “voice.”  The point is contained in the poem I read for our invocation and in the life of its writer, Hildegard of Bingen, a 12^th Century Benedictine Abbess. 

View the May 2008 Newsletter

The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Copyright © 2004, 2008 - Eco-Justice Ministries

The Sorcerer's Apprentice is an ancient tale put into verse by Goethe, and into musical form by Paul Dukas. Walt Disney used the composition in his animated collection, Fantasia -- thus the problem in connecting Mickey's big ears with a serious topic.

The story has a youngster studying under a powerful sorcerer. As was the pattern with such apprenticeships, the student role includes household tasks, like carrying buckets of water. Not surprisingly, the youth doesn't like the duty of lugging buckets.

Gas Tax Holiday 

About two weeks ago, in mid-April, US Presidential candidate John McCain floated a proposal for a "gas tax holiday" between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The idea seems to have hit a resonant popular chord in a time of rising gasoline prices. The ongoing debate among the three candidates has been a prominent part of the political news.

This one policy proposal shows the intersection between economics (both household and national), energy (fuel supplies and corporate control), environmental issues (climate change and policies such as auto fuel efficiency), media influences in the formation of our community conversations, and the functioning of political processes (in legislatures and on the campaign trail). A simple -- or simplistic -- idea has revealed complexities and conflicts that often are hidden.

I am both intrigued and disturbed by what has been brought to light in this one strand of the political news. My musings today will only touch on a few of the many and complex layers of the situation. I hope that my thoughts might stimulate more depth and diversity in the discussion of both this headline news, and of much longer-term issues.