Luke 1:39-55 - Mary's Song

         In the Protestant church, we do not think very much about Mary, the mother of Jesus.  She figures much more prominently in Roman Catholicism.  If you have ever wandered through a great Gothic cathedral – or even ventured into a smaller Catholic church with a couple of alcoves, surely you have seen the statues, stone images of Mary the Madonna, set behind flickering votive candles lit in her honor. 

         When we were in Peru, we witnessed a full stage village procession on one of Mary’s many feast days.  Hundreds of people walked the parade route.  Some of them beat drums, others wore elaborate costumes, and still others set off firecrackers from the cliffs above the road.  The town priests and nuns were there in force, surrounding on all sides a large, highly ornate image of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary) which rode in a decorated basket-like thing held high on four stakes above the parading populace.

         Oh, do not get me wrong!  Mary pops up in our Protestant churches too – most often around Christmas.  We picture her in Bethlehem, looking radiant and spotless, as if she just stepped out of the pages of Vogue – or Seventeen – staring into the eyes of her newborn baby.  In addition, if we read the Gospel of John around Good Friday, we find her again, this time kneeling – a bit disheveled - at the foot of the cross, once again beholding her son.

         However, the Gospel of Luke, our focus Gospel for this coming church year, gives considerably more ink to this woman.  In fact, unlike the author of Mark who begins his Gospel with the baptism of Jesus, Matthew who embarks with a genealogy, or John who starts off at creation with the Word, the Gospel writer of Luke begins his narrative with Mary.

         In fact, the men are strangely quiet at the beginning of this gospel.  Zechariah the old priest and husband of Elizabeth has been struck mute, and Joseph – though he could - does not say a word.  We get our first clue about this Gospel writer’s perspective on the ministry of Jesus through Mary and her older cousin, Elizabeth.

       The Gospel writer tells us that God chose Mary to bear a son.  It all begins with that truth.  Imagine that!  What in the world was God thinking?  Mary was not rich.  She was not even married – though she was dating.  And she was only a teenager.  But in spite of those apparent strikes against her, God chose her.  Imagine that!

       No – Mary really could not imagine that.  I mean, what was God thinking?  Presbyterian pastor Adam Copeland puts it this way:  “There surely were better ways, right? Come as an adult and skip over those nasty cloth diapers and terrible twos — that sounds good. Or if God must be born as one of us, at least choose a respectable family. Someone married, with means; a family that has shown good parenting skills and is keeping up with the Joneses. Couldn’t God have found someone a bit more qualified than Mary?’

       She did said yes, of course – though undoubtedly with some level of shock because the news was more like a death sentence in a world where adultery was punishable by stoning.  Perhaps she wondered how many other virgins that angel had approached before he had come to her, and she had agreed. 

       On a less cosmic level, this pregnancy thing threw a monkey wrench in all her best-laid plans.  I mean, really, a young unmarried girl like herself in this shameful state!  Why – what would the neighbors say?  “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little…”

       It is not every day either that you had to break this news to your family – and to your husband-to-be – and yes, Joseph was taking his own sweet time figuring out first whether he even believed her and second precisely what he was going to do.

       No wonder Mary struck off on her own to seek out her cousin, Elizabeth.  She needed support – and comfort.  She needed someone to give her a bit of perspective on it all – and a friend to assure her that she was up to the task. 

       And so she walked – alone, no easy feat –many miles up into the hill country of Judea.  And when she ended up on Elizabeth’s doorstep, she discovered two things.

       First, Mary found out that Elizabeth was also pregnant – and surely she felt some sense of relief in knowing that, yes, miracles do happen.  You see, her elderly cousin had given up on the idea of bearing children years ago, but here she was carrying a son who would grow up to be John the Baptizer. 

       And if Elizabeth ever wondered if it all was real, the baby gave her firm kick – perhaps one of the first she had felt – when she opened her door to find Mary standing on the stoop.  Luke describes it as the baby “leaping for joy.”       

       The second thing that Mary discovered was that everything was going to be OK.  And we know that because, even if Mary did not tell Elizabeth straight off the baby news, pregnant women can spot one of their kind a mile off, and the first words out of Elizabeth’s mouth was this affirmation:  “Blessed are you, Mary!”  Of all the women God could have chosen, God chose you – not a socialite, not a queen, but you, one of the lowly.  “Blessed are you, Mary – and blessed is the child you will bear!”

       And maybe it was just hearing those words that caused something in Mary to break open – like a floodgate.  But she did not cry like people usually do when the floodgates open.  Instead, Mary sang. 

