September 24, 2013

Greetings to All,
I trust the first week of autumn brings each of you health, peace and joy. Autumn is my favorite season of the year. With you, I am looking forward.
Our Scripture this coming Sunday will be 1 Timothy 6:6-19. This text ends with the an expression of the hope that the members of Timothy’s community will “take hold of life that is really life.” Earlier in the text Timothy himself is urged to “take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.”
These exhortations are best understood as invitations to each of us to  recognize that the Eternal can be experienced in the present and that as much as the Eternal seeks us out, we have some responsibility to actively, even aggressively, seek out the Eternal. In order to do this we need to understand that we are more likely to find the Eternal in goodness than in gold, in giving than in grasping.
In the Forum we will begin an open-ended series of conversations about race. Following the George Zimmerman verdict President Obama urged the citizens of the United States to recommit themselves to such discussions. The purpose of these discussions is not to “solve” anything but to consider the ways in which this complex reality called race works itself out in our lives, our families, our congregation  and our community. We will begin by reading a letter Roy Medley, the General Secretary of the American Baptist Churches wrote on the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I urge and invite you to attend.

Prayers of the Congregation

Concerns

• Cynthia Taylor (John Muir Hospital) and Family
• The Wilkinson Family for Evan (Surgery on October 1)
• The Meads Family for Sean Bochaver and LaKeysha
• Kay Baxter for Stacey (health and employment) and Jamie (good spirits)
• Carol Leichter for Annie and family (a co-worker who lost her brother to a heart attack)
• The people of Kenya in the face of the terrorist attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi.
• The people of Pakistan in the face of the terrorist attack on All Saints Church in Peshawar
• The people of Washington D.C. in the face of the mass killings at the Navy Yard
• The people of Syria
• Max Powers
• Joan Thatcher
• Edna Dorenzo
• Virgina Damretzky
• Fanny Leary
• Charlotte Myers for her sister
• Cecil White for his brother
• Ann Fields for her brother
• Beth and David Rice (My sister and husband in the midst of a very complicated move.)
• Sandra Dunn
• Lari Musatti for her son Greg and family
• Karen Hopkins for Amy
• LCC Teacher Leticia as she recuperates from surgery
• PCBA Leaders Don and Linda Sheppard
• Chuck Johnston as Kevin  prepares to return to work

Celebrations

• Thanksgiving that Sheila Sims was able to be in worship
• Thanksgiving with Mary Karne that her daughter is recuperating from eye surgery
• Thanksgiving with Carol Leichter for Steve’s caregivers
• Thanksgiving with Tyrone Mack that his eye is healing
• Thanksgiving for the visit of Garrett Zambrows and the anti-human trafficking efforts of our American Baptist Churches
• Thanksgiving for the Ceasefire efforts of the City of Oakland and the Oakland Community Organizations
• Thanksgiving with the Lee family that Sylvia seems to be responding well to dialysis
• Thanksgiving with Jessie Guiton as she prepares for the opening of Senior House

Announcements

Coming Events – Saturday October 6, 9:30 Seafarer’s Stroll (International Maritime Center near Middle Harbor Park), 2:00 Blessing of the Animals (Front Steps of Sanctuary)