God, Our Lady, thank you for Hildegard

Today is Hildegard's Feast Day!

If she were alive today, I image her speaking very directly to us, "We are in crisis and every crisis is an invitation to WAKE UP, love God, pray and be of service. Wake Up! Smell The Coffee! We are all complicit in harming our common home, Mother Earth causing our own Mother unspeakable suffering and death to her body and her family all the beloved creatures. Do the fires and floods, wars and poverty, extinction of species and eco-systems surprise you? THEN YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION. WAKE UP, MAKE AMENDS and GET TO WORK. Get the support you need to man (or woman) up, and never give up. You must be strong and WALK FORTH in love and prayer, regardless of our circumstances! You are not alone. God's love is with you always. "

 Like the brave firemen who go to work putting out fires, regardless of the danger, we must do everything in our power to live differently and create communities of communities of love and justice. So much suffering of human and non-human creatures here on our common home, Mother Earth. It is past time to face the truth.

Dear God Our Lady Love,

We come to give thanks today for Hildegard, a spirit and prophet who blessed us with her visions and shared your Wisdom - You make every creature in love. May we rise from our catatonic sleep, to the modern lie that life is separate and not filled with YOU. May we rise in celebration of our interconnectedness and dance for eco-justice for all creatures. Infuse us with visions of new ways to live for our survival, for LIFE. Awaken us to your love and may we remember that you made us and every creature in love. Zap us with Hildegard's holy spirit enabling us to be brave and strong as she was and to do the inner work we must do in order to hear your call. Like rain water on the fires, flood and fill us with your veriditas aka your greening life force. May your mammoth strength enter us in love, planting your seeds of new potential adventures embodied with health, hard work, usefulness, and togetherness. It is past time we roll up our sleeves and get to work creating new kinds of communities to sing your joyful praise and do your work of eco-justice. We say prayers for all those who suffer, human and non human from fires, floods, poverty, poison, war and injustice. Today we refuse to be engulfed by despair for there is too much work to be done! Today we dance for joy with Hildegard and with every vibrational note and step we embrace and sing sharing new visions on loving communities of beauty and justice for this time. May we speak truth to power and systems of white supremacy and patriarchy just as Hildegard did when she chastised Popes and Emperors. We feel your spirit today Hildegard. We intuit your radiant power and we SHOUT to connect with you. HELP US! Help all those in harms way. Today and this Sunday we celebrate your story and our story, the Biblical story of the rainbow. Lady Love you gifted us with the beauty of the rainbow to remind us that you promised to love all of us creatures. Because you made us in love we are able to love others and we give thanks. Lady Wisdom, today we dance and sing in praise of YOU! Thank you for the gift of life my God, we will learn to make amends and to rebuild and we give you thanks, we give you thanks always. Amen

 Please join us for weekly worship on Zoom 5 pm PST

 9/20 Worship Hildegard Celebration with sharing from Rose Goulart live from Toronto, Canada! Please feel free to dress up in the tradition of Hildegard who asked the nuns in her Benedictine Monasteries to dress up on Feast Days. As always we will dance at the Mary Magdalene virtual Café after worship.

 9/27 Worship Stories of Angels with sharing from Carol Ann Joyce live from New York! We will explore the Catholic tradition of celebrating the Arch Angels and consider their meaning in the Bible and today.

10/4 Taize Chanting and Animal Blessing We will celebrate and bless pets and animals in the tradition of St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi and sing to them live from Dallas, Oregon with Juno the puppy dog and the new resident at the John Cobb Farm. All your pets are invited to join us to be blessed as well

 10/11 Worship with Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. Reflections on Prayer live from Claremont, Los Angeles area.

Special thanks to Martha Garcia who has recorded and made our worship services available on Church for Our Common Home You Tube Channel and our church website. Please see our Taize worship from earlier in the month and at the end of the worship there is a power point with photos of the John Cobb Farm. Please see video on church you tube channel.

We are resuming time together with masks and social distancing at the John Cobb Farm and retreat center, home church, programs and counseling in person, and on the internet including weekly potlucks and dancing at the Mary Magdalene Café immediately following weekly worship on Sunday evenings at 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338. We are less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon and about an hour plus south of Portland.

