Monday, March 2, 2009

Two Focus Areas for Lent

Each week through Lent I’d like to have an inward and an outward focus in reflection.

The inward focus is grounded in Psalm 139 verse 14 which affirms that we are ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. To help us reflect on this we will have a life size skeleton in the church throughout Lent and each week we will think about the bones which are found in a particular part of the body.

This week we give thanks for the bones of our feet and legs: the femur, tibia, fibula, tarsals and meta-tarsals, and phalanges; the ball joints of our hips and ankles; & the hinge joints of our knees and toes. What a gift to be able to walk upright – run – dance – play games. What about those people who cannot walk, and have to use wheelchairs? What about those people who have joints in their legs that are worn out, or are damaged by disease?

The outward focus is grounded in the reality that within our worshipping community we have people who speak twelve different languages other than English. As we progress towards Easter I’d like our Parish to pray intelligently for the countries that seven of those languages come from.

This week we remember the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In land area it is the twelfth largest country in the world, and has a population of 62,600.000. The languages used for administration are French, Lingala and Swahili. The Capital of the DRC is Kinshasa, and the country has extraordinary cobalt, copper, diamond, and other mineral reserves. Tragically, the ongoing conflict in the DRC is regarded as the world’s most deadly war since World War Two. It has claimed an estimated 5.4 million lives! Please pray for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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