Prairie Musings

You will notice something different about our bulletins starting this week--we're not including the full text of the service, just the outline with page number references to the Book of Common Prayer that you'll find in your pews. (This was, of course, the way it was everywhere until just a few years ago when larger parishes were able to purchase business-class photocopy machines.) We're doing this for several reasons: Now that we are into a full in-person program year (yeah!), we need to refocus the time that was spent creating a full bulletin each week and re-formatting it for on-line downloading. It is also our responsibility to do all that we can to conserve and protect our natural resources--and it takes a lot of paper each week for us to print everything-paper that all ends up in the recycling bin the same day it is used. Finally, it also takes a lot of money to print all those one-time-use bulletins each week. But, for me, the most important reason is that using and

Proper 21B   How many of you lost something—your keys, your wallet, your cell phone, your checkbook—lost something this past month? Let’s see your hands…me, too. I had saved some coupons for getting work done on my car, and I couldn’t find them to save my life. Well, actually, I’m sure I didn’t lose them—I’m sure Lisa hid them—she does that all the time, you know… Finding what was lost, recovering it, is something we encounter frequently in our day-to-day lives. And we all have family and friends who are recovering from surgery or from an illness, who are in the hospital to be restored to health and wholeness. I mention recovery because this is the end of Recovery Month, a time to foster awareness and understanding of mental and substance use disorders and to celebrate the people who are in recovery and have escaped the grip of addiction. “Recovery” in this context is a life-long, on-going process, typically described in 12 steps. The Betty Ford Clinic defines it this way: Recovery is