Dear Friends,
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
We are so deeply thankful for our Kaleid community. You are beautiful, courageous, inspiring, authentic, kind women who follow Jesus faithfully and whose following draws others into the path of life.
Thank you.
Today we offer an invitation:
We’d be just so thrilled to have you join us for our Advent Contemplative Circle. We will be spending time with four words for the four Sundays of Advent: hope, peace, joy, and love, as we ponder Mary’s story. We will do this using the practice of Visio Divinia--divine seeing--where we combine scripture and art in a contemplative prayer practice. Our meetings are at 6:30 am on Wednesday mornings on zoom. Won’t you join us? Register here.
And we share a table thought:
You bravely went with us into some musings on power, vulnerability, and systems over the last few weeks. Thank you. One thing we know is that differences have become more powerful recently. More distinct. Sharper. More fearsome.
But differences are meant to strengthen us. Our age, our experience, our networks, our culture, our loves, our dislikes, our perspectives, our dreams...these things are the stuff of being human. We need one another to be richer, stronger, better resourced people. So, whomever your table holds tomorrow…
May you be enriched by the variety you encounter.
May you deploy power in service of blessing.
May you recognize the life of God in the face of another.
May you find that differences become places of depth.
May you offer and receive the kindness of Jesus, remembering that, “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.” (Prov. 20:27)
We close with a Thanksgiving blessing for you:
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love. We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side. We thank you for setting us at tasks that demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments that satisfy and delight us. We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone. Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he conquered death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom. Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known; and through him, at all times and in all places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.
We appreciate each of you!
Happy Thanksgiving,
The Kaleid Team