 We have begun to have meetings in our barn which is now an art gallery for dream art work and children's art. We have rugs on the ground and are able to sit 6 feet away from one another and it is a big open space with lots of fresh air.

Zoom Church, Dream Group Lectio Divina/Centering Prayer

Three weekly Zoom programs to provide support during this time of global crisis and isolation.

 Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST

 Dream Group, Wednesday 7-8:30 pm PST for during collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful.

 Lectio Divina (bible study) and Centering Prayer Group Tuesdays at 9 am PST

Non violence for the Violent, Women Mystics and the Earth

Dear Beloved Earthlings,

We mourn the tragedy and collective evil that dropped the first nuclear weapon on Hiroshima Japan 75 years ago today. We pray for all who have suffered and we pray for our enemies who inflict suffering. We pray to be able to rid ourselves of the violence in our own hearts and in our own country that spends 53 cents of every tax dollar on weapons of mass destruction and our addiction to the war economy.

Dear God, We come heart sick with death, racism, poverty, cruelty and torture, war and the threat of nuclear holocaust and ecologic catastrophe all around. We beg you to hear our prayers. HELP US as a human family to learn ways of peace, love and justice. We want to love you, our earth and all your creatures. We are rattling your cage God, come out of hiding and show us the way! We have never needed you more! HELP US, find a way out of no way. Amen

Church for Our Common Home offers a three month series -"Non Violence for the Violent, Women Mystics, Jesus' Third Way and the Earth" every Sunday on Zoom at 5 pm PST for August, September and October we will celebrate women mystics from history including Hildegard, Julian of Norwich, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene as well as Jesus' teachings about non-violence with Walter Wink as our guide. "...To recognize our own inner violence is one the hardest things we must do if we are to become non-violent. I once tried to eradicate violence from my heart but when I took a long look at the violence and rage within me, I thought I had a tremendous amount of work to do. If we can't deal with our own personal violence how can we expect to deal with the violence of nations." (Walter Wink)

We will also celebrate modern, living women who are bursting forth as wisdom teachers beginning with Lehmah Gbowee, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Liberia who led women in her nation in a non violent revolution over throwing Charles Taylor one of the worst dictators of modern times. She tells the truth about her personal life including being a trauma survivor of domestic violence, her encounters with God, dreams and being lead by the Holy Spirit. Her inspiring personal story and triumphant story of the people of Liberia is shared in her powerful memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers; How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War.

Lehmah Gbowee brought Christian and Muslim women together in prayer, We will begin our series on nonviolence and The Third Way in prayer for as Wink writes, "Praying is rattling God's cage and waking God up and setting God free and giving this famished God water and this starved God food and cutting the ropes off God's hands and the manacles off God's feet and washing the caked sweat from God's eyes and then watching God swell with life and vitality and energy and following God wherever God goes. When we pray, we are not sending a letter to a celestial White House, where it is sorted among piles of others. We are engaged, rather, in an act of co-creation, in which one little sector of the universe rises up and becomes translucent, incandescent, a vibratory center of power that radiates the power of the universe. History belongs to the intercessors, who believe the future into being. If this is so, then intercession, far from being an escape from action, is a means of focusing for action and of creating action. By means of our intercessions we veritably cast fire upon the earth and trumpet the future into being." (The Powers That Be)

Please bring olive oil or any kind of liquid for an anointing ritual.

Recently, I had a dream about Walter Wink and it felt as if he was giving me his blessing from the other side to teach Jesus Third Way infused with Hildegard's Greening Power of God in Nature. In my dream Walter Wink gave me a purple velvet bag filled with several bottles of anointing oils. One of them was a small bottle of anointing oil that had been turned green with green coloring. May our worship, prayers and study of the teachings of Jesus be a green anointing of the spirit for us as we come to co-create with God, to love the nature spirits and Mother Earth and with all our souls, heart and mind and every creature as an extension of ourselves.

August 9th, Matthew 5:38-42 Green Anointing for Jesus Third Way We will begin our three month series on Jesus' Third Way summoning the spirits of Walter Wink, Hildegard of Bingen and Leymay Gbowee. We will pray for those who were killed and all those who suffered and for the moral redemption of the American Empire that dropped nuclear bombs on Japan 75 years ago.

