Pastor's Page

March, 2010

A message from Reverend Freeman

My Dear Friends,

We are already in March in this year of 2010!

With March comes the spring thaws, brighter, warmer days, and great gusts of wind! How I love the changing seasons where we watch as winter melts into spring, then comes summer, then autumn, and soon the cycle starts all over again and we are left rejoicing with the gifts that each season brings.

The wonders of nature are ceaseless and, as Swedenborgians, we remember that everything on earth corresponds with something in heaven. The seasons of nature and the cycles of the church year are both correspondentially important to us.

In the church cycle we are now in, the season of Lent -- that ancient Christian rite that dates back to the first century -- was born of the worship of our earliest Christian forefathers and foremothers. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday which comes forty-six days before Easter. There are six Sundays in Lent, but they are not considered part of Lent since Lent is a penitential season and Sundays are feast days. The fifth Sunday in Lent is called Palm Sunday and celebrates our Lord's third and triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The last week of Lent is Holy Week, and it includes Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and ends in Holy Saturday.

At the conclusion of the Lenten season we enter into the joyful fifty great days of Easter. In this manner the seasons of church year, like the seasons of nature, hold us in the firm awareness of the ongoing-ness of life and its changing seasons and our part in it! Awareness of this ongoing "wheel of life" sustains us in our love of our Creator and of all of creation.

May your Lenten Journey be richly blessed!
Rev. Freeman Schrock (revfreeman1@yahoo.com)


Manna House Notes

We continue to have a bustle of activity as winter draws towards its close. We look with anticipation towards the dawning spring and its refreshing green colors!

At Manna House, we are being fed with an array of activity that include community groups that come to use the meeting room facilities and to enjoy the premises. Currently we have three 12-Step meetings attending weekly sessions here. In addition, many men in our church extended beyond their Journey class to form an ongoing "Men's Group" designed to provided fellowship and study. Currently we are studying Tunnel to Eternity - Beyond Near-Death, written by Leon Rhodes, a Swedenborgian who has been a writer, editor and lecturer for over twenty years. This has been a good study for our Men's Group, one that has challenged and supported us. We are also studying the film "The Secret" as a means of enlarging our understanding of the differing dimensions of reality.

Come and join us, we will welcome you!

May the Lord's peace be with you as you travel the Lenten path.

Blessings, always…… Rev Freeman