The Oasis - September 21
Author: Rev. Eric Dupee
September 21, 2022
This week is a big week for us at First Parish Church. The pumpkins arrive Saturday at 2pm. We can use all the help we can get. The signups for working at the tent to sell the pumpkins is on the church website. I love this ministry for the way it both supports the Navaho and allows us to engage with the community in various ways.
Secondly, as you may know, we will have a focus on environmental concerns this year. I wanted to make you aware of the Convocation 2022 presented by The BTS Center in Portland, Maine. Convocation has been happening for 117 years. It is a program The BTS Center carries over from the former Bangor Theological Seminary. The Convocation will happen online on October 6th -7th. This year their theme is: “Imagination and Collective Liberation for A Climate-Changed World.” They have some incredible presenters. To learn more, go to the BTS Center website or view an informational video here: https://vimeo.com/747820568
Lastly, I was thinking that I’d love to see the fields on the Navaho reservation where the pumpkins are grown. I thought about trying to grow a few pumpkins in my garden, but decided they take up too much space. Recently, I came across this quote by Barbara Cawthorne Crafton: A garden is so much like a church. So much care and feeding. Such competitiveness among the plants – some of them literally choke each other to death if you don’t get out there and put a stop to it. The big gorgeous ones get lots of attention, but then one comes along that looks almost dead all season and suddenly, almost overnight, blooms splendidly forth. Never write anybody off completely. You just don’t know.”
Blessings,
Eric
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