August 16th Matthew 14:13-21 Findhorn, Loaves and Fishes and Radical Revolution Jesus created an abundance of food for everyone and so did those working with nature sprits in Findhorn, who prayed and grew cabbages as big as cars. This worship will explore prayer and spiritual ecological communities and the vision of Church for Our Common Home. We will honor Mother Mary and all women who give us life. The Earth body and women's bodies have been left out and we will love them back to the table. Holy Communion will be served. Please bring your own bread and juice.

Join us as we "believe the future into being" and co-create with God and Mother Earth a paradise of peace and love. Sending love,

Rev. Bonnie Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President UUSCM www.uuscm.org Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD

Code Pink and the Communion of Saints

Dear Beloved Earthlings,

Black Lives Matter! White Silence is Violence! I Can't Breathe! Alerts for a planetary movement inspiring millions to protest systemic and structural racism and white supremacy. Teaching and preaching about our history of slavery and genocide is what God calls us to do. The communion of saints, living and dead sustain, guide and bless us, people like Christian ministers, Rev. Dr. Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, leaders of the Poor People's Campaign, A National Call for Moral Revival. They led us virtually last Saturday during the March on Washington. All those who shared their stories give us hope and strength. Millions of people marching and protesting in the streets give us hope. Standing in solidarity with all those who suffer is what we are called to do as people of faith. The five demands of the Poor People's Campaign in the Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Poor People's Moral Agenda include, 1. Systemic Racism 2. Poverty and Inequality 3. Ecologic Devastation 4. War Economy and Militarism 5. National Morality. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decades ago called us to look more deeply at the economic injustice of American Empire that spends most of its money on the military.

www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

Jesus and many prophets in the Bible were poor people in solidarity with poor people and told the truth about structural dominant over systems of oppression like the Roman Empire. The current global crisis is too overwhelming for many of us without prayer and our connections to communion of saints living and dead. Biblical prophets like Jesus are with us. For me, being a Christian means standing in solidarity with those who are tortured and murdered and working against the powers and principalities of oppressive systems. Code Pink is a universal signal in hospitals that a baby is being kidnapped. It is past time we respond to the Code Pink alert here in the United Sates and around the world and act with the passion of a healthy animal instinct, in order to stop the kidnapping and murder of Black Lives. These children of God, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many more need for us to awaken and be in a state of ALERT. Our history is full of the oppression of the vulnerable and when our justice work feels overwhelming, we need to be reminded that we are not alone, for God and the communion of saints are with us. Living saints in our midst include those who founded Code Pink an organization working against the war economy and militarism of the American Empire and its support of apartheid in Israel www.codepink.org

Hagar was the slave girl of Abraham and Sarah, thousands of years ago as told in the Bible story of Genesis 21:5-21. Abraham raped his slave Hagar and their son was Ishmael. The first born son in the ancient world is supposed to inherite Abrahams blessing. Instead Abraham took Hagar and Ishmael to the desert to murder both them. The horror of the history of slavery and genocide must be faced and named before it can be healed. Only in telling the truth of our history can we stop living in denial and change our present and future. The Truth and Reconciliation movements around the world give me hope.

The first time that God speaks directly to anyone in the Bible is to Hagar, an Egyptian slave girl as she weeps watching her baby die in the desert. An Angel of God reveals to Hagar where water is located and saves their lives. "When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt."

Ishmael became the father of the religion of Islam and his mother is the mother of Islam. God listened to to the cries of hagar and Ishmael and today is listening to the cries of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and all who are being tortured and murdered. We pray for planetary solidarity and a robust new religious faith to rise. In the words of Rev. Barber, "Yes, we must radically transform policing in America. But we cannot stop there. We must transform the pervasive systems of economic and carceral injustice that are choking our common life. American democracy cannot breathe. Only by acting together can we save our common life."