       It was as if the song was part and parcel of her DNA, and she could hold it in no longer.  The song, the one that traditionally we have called the Magnificat, was part of her.  She and the words she sang were one.

"My soul magnifies the Lord.

My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior,

for he has looked at the humble state of his handmaid.

For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed."

       Imagine that – God seeking out a peasant teenager and not only transforming her but also exalting her.  It makes you wonder what God could do with us if we were as courageous in saying “yes” as Mary was.

         In essence, when Mary sings, she is a prophet – like Micah or Isaiah – because the words she sings are God’s words:  God’s manifesto, God’s charter, God’s fundamental document outlining what the world should be.  Mary’s song is God’s call to revolution and transformation.

         Her song tells us in no uncertain terms that God changes the order of everything.  The world is turned upside down.  Before Mary came along, we might have been impressed with beauty, education, intellect, and affluence.  But now, it is easy to see that the poor are on top, and the rich are on the bottom.  At the very foundation of the Gospel of Luke is the premise that God’s compassion is for the economically poor.  Therein lies true justice.

         That is the gist of the Magnificat – the glorious song that Mary cannot help but sing out.  However, do not get caught up in the poetry and how it all flows so well together.  Do not get caught up in simply the music.  This is revolutionary stuff!

“God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (she sings).

God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly;

God has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty.”

         The song tells us in no uncertain terms that God is reversing everything.  Winners become losers, and losers become winners.  Our culture may say that the beautiful, the rich, the successful, and the secure are the ones who are blessed because they seem to have no worries.  Our culture may say that the one who dies with the most toys wins. 

         But Mary is telling us no.  God has another plan in mind.  And do not worry about Mary speaking in the past tense – as if that somehow lets us all these millennia later off the hook – because prophets always get their tenses mixed up.  As Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor notes “part of their gift is being able to see the world as God sees it--not divided into things that are already over and things that have not happened yet, but as an eternally unfolding mystery that surprises everyone."

         And if you do not want to believe this revolutionary stuff because it comes from a woman with a politically liberal bias, then remember that fellow named Jesus who came around a couple of decades later and echoed his mother’s song, “Blessed are the poor (he said), blessed are the hungry, blessed are the meek.”

         But let’s face it - these are tough words to swallow at Christmas time.  I am not sure we really want to hear this manifesto business as we make our way to Bethlehem.  To be honest, I would much rather go with the spotless Mary and the perfectly behaved stable animals. 

         I would rather start with “silent night holy night” instead of with that verse about bringing the powerful to their knees and sending the rich off hungry.  Why didn’t the Gospel writer just begin with the second chapter… “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus…”

         But the gospel writer did not do that: First things first, as the saying goes.  The Gospel writer understood that before Christmas comes Advent.  Before the birth is Mary’s song of revolution.

         And so the question for us who make our way to Bethlehem to honor the child she bears is this:  Can we sing her song?  As we teeter on the brink of the fiscal cliff, can we sing Mary’s song with the same courage and faith that she sang it 2000 plus years ago?  Can we be the revolutionaries that God calls us to be?

         Jim Wallis, a noted Christian evangelical and author of God’s Politics:  How the Right Gets is Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It wrote this about our current circumstances a couple of days ago in his blog:  “The discussion we are having about “the fiscal cliff” is really a debate about our fiscal soul. What kind of nation do we want to be? We do need a path to fiscal sustainability, but will it include all of us — especially the most vulnerable? It’s a foundational moral choice for the country…(Wallis says) I am strongly in favor of restoring previously higher tax rates for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans — and ending their unfair loopholes and deductions — but that still won’t raise enough revenue to move us toward fiscal sustainability while protecting the poor. We must make other choices in spending cuts and new revenues— but in clearly morally responsible ways. 

         Will we choose to protect demonstrably effective nutritional programs for low-income families instead of unjust subsidies to agribusiness? Or defend things like Pell Grants to enable students from low-income families to go to college for the first time over huge subsidies to profitable oil companies? Or help refinance mortgages for struggling single homeowners instead of retaining charitable tax deductions for second and third vacation homes? 

         Will we finally have an honest discussion about military spending and national security?...The faith community must urge (decision makers) to beat those swords into plowshares….The biblical prophets say that a nation’s “righteousness,” or integrity as we might say, is determined by how they treat the poorest and most vulnerable; and Jesus said how we respond to the least of these is indicative of how we respond to him.”

