FEATHER (Prayer): Creator God, we, the children of creation, lift our prayers of thanksgiving and praise as we take our beginning steps in this new Easter and the continuance of the season of spring. Humble our hearts and strengthen our spirits as we seek your face in the change of the world around us. Embolden us that we might invite and welcome you to guide and awaken us from the long slumber of our winter season of heart and mind. Open our eyes that we might see your light and peace, that we together, walking in truth and faith, might be drawn as one to new life and hope. May your word speak to our witness and ministry as we remember our beginning in you. This we pray in Christ, Amen.
SAGE (Offering): Spring is before us and thus a sacred beginning. Beginnings and new life are ever before us as children of creation. To think that we all start out with-in the circle of a sacred beginning, a call of the Creator, (Isaiah 6:8)! How we respond in that moment determines our personal journey. But too often in the journey of life and faith, we place ourselves too highly on the scale of importance, thinking that it is for us to change the world and to correct and call out injustices. Humility teaches us that we should never elevate ourselves and that we should instead do our small part which, combined with the efforts of others in our community, helps make up a greater whole. No one we look up to and admire got there by themselves; instead, they walked with and behind a greater host and community of leaders before them. None became famous without the approval of others. Our humble beginnings and call all need to be remembered in humility. None of us human beings are perfect; we all have failed and offended. And yet Christ came to be one with us—he lived, died and rose again for us that we might have a new and sacred beginning with our Creator God.