Church for Our Common Home gives special thanks to Angela Garcia-Sermeno, a talented artist and designer who gifts us every week with a feast for the eyes, an unusual and beautiful order of worship. Please click on the page belowin order to see art work by Hildegard and Angela! We love and appreciate you Angela. You are an Angel in our midst. Dostoevsky wrote, "Beauty will save the world!" and we have never needed beauty more than now. Thank you! Please join me, Angela and the communion of saints every Sunday, 5 pm PST and this Sunday on "Code Pink and a Communion of Saints" on Zoom! Be sure to check out what Angela has created just by clicking on the picture immediately below and scroll down the many pages. You won't believe how beautiful it is, filled with art work and photos and when you scroll to the end you will see a photo of our beautiful Angela in pink, channeling Frida Kahlo!

Sending love,

Rev. Bonnie Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President UUSCM www.uuscm.org Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD

The Hologram of Hildegard Book Group and Class June- July Saturdays 3-4:30 pm PST

Dear Friends, WARNING! Entering "The Hologram of Hildegard" her life and creative genius. This class and book group may ignite invisible fires within you.

The Hologram of Hildegard

Book Group and Class

June 7- July 18th 6 weeks Saturday's 3-4:30 pm PST

Zoom ID 30257194598 Password 9999999999

We will be using two books and both are available on Amazon. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen with text and art work by Hildegard and commentary by Matthew Fox and Hildegard of Bingen and Her Visions of the Feminine by Nancy Fierro. (Also available as an audio book)

It is urgent that we honor our visions in order to create a new Ecologic Civilizations in this time of global catastrophe. Hildegard of Bingen a visionary and Earth ecologist, prophet and mystic, theologian, artist, saint, healer, church reformer, founder of women's communities, preacher and teacher, playwrite, composer of music and writer of 9 books is calling us to get to work! She calls us to take our visions, dreams and God experiences seriously. She is our guide and we need for her life to be a model for us during our ecologic crisis. On Saturday, June 12th we begin an adventure entering the hologram of her visions and her love of the Earth. "The Earth is the womb of God," she teaches and we become lovers of God and the Earth like her.

You are invited in this class to create mandalas, music, artwork and writings that we will share. Matthew Fox in Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen writes, "Hildegard breaks into imagery, mandala drawing, poetry, music and drama in her first theological work and never ceases this kind of learning and teaching the rest of her busy life.....Education must include process as well as concept.......the process of her illuminations begs us to enter into our own awakening, our own illuminations." This class/book group invites you to explore new expressions of the divine aka creating "illuminations." In "Hildegard's Hologram" there are an infinite number of possibilities that you may create from artwork to administrative ideas for community building, gardening, writing, designing civil disobedience and plans for fasting and/or beginning new practices..........who knows what!

June 6 Hildegard's Life as Model in Global Crisis

June 13 Hildegard's Visions

June 20 Theology and the Divine Feminine

June 27 Ecology and Hildegard's Love of the Earth

July 4 No Class

July 11 Hildegard's Music and Medicine

July 18 Creating Community and Women's Leadership

Hildegard and God are calling you to honor your visions, dreams, and experiences of the sacred. When you attend this class you may catch Hildegard's love of the Earth, and experience a creative outpouring of gifts, a more intimate relationship with God and begin doing more useful work of deep meaning beyond your wildest dreams. You have been WARNED!

There is no set charge for this class. If you can afford to make a tax deductible donation to Church for Our Common Home it will be much appreciated.

Sending love. Please contact me if you have prayer requests.

Rev. Bonnie Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President of UUSCM https://www.uuscm.org/ Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD

To join Zoom Church, Sunday's 5 pm PST go to church website www.churchforourcommonhome.com and click on Zoom link using the password of ten 9's or 9999999999 or contact Rev. Bonnie Tarwater (858) 248-5123, revtarwater@yahoo.com to receive an email reminder and link.  

As soon as it is safe we will resume our time together for church, farming, dancing, sharing dreams, singing, art making, communing with nature, prayer and counseling in person, including weekly potlucks and dancing at the Mary Magdalene Cafe following weekly worship Sunday evenings, 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338. We are less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon and about an hour plus south of Portland. Before we are able to safely gather in person we are meeting on the internet, phone and are together as we unite in our hearts and spirits in prayer!

Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST

Dream Group, Wednesday 7-8:30 pm PST for during collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful.

Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Group

Tuesday 9 am PST change from 10 am.

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/3025719458 Meeting ID: 302 571 9458 One tap mobile +16699009128,,3025719458# US (San Jose)

+16465588656,,3025719458# US (New York) Dial by your location   +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)    +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) Meeting ID: 302 571 9458 and password is 9999999999. Find your local number https://zoom.us/u/acT7EuwNObm

Church for Our Common Home is a "Home Church" and counseling center, God centered and guided that offers worship and programs online and in person, dedicated to the Earth, creating Loving Community and celebrating Beauty and the Arts. We have recently relocated to a 5 acre small farm in Dallas, Oregon for biodynamic farming, named in honor of the planetary treasure on Earth Day this year, the John Cobb Farm. We will be building an artistic, ecologic church to pray for the Earth.

Mothers day gift Hildegard Loving Mother God and Mother Earth

Dear Mother God,

We give thanks for the Mother's who gave us physical and spiritual birth. We give thanks for our common home our beloved Mother Earth. We give thanks for you God, who like a loving mother embraces us into her greening power of co-creation. We give thanks for all animal and plant mothers who show us how to love and how to be loved instinctually and with grace. May all of us people, both men and women learn how to love Gracious Mother God from your greening force, power and beauty this spring. Thank you for your living light that infuses all creatures. Our human family is in trouble and we ask for your guidance during these times of disaster and suffering. We celebrate the miracle of all life today and we give thanks. We give thanks. We give thanks. Amen

This Mother's Day we celebrate a woman who loved God the Mother, Earth our Mother and who healed from not having had a loving mother!!! We invite you to our series on Hildegard this spring during Sunday worship. Hildegard is an extroverted mystic who calls us to pray and worship God with passionate love and devotion. Her visions reveal to us the God who calls us to transform and give birth to our most joyful, artistic, beautiful, loving and USEFUL selves. She was abandoned by her own mother and family and given to the church when she was 8 years old. Like many of us who have suffered from self doubt, anxiety and depression in her early life, but she shows us how to heal from this wound. In the second half of her life, Hildegard in her 40's was flooded with visions from God. Co-creating with God she catapulted herself into one of the most productive and beautiful lives ever to have lived. She created Benedictine communities (photo above of the Hildegard Monastery) for women to thrive and live in harmony and joy with natural beauty. She is a saint and doctor of the Catholic church, a 12th century prophet whose accomplishments are mind blowing. She is calling during this time of planetary crisis to live a new story for our time staring huge women like, Lady Wisdom, a feminine divine manifestation of the God of Love, with unfathomable greening power and force. She is the God of the living light of the universe inside every creature. May we follow in her footsteps and commit to rich and full lives of useful hard work and service, devotion to God and the joy of creative work in the arts living in harmony with nature.

NEW Book Group coming soon time and date to be announced with Hildegard of Bingen and Her Visions of the Feminine by Nancy Fierro. Please contact Rev. Bonnie if you are interested in joining this book group.

To join Zoom Church go to church website www.churchforourcommonhome.com

and click on Zoom link using the password of ten 9's or 9999999999 or contact Rev. Bonnie Tarwater (858) 248-5123, revtarwater@yahoo.com to receive an email reminder and link.  

Sending love and please contact me if you have prayer requests,

Rev. Bonnie

Church for Our Common Home is a "Home Church" and counseling center, God centered and guided that offers worship and programs online and in person, caring for the Earth, creating Loving Community and celebrating Beauty and the Arts. We have recently relocated to a 5 acre small farm in Dallas, Oregon to begin biodynamic farming, named in honor of the planetary treasure on Earth Day this year, the John Cobb Farm. We are expanding our ministry to create an artistic church to pray for our common home, Gaia, aka Mother Earth.As soon as it is safe we will resume our time together for church, farming, dancing, sharing dreams, singing, art making, communing with nature, prayer and counseling in person, including weekly potlucks and dancing at the Mary Magdalene Cafe following weekly worship Sunday evenings, 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338. We are less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon and about an hour plus south of Portland. Before we are able to safely gather in person we are meeting on the internet, phone and are together as we unite in our hearts and spirits in prayer!