         Lutheran pastor, David Nelson writes, “In conceiving the child, Mary is a sign that God is in this life with us, down to the smallest, most basic, experience….a reminder that God's work gets done when otherwise ordinary people hear the voice of God and decide to say "yes."   Mary is a reminder that faith means following dreams -- dreams that begin with God - with courage and expectation.”

         And so the question for us who make our way to Bethlehem to honor the child Mary bears is this:  Can we sing her song?  Can we be the revolutionaries that God calls us to be?

         Because if we cannot, if we cannot embrace God’s manifesto, if we cannot sing Mary’s song from the depths of our souls, then we might as well forego Christmas because all the holiday will mean for us is more presents than we need and more food than we should eat.

         But if Mary’s song leaves you with a touch of hope, if Mary’s song ignites an imagination that has laid dormant for too long, if Mary’s song gives you a vision of a transformed world, and if you in the eyes of God can claim Mary’s song as your song, then come, come to the stable, come with the words of her song on your lips and with a new mother’s joy in your hearts because you are about to birth a new world, because you have made a commitment to follow the Child wherever he may lead.

         I invite you now to stand in solidarity with Mary and sing her song (Holy Is Your Name).

by Rev.Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church UCC

www.rvccme.org

                           

The Year(s) of the Pageant

            Because of special services and events at my church, I do not preach every week during Advent.  However, each year in our December church newsletter, I share a Christmas memory. Following is my 2012 memory:

            One of my fondest Christmas memories is that of the annual Christmas pageant in the UCC church where I grew up.  The script had been written in the 1940’s and was performed in exactly the same way every year until the late 1960’s when traditional Christmas pageants went out-of-style.  The pageant was always performed on the Sunday before Christmas, late in the afternoon, so it was already getting dark outside.

            Two adult men in the congregation (one being my father for a number of years) played the role of prophets who told the story of the birth of Christ, beginning each pageant with the same words – “Break forth into joy!  Sing together, ye nations of the earth!” – inspired by words from the prophet Isaiah.

            The rest of the cast was Sunday school aged youth – from a kindergartner who brought forth the Christmas star to Mary and Joseph who were seniors in high school. Those without specific roles were members of a choir that processed into the church dressed in short white robes with red ribbons, carrying long, battery operated tapers and sat in the side balconies of the sanctuary – the best seats in the house.

            I remember the odor of frankincense and myrrh that permeated the sanctuary and seemed to draw all of us back in time to the stable in Bethlehem.  Carried by censor bearers, it was received by the prophets, the smoke wafting upward reminding us that our prayers all somehow make their way to God.

            I remember the Christmas star alit as it moved down the center aisle.  Then it was gone, only to come to life again, more brilliant it seemed than ever, high above the choir loft. 

            I remember watching from the balcony with the other Sunday School choir members as the shepherds in their drab robes and bare feet came forward.  They were followed soon thereafter by three magi.  Surely these were the wise ones – not kings because they did not sport crowns but rather more like what I figured astrologers must look like.

            I remember singing the old familiar carols.  The words memorized long ago told the story too even as it unfolded visually before me.

            I remember being an angel – and one year being the speaking angel.  We stood in the window wells that housed beautiful stained glass figures during the day but were dark – and freezing cold – at dusk.  Beneath our white robes we wore heavy socks and long underwear and peeked through the tiny holes in the curtain that covered us, holes made long ago by previous angels intent on watching the beloved pageant.

            The Nativity scene itself was unveiled at the front of the church at the pageant’s climax.  It looked like a real stable when the curtain was drawn aside.  There was genuine hay and a rough wooden manger.  Mary and Joseph looked on, completely still and silent while the shepherds and kings completed the Christmas tableau.

            I remember looking out of the car window driving home afterwards and seeing a particularly bright star in the evening sky. Though it was probably Venus, I always thought that it must be the Christmas Star, come once again to announce the birth of Jesus.  Forever and always, the smell of cold cream and grease paint will remind me of the pageant too.

            It is a wonderful story we tell each Christmas – and it is our story.  It is a story that we need to keep telling even as the world becomes a crazier place, and the story sometimes seems to make less sense than ever.  We need to keep telling the story because it embodies a profound truth: that unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given….and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  

            Tell our story this Christmas – and if you know it already, tell it again – because it is a wonderful story – and because it is our story and because it embodies a truth – a truth about God’s unending love for the world.

By Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
www.rvccme.org

Ruth 1:1-18 - "All-Saints' Remembrances"

         The passage that we just read is from that part of the Bible we call the Book of Ruth, one of only two books in all our Holy Scripture to be named for a woman.  However, its story does not begin with Ruth, its namesake.  Its story begins with Naomi – and it begins with tragedy.  You see, life has dealt Naomi a series of grievous blows – one right after another. 

