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NATURE OF GOD ART EXHIBIT
Watch our sanctuary walls come to life soon, in celebration of "THE NATURE OF GOD." Photographers, painters, and assorted artists in our congregation will mount a group display of landscapes, flowers, animals...images of God's creative power which compel us to respond with art of our own.
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SOLAR BY THE NUMBERS
This Month
Generated: 708 kWh
Used: 630 kWh
Donated: 78 kWh
Estimated Value to BBC: $49
Estimated Value to TCMF: $119
Total: $168
Grand Totals
Estimated Value to BBC: $1383
Estimated Value to TCMF: $653
Total: $2036
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KID'S CARE CORNER
By the year 2050 there will be more plastic than fish (by weight) in the ocean unless we do things differently. Try to avoid snacks and drinks in individual plastic packaging that is thrown away.
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A NOTE FROM STEVE
Churches across the globe marked the beginning of Lent with ashes and the words from Genesis 3:19, "...you are dust, and to dust you shall return". The application of ash is a reminder that we come from this dust. These words in Genesis were part of God's rebuke to Adam in the aftermath of his transgression, declaring that Adam, Eve, and their descendants are mortal, made from the ground, and that one day they shall return to the ground from which they came.
The scientific community has also made a similar declaration about the status of our lives. Cosmologists--like Carl Sagan, Lawrence Krauss, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson-- point out that the very elements that form both our bodies and our biosphere are composed of dust-- dust from the earth-- and, ultimately, stardust. These elements were forged by dying stars, and now are arranged in such away that this dust forms organisms that contain brains which can process information and understand sentences such as those that form these paragraphs. Over time, the very materials that compose our bodies will be recycled back into the earth and sustain future generations of organic life.
Both Genesis and contemporary cosmologists agree: we are dust, and to dust we shall return. The Season of Lent offers us time to be deliberate about reflecting on our mortal status; that our
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days on this planet, inhabiting our current bodies, are finite. But this declaration need not be seen as something pessimistic, gloomy, or hopeless. Rather, the reality of our mortality should awaken us to redeem the time that we have; to make meaningful use of the time and space that we are given on the earth.The prophet Isaiah speaks of all flesh being "as grass" with the same "constancy as the flowers of the field" (Isaiah 40:6). This same chapter of Isaiah assures us that though we will one day fade from the earth, the Word of God will endure forever.
We may be tempted to think that because flesh is grass--and withers away--that God would not be concerned to care for something of such short-term value; that only things of eternal value--like the Word of God--are important. But the Bible suggests otherwise. In the opening chapter of John, we are told that "the Word became flesh and dwelled among us" (John 1:14). If the ever-enduring Word of God chose to dwell in finite-flesh and care for the physical well-being of other flesh on the earth, flesh that would one day pass away like grass (flesh made of dust and will one day return to dust) then might it suggest that we should do likewise? And, if so, what should this look like? The Season of Lent can serve as a time for us to examine how to make the most meaningful use of the assortment dust we've been given before it returns back to where it came from.
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CONTACT US
Have ideas, stories, resources you'd like to share related to creation care?
Contact Heather Wolfe,
Taftsville Chapel's creation care liaison
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