A little lower than the angels

The following was passed on to me. I pass it on to you. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end war; For we know that You have made the world in a way Than we must find our own paths to peace Within ourselves and with our neigbors. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To end starvation; For You have already given us the resources With which to feed the entire world, If we would only use them wisely. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To root out prejudice; For You have already given us eyes With which to see the good in others, If we would only use them rightly. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, To end despair; For You have already given us the power To clear away slums and to give hope, If we would only use our power justly. We cannot merely pray to You, O God, to end disease; For You have already given us great minds With which to search out cures and healings, If we would only use them constructively. Therefore, we pray to You instead, O God, For strengthy, determination, a...

Proper 11, Year C July 18 2010 St. Paul's Bellingham 1 “ Martha, Martha, you are distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Jesus, as quoted in Luke 10:42) I did a search today on Google with the words “Martha's Guild”. I came up with about 12,900,000 results in 0.18 seconds, testifying to the popularity of this name for women's groups in the church which emphasize service to others. I notice, however, that in the very first page of listings were two for “Mary-Martha Guild”, testifying to the fact that some folk in the church are seeking to represent a balance between the ministry of service represented by Martha and the ministry of study and learning represented in this text by Mary. There's some consternation in the Church about this text. There should be, if we're paying attention! Not a few women – perhaps some here – feel slighted by our Lord's words ...