Zoom Church, Dream Group

      Lectio Divina/Centering Prayer

Three weekly Zoom programs to provide support during this time of global crisis and isolation.

Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST

Dream Group, Wednesday 7-8:30 pm PST for during collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful.

Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Group

Tuesday 9 am PST change from 10 am.

Dr. Cobb Planetary Treasure to preach on Earth Day!

Dear Earthlings,

Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. will be preaching on Zoom at Church for Our Common Home Sunday, April 26th at 5 pm Pacific Standard Time in honor of Earth Day! 

Dr. Cobb Jr. is a planetary treasure and THE prophet we need to preach and teach us in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day 2020! He is an environmentalist, philosopher, theologian and the best ambassador for Christianity and religion of anyone I have ever known of or met personally, this side of my imaginary meetings with Jesus. www.claremontprocess.org . . He has worked tirelessly for decades sounding the alarm about the harm and destruction humans have inflicted on life on earth and its consequences. He calls us internationally and locally to plant seeds for a new organic "Ecological Civilization." On April 26th Cob will preach about "Competition and Cooperation" reflecting on "individualism and community and addressing the radical changes we need without which there is no hope for the human future." Dr. Cobb is 95 years young and he inspires all of us to continue to work with him faithfully and for all creatures in cooperation and love. He is currently teaching a webinar with over one thousand of us students around the world on Whitehead's organic philosophy and his book, Process and Reality. This webinar is facilitated by Dr. Tripp Fuller of HomeBrewed Community www.trippfuller.com. . Fuller is currently teaching at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

To join Zoom Church go to church website www.churchforourcommonhome.com

and click on Zoom link using the password of ten 9's or contact Rev. Bonnie Tarwater (858) 248-5123, revtarwater@yahoo.com to receive an email reminder and link.  

Church for Our Common Home is a "Home Church" and counseling center, God centered and guided that offers worship and programs online and in person, caring for the Earth, creating Loving Community and celebrating Beauty and the Arts. We have recently relocated to a 5 acre small farm in Dallas, Oregon to begin biodynamic farming and we are expanding our ministry to create an artistic church to pray for our common home, Gaia, aka Mother Earth. The below photo is a creation y the artist Jim Hubble's that I offer to you for your imagination as we plant seeds to imagine an artistic sacred place to pray for the Earth.

This Earth Day we ask you to plant seeds in your imagination of cooperation as we create a sacred space together of beauty and love for us humans, animals, plants and all creatures on this home planet we share. What will our church look like? What kinds of prayers and music and art will we make? Who will come to be served and loved? What do you see in your mind's eye, what kind of mental movie do you experience when you daydream and night dream of a beautiful sacred place to pray and honor the earth? Please send us drawings or written ideas and begin doing meditations with us this Earth Day week of celebration and beyond.We begin a week long Earth Day celebration this Sunday, April 19th! Please bring two things to worship- a seed and small amount of oil- both that you will find in your home. The seed can be from an apple or bean or mustard seed weed etc. The oil can be any kind of cooking oil or lotion or even your own spit. We will begin meditations with a seed this Earth Day week beginning on this Sunday April 19t. We will do an anointing ritual this Sunday as a blessing of seeds of hope, love, beauty and cooperation.

Mid week on Earth Day, Wednesday April 22 at 3 pm, we will have a ceremony here in Oregon with our local neighbors (all standing at least 6 feet apart) to bless the land, our local neighborhood and our common home Mother Earth. We will make a lot of noise with pots and pans, trumpets, bells or your own voice. We will offer these vibrations of celebration of music and sound to the God of Love who we love with all our hearts minds and souls as we commit to love our neighbors as an extension of ourselves. You are welcome to join us where ever you are on planet earth.

We will also ring our gorgeous new church bell made by our inspired and generous neighbor Brooks, a very talented artist and craftsman who made the bell and totem. We will ring the bell and ask for God's blessings and ask the Holy Spirit to bless our seeds of new vision and commitment to love and honor our common home Planet Earth.

