NARTHEX
NEWS
WEEKLY
EDITION
OCTOBER
4TH, 2023
FROM
THE NEWS DESK
OF
FIRST
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
LEBANON,
INDIANA
128 E. Main St. ~ Lebanon, IN
46052~ (765)482-5959
https://www.lebanonfpc.org ~ office@lebanonfpc.org
In the midweek
newsletter this week:
~ Reminders ~ Weekly
Devotional
~ Music Notes ~ Prayer Room
~ Celebrations
~ Faith Circle Meeting
~ October 15th
Service
~ Downtown Events
& Street Closures
Reminders:
Live & Learn is at 11:30 in the Church Library: lunch and bible study. Come to
learn and laugh and grow together.
Liturgist for October is Arlene Quinn; Elder is Sig Myers.
Second Sunday of
the month activities: The second-Sunday-fellowship-lunch and Live
for Life focus has been rescheduled for the following Sunday.
Music Notes:Presbyterian Ringers will have a bells rehearsal on Wednesday the 4th
(That’s today!) at 6:30pm in the church sanctuary. Come ring in a new month,
enjoy fellowship and music (a great combination!), learn a new skill (if you’ve
not been a part of this group before), and have fun!Celebrations: (Sing to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”) “Blow, blow, blow
your candles, open all your gifts – we hope you have a lovely day and hope that
you feel blessed.”
Happy Birthday to: Bess Wilkes, October 15th
Happy Anniversary to: Lynn and Don Kenyon, October 12th
Faith Circle Meeting:
Faith Circle will meet on Wednesday, October 11th, at
1:30pm in the Church Library. This is the last meeting of the year for Faith
Circle.
October 15th Service:
The Live for Life Service for October will be on October 15th.
There will be a luncheon following the service, and this will serve as the
fellowship luncheon for this month. The co-founder for Live for Life, Michelle
Standeford, will be joining FPC that morning. We are excited to welcome her
here. As their website states, she and attorney Karen Young started Live for
Life “to support local women who need guidance through troubling times.”
Michelle now serves as the Director and Chief Advocate for Live for Life. Her
personal life experience, as well as her knowledge and connections within the
area, give her a foundation from which to support and educate women through
this non-profit organization.
Downtown Events and Street
Closures:
October 14th: Klooz Fall Festival
Time: 4-8pm
Streets closed: (1-11pm) Meridian St. from Washington to Main, Washington St from Meridian Street
to East Street, with Washington and Meridian Street intersection closed to
traffic
Weekly Devotional: My Heart
Awakening
“When morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking
cries: may Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer to Jesus I repair: may
Jesus Christ be praised!
Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find:
may Jesus Christ be praised!
Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is
this: may Jesus Christ be praised!
Hymn: “When Morning Gilds the Skies”, verses 1
& 2 (verse 3 in “Prayer Room” section); circa 1800s, text by unknown author
“My heart awaking cries”: What arrested my attention when I first read
this hymn (spoiler alert: it’s in the service this coming Sunday!), was the
image of “my heart awaking cries”. The immediate application of this phrase in
the hymn’s first verse may indeed be when we waken in the morning. But I
thought of it in terms of when our hearts awaken, and that can be an entirely
different time and circumstance.
There
are times in our lives when it is as if our hearts are sleeping. Maybe we are
moving through grief. Maybe we are numbed by heartbreak. Maybe as a reaction to
fear, betrayal, or regret, we closed ourselves off and put our own hearts to
sleep, as it were. By God’s grace and mercy, we do not have to live forever
with sleeping hearts. One morning (or afternoon, evening, midnight), it may be
as if dawn “gilds the skies”. Something new arrives: something breathtaking,
revelatory, awe inspiring, or something simply encouraging and kind, and yet at
the same time something gentle and quiet. Maybe this is the soft nudge of a
kitty against our chin at the start of the day, and, instead of sighing in
despair for the loss of the numbness night brings, we smile and cuddle the
kitty close. Maybe this is a card we receive in the mail, a song we hear on the
radio, a passage we read in our Bible, or a kind word from a co-worker which
reaches us at just the right moment and in just the right way. We internalize
not only the words of the message but the emotion and intention behind it;
something begins to stir within our once-blanketed-hearts.
Maybe
the awakening does indeed arrive with the rising of the sun in the morning. We
sit on our back patio, coffee cup in hand, sipping the rich brew and hoping it
jolts us back into life, when through the tree line a golden light begins to
grow. It shimmers through the leaves, climbs the skies to reach the heavens, and
arcs itself over our little chair at our little table and the coffee cup in our
hand. That jolt we wanted to draw us back into life falls over us as gentle and
quiet, but as breathtaking and astounding, as a golden sunrise.
How
do we respond to such a “gilding”? We should enjoy it, savor it, shouldn’t we?
We could then get up and move on, not giving it a second thought. But we could
also acknowledge the One from whom that awakening came. We could follow the
advice of the hymnist and join in praising Jesus Christ. A song, a prayer, or
just one word: we lift praise to Heaven and our hearts rise with it.
One
more departing thought: the verb “repair” in this hymn, found in the second
line of the first verse, is used in the sense “to betake oneself”, to go. This
particular meaning of the word has its roots in the Latin word “repatriare”,
which means to go home again. I cannot think of a better and more fitting word
to use here. Upon discovering our sleeping hearts awakened and finding
ourselves gilded in the love and care of our Heavenly Father, where else would
we want to go but “home” again, home to our Heavenly Father’s tender embrace.
Prayer Room:
Prayer is
important to the body of First Presbyterian Church. Are you interested in joining the prayer chain? Would you like to learn more about the role of
prayer in our lives? Please contact Phyllis Duff, Prayer Coordinator, at
(765)482-1485/ raduff2@att.net.
Dear Heavenly
Father,
“Be this, while life is mine, my canticle
divine: may Jesus Christ be praised! Be this the-eternal song through all the
ages long: may Jesus Christ be praised!”
What more can we say but Amen, O Lord, so be it.
“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 22:20
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