OpenSpirit

OpenSpirit pilgrims and friends …

Our OpenSpirit community will mark Memorial Day in shared fellowship with our brothers and sisters on the streets in Framingham, in a special gathering of remembrance and hope.  Please note the different time and location – 5pm, downtown Framingham Common on Park Street – only for this week’s gathering.  Willie’s press release, below, should tell you everything you need to know!

We will return to the Performing Arts Center the following Sunday evening, May 31st at our usual time, 7pm, for a spirit-filled celebration of Pentecost, with special musical guests!

Press Release

What:  A Service of Remembrance and Hope for People Who’ve Died on the Street

Where:  Town Common, Downtown Framingham (Route 126 at Park Street, across from the Salvation Army)

When:  Sunday, May 24, 2009

Time:  5:00 p.m.

Cost:  Free

Wheelchair Access:  Yes

Sponsored by:  OpenSpirit Community, SackCloth Ministries and Framingham Street Ministries

Contact:  Willie Sordillo  508-628-9294

This Memorial Day weekend, in addition to honoring those who’ve given their lives in defense of the nation through military service, a collaboration of OpenSpirit creative worship community, SackCloth Ministries and Framingham Street Ministries will offer a Service of Remembrance and Hope for People Who’ve Died on the Street in Downtown Framingham.

The service will honor those who’ve died while living on the street and offer hope to those who continue to live without permanent shelter.  The service will take place on Sunday, May 24 beginning at 5:00 PM on the Downtown Framingham Common (Route 126 at Park Street.)

The service will be led by the Revs. Debbie Clark (OpenSpirit and Edwards Church, UCC), Andrea Castner Wyatt (OpenSpirit and Aseracare Hospice), Jim Bachman (Framingham Street Ministries), Louis Miller (SackCloth Ministries), and Faith Tolson (Greater Framingham Community Church) with participation from other local clergy.

Music will be contributed by Willie Sordillo, Erin Craig, Lynne Miller and others.  The service will offer a remembrance for those who we’ve lost, a blessing for those in attendance and those who live on the streets, and a gift of the bread of life.

All are welcome and there is no charge.

For more information, please contact Willie Sordillo at 508/628-9294 or wsax@rcn.com.

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OpenSpirit Sunday Evening:  May 17, 2009; 7-8pm; Performing Arts Center of MetroWest

“Glimpses of the Divine”

You know the experience:  in the middle of attending to something pressing, worrisome, or tedious, you suddenly find yourself and the tangle of things demanding your attention interrupted.  A moment of insight.  A sense of being “at-oned” (as the late-medieval visionary, Julian of Norwich, was fond of putting it) with the world, or some local instance of it.  A realization of giftedness.  A deep breath of mercy.

Julian of Norwich

We’ll dwell in these experiences in our worship gathering.  Some will come from a marvelous poem by Jane Kenyon, “Briefly it Enters, and Briefly Speaks” (find it at:  http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15916).  Each line begins with the phrase familiar to us from Jesus’ teaching in the gospel of John:  “I am. . .”.

Kenyon extends them beyond “the good shepherd,” “the vine,” “the bread of life,” etc., to include ordinary images (as these, too, are) from her daily life.  She adds a line taken right from Julian’s writings:  “I am the maker, the lover, the keeper,” this mystic’s interpretation of the trinity in a non-gendered form.

What are the moments when you might say, “Yes, I sensed God’s presence as love, or mercy, or kindness, in that moment.”  Translate it into the phrase, “I am. . .”  In this way, we’ll build a story of how the divine is present among us, when we have eyes to see.  We’ll share our “glimpses” and shape our own witness.

Are you seeking new ways to worship?  Yearning for fresh expressions of an ancient tradition?  Are you hungry for authentic spiritual community?  Come, join us at OpenSpirit.  And all shall be well.  In fact, as Dame Julian would say, ‘All manner of things shall be well.’  Pray with us:  Come, Open Spirit, come!

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OpenSpirit Sunday Evening;  May 10, 2009;  7-8pm;  Performing Arts Center of MetroWest

Appearances of the Sacred:  Our Easter-season exploration of the holy around us takes shape as a celebration of Mother’s Day.

Spring Dance, Sugar Creek Quilters

Holy Piecing Toward Wholeness.

Quilts!  Join us on Mother’s Day evening, as we lift up an image of God drawn from one of the traditional ways women have expressed their creativity and caring.

In word and song, silence and story, we will encounter God as Quiltmaker, gathering the torn and scattered pieces of our lives, and creating of them wholeness and beauty.

We invite you to bring with you a favorite quilt, or another hand-made article to display!  There will be an opportunity, if you would like, to share its story with us as well.

OpenSpirit is a creative worship gathering in the Christian tradition.  If you are seeking spiritual community, if you are hungry for a deeper experience of Spirit, join us!  All are welcome!

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OpenSpirit Sunday Evening; April 26, 2009; 7-8pm

“The Masks We Wear”

A wise Scot, John Bell, suggests that our churches are too often like “gatherings of strangers,” people masked in ways that prevent us from a real knowing of who we are together with others.  It may well be true, for just this reason, that our longing to find the courage and clarity to drop the masks we put on — or those others seem to put on us — is a deep source of hope for us.  Tonight, we’ll explore masks, those that we choose to wear to keep us safe and those that we become accustomed to.

"Road to Emmaus," He Qi

We’ll hear an ancient story about a journey of friends who could not see a truth that was visible in their midst, perhaps because of the masks they had taken up in their fear and confusion.  We’ll put on masks, and consider what it means to keep them on — and how it feels to move among other masked persons.

We’ll also explore a poem by Bill Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” which begins:

“If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. ”

Will we find the right god who can help us set our masks aside, and find the way “home” by the light of the star shining in the night sky to guide us?  Join us for music, meditation, song, prayer, and ritual as we explore what it means to be people called into the light and offered the courage to be ourselves and see others with a knowing that is freedom.

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OpenSpirit Friends!  On Sunday, April 19th, at 7:00 pm, we will begin our Easter season theme ‘Appearances of the Sacred’ with an Earth-Day celebration of the sacred in Creation.

We invite you to bring with you a brief poem or reading to share, focusing on the sacred in Creation.  Or bring an object from nature.  No pressure … just invitation!

Blessings to You!

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