As soon as it is safe we will resume church and counseling in person, including weekly pot lucks and dancing at the Mary Magdalene Cafe following weekly worship Sunday evenings, 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338. We are less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon and about an hour south of Portland. Before we are able to safely gather in person we are meeting on the internet, phone and are together as we unite in our hearts and spirits in prayer!

Zoom Church, Dream Group  Lectio Divina/Centering Prayer Three weekly Zoom programs to provide support during this time of global crisis and isolation. Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST Dream Group, Wednesday 7-8:30 pm PST for during collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful. Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Group Tuesday 9 am PST change from 10 am. Sending love, Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President of UUSCM https://www.uuscm.org/Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD

Easter Dancing with Christ

Dear Friends,

Please enjoy the video above of doctors and nurses in Iran under unimaginable stress and surrounded by suffering DANCING to celebrate life and all that is HOLY and all that endures from suffering. They are a beautiful expression of THE HUMAN and HOLY SPIRIT! Please join us tomorrow for Easter Worship and DANCING! These woman in the photo above with the "Honk if You Want Us To Dance" sign live near us and they did dance for us, all 6 feet apart!

There is a change at Zoom and now we need to use a password and it is 9999999999, or 10, 9's. The ID number is 3025719458. There are several ways you can join worship on Zoom or by phone. If you need technical help please call or text Martha Garcia (619) 322-1376. We will begin worship promptly at 5 pm, have a check in and talk together about the service or to process thoughts and feelings after the worship at 6 pm.

Each week the order of worship will be posted on the church website before worship and I recommend you print it out in order to follow and sing along. Also, parts of the worship will be posted on the chat window of the Zoom worship. For the common good, please mute your own microphone in the lower left hand corner of the screen unless you are talking, in order to avoid the loud feedback. Unfortunately there is a lag in time so we can sing together but only on mute. Please send your prayer requests before worship and your prayer requests will be honored through out the week.

GET READY TO DANCE ON ZOOM AT CHURCH FOR OUR COMMON HOME and soon at the Mary Magdalene Cafe after worship every Sunday!

The doctors and nurses around the planet are inspired heroes and heroines and like Jesus and Mary Magdalene they are NOT leaving people alone in their suffering and death! This Easter may we take the inspiration of doctors and nurses and dedicate ourselves to lives of COURAGE and SERVICE and COMMUNITY and JOY! I won't leave you alone! Call if you are sick, scared or dying and when we pray we are together regardless of how may miles separate us. Please contact me if you want to pray on the phone and or if you have prayer requests.

There is a tradition that tells a story that Mary Magdalene follows Jesus not only to the scene of the crucifixion and to the tomb but today on Holy Saturday she follows him into hell. Last Sunday I challenged the rugged individualist ideas that many of us have projected onto Jesus. Jesus was NOT betrayed by everyone and he was NOT alone during his suffering and death. His Mother and Mary Magdalene and other woman were there with him the whole time. God was with him always also and God is with us during these difficult times. As we prepare for Easter and the Resurrection may we get out our dancing shoes! We need not think we are alone but we have to have the counter cultural commitment to live in community and intimate relationships. We have one another. May we all be dance partners to one another like Mary Magdalene and Jesus were to one another. May we be anointed in their love. and may we never forget to sing and dance like our lives depend on it, because they do.

As soon as it is safe we will resume church and counseling and DANCING in person, 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338, less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon. Until then we will meet on the internet or phone and be united in our hearts and in prayer!

Zoom Church, Dream Group ? Lectio Divina/Centering Prayer

Church for Our Common Home, a church and counseling center, has added more Zoom programs to provide support during this time of global crisis and isolation. Join us for Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST. During collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful. Come honor your dreams in our weekly Dream Group, Wednesday

7-8:30 pm. Weekly Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Group on Zoom, Tuesday 10-11 am.

Sending love,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President of UUSCM https://www.uuscm.org/ Affiliated Community Minister First UU Church of SD

Below photo of a our wonderful new neighbors who have asked us to have their 11 sheep including 6 baby lambs live here for awhile and eat our grass.

God with the Sick Bats

God with the Sick Bats

by John Fiedler

In a cave in Wuhan bats

cluster on rock faces

noses dripping, gripped by

the same virus splashing

across TV. Nobody pays

them much mind.

While the mind of God

fills with their suffering.

She feels their pain,

offers compassion

and empathy and

perhaps the bats

feel this, perhaps

they respond to these

gentling mercies,

perhaps one of them

is moved to raise

a creaky wing

and spread it over

the hot forehead of

his neighbor on

the rocky ledge,

fanning another beloved

of God, relieving the fever. 

Dear Friends,

John Fiedler shared his beautiful poem God with the Sick Bats last Sunday at our church worship on Zoom. John is a gifted poet and teacher and his wife Julie a talented artist and they have founded an inspired school, St. James Santiago School in Lincoln City Oregon, www.sjsschoollc.org that celebrates and honors children and the arts!

This Lent our church has been exploring an inspired book, God Can’t, How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse and Other Evils by Thomas Jay Oord. The book and poem challenge us to remember that God's love is always with us and every creature. We are not alone and God calls us to love one another......abundantly and with faithful mercy and tenderness as s/he loves us.

Many believe that this pandemic began because bats became homeless after humans savagely cut down their forests and as a result they got sick. The animals who are tortured and disease ridden in live markets and the homeless bats have gotten sick because of our lack of awareness of their needs and relationships with us humans! What we do affects everything else. We are one organic whole here on Mother Earth. Our insensitively to other creatures feelings and lack of love for them is the cause of this pandemic. So much sickness and death these days, it boggles the mind. A projection from the University of Washington suggests that 1,000 Americans a day will die every day for the next 40 days, but that is better than worse possible scenarios and projections of millions more dying. It is a terrifying time and we need the God of love more than ever now. I believe we also are welled served to listen to the teachings of Jesus more, who taught us to "do unto the least of these." (Matt 25:40 It is time for a revolution of values on planet earth and God and Jesus calls us to imagine a new way to live in love and faithful tender mercies as we give up our cultural values of heartless greed, self centeredness and unsustainable growth that is destroying life on earth.

Some of us are lucky enough to experience faithful tender mercies of loving care from grocery clerks, doctors, nurses, and front line workers of all kinds that are serving us during a time of isolation. We give thanks for those who give and have given us faithful service and love. May we follow in their footsteps and give faithful love to every creature we meet and encounter.

Last Sunday two people during worship shared that babies had been born into their extended families. Life goes on despite the horror of millions of human and non human death and suffering.......and where there is life there is hope.

The last lines of Oord's book God Can't, say what I believe we need to hear. "God always loves us and all creation. God inspires us to love others, ourselves, creation, and God. Living a life aimed at love is the best and most fulfilling life possible...."Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it--because it does." (1Cor. 14:1 The Message))

Dear God,

We pray for the sick bats. We pray for our Mother Earth. We pray for all creatures that share our common home, Gaia. We give thanks for your faithful love. Give us the courage and imagination to live radical lives of love. Thank you for all the faithful and tender mercies of love we give and receive. Amen

Please contact me if you are lonely and want someone to talk to. May I call on you when I am lonely? May we be with one another in love and open our hearts to the vulnerability that is the truth of our lives together always and especially now during this crisis? As soon as it is safe we will resume church and counseling in person at our small farm, 15435 Strong Road, Dallas, Oregon 97338, less than a 30 minute drive from Salem, Oregon. Until then we will meet on the internet or phone and be united in our hearts and in prayer!

Zoom Church, Dream Group, Support Group  Lectio Divina/Centering Prayer

Church for Our Common Home, a church and counseling center, has added more Zoom programs to provide support during this time of global crisis and isolation. Join us for Zoom worship, weekly Sunday 5 pm PST. During collective crisis dreams often become very powerful and meaningful. Come honor your dreams in our weekly Dream Group, Wednesday

7-8:30 pm. Also our weekly Lectio Divina and Centering Prayer Group is on Zoom now, Tuesday 10-11 am. We are also offering a new Support Group my husband Dr. Walt Rutherford and I will co-lead a Friday's, 10-11:30 am PST and it will begin as soon as people sign up. Please contact me if you are interested.

Sending love,

Rev. Bonnie Tarwater Minister Church for Our Common Home Co-President of UUSCM https://www.uuscm.org/