         First, there was the famine in Judah – year after year of drought and bad harvests – so devastating that it drove Naomi, her husband (whose name was Elimelech), and their two young sons from their homeland.  Starving and in desperate straits with no one to turn to, the family was forced to migrate to Moab, a tiny place east of Bethlehem, across the Dead Sea, and higher in the mountains.

         For want of a loaf of bread, the four of them became strangers in a strange land.  Over time, however, the two sons assimilated and married local girls, Moabite women.  One wife was named Orpah, and the other was Ruth (for whom this story is named).

         As you might guess, living as foreigners or immigrants in that place and in that time was a difficult proposition.  However, their refugee status on top of the famine was not the real tragedy in this story either. 

         You see, it was only a short time later that Naomi’s husband died, leaving Naomi, her two sons and their wives, Ruth and Orpah, to fend for themselves.  However, even Elimelech’s untimely death on top of the other experiences of misfortune was still not the real tragedy.  Though being a widow in a patriarchal society was nothing to sneeze at, there was at least some level of assurance for Naomi to be found in a secure family unit – with two men, even though they were only sons.  

         However, as you might already suspect, this scenario did not last long.  You see, within a few years, both of Naomi’s sons died as well.  Now we have three widows, automatically and systematically marginalized in a male-dominated culture, left destitute.  Not only that, but Naomi (because of her advanced age) and Orpah, and Ruth to a lesser extent, are now considered damaged goods.  No one wanted a woman who was not attached in some way to a man.  This is the real tragedy as our story begins.  No wonder Naomi was a bitter old woman.

         No wonder too that when the famine in Judah was over, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, her home.  Surrounded only by death in Moab, perhaps she hoped for some semblance of life among the growing crops.  At the least, she could leave her memories of tragedy forever behind her.  And so she prepared for her solo journey home.

         It apparently never occurred to Naomi that Orpah and Ruth would want to come too.  Maybe Naomi wanted to be alone in her bitterness or maybe she really wanted the very best for her two daughters-in-law.  We do not know, but, for whatever reason, Naomi set in their minds a dismal scene.  

         As Naomi patiently explained to the two young women, even if she met a man that very night (highly unlikely) and married (even more unlikely) and even if she were to have sons (a most unlikely phenomenon, given her advanced age), Orpah and Ruth would have to wait for these boys to grow up in order to marry them, if they were to all stick together.  

         And by that time, Ruth and Orpah would be old as well, way past childbearing age  – and foreigners to boot.  Now what kind of existence would that be?  Strangers in a strange land with no possibility of continuing the family line, they would be throwing their lives away.  All that would result from following Naomi would be to project the current tragedy far into the future.  As far as Naomi was concerned, these two young women had no place whatsoever in her future.  The only viable future for Orpah and Ruth lay in finding new husbands in Moab.

         Now you have to give Orpah credit.  She got it.  She understood Naomi’s exceptionally rational line of argument and decided tearfully to stay put.  She did the reasonable thing for someone like herself who was on the very edge of survival. 

         Ruth, however, was a different story.  I suspect that part of it was that the young woman was unusually stubborn.  Such an independent spirit seems to be a common characteristic among women who hold a more prominent place in the Bible.  You see, Ruth flatly refused to stay at home.  She told Naomi in no uncertain terms that love bound them together for all time.  

“Wherever you go, I shall go.  Wherever you live, so shall I live.  Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God too.  Wherever you die, I shall die and there shall I be buried beside you.  We will be together forever, and our love will be the gift of our lives.”

         In those beautiful and haunting words, surely there was something more than Ruth’s sheer stubbornness presenting itself. Ruth loved Naomi, and in loving her comprehended a marvelous truth – a truth about humanity, a truth about God, and a truth that survives even to this day.  

         When you really love someone, death and tragedy take a back row seat.  Oh, love cannot bring back the ones you have lost to eternity.  No matter how much Ruth might love her mother-in-law, it would never bring back Naomi’s dead husband.  It would never even bring back her own dead husband.  But even so, in a way that we cannot ever fully understand, love is stronger than death.  Out of death and tragedy, the potential for life is somehow there – hidden behind the tears and grief.  And so it was for Ruth. 

         She did in fact follow Naomi to her home in Bethlehem.  She did in fact marry, and she bore a son named Obed.  And in the genealogy, which concludes this Biblical book, we learn that Obed was the father of Jesse, and thus the grandfather of the great King David. 

         So – without Ruth, there would be no Jesse out of which grew that branch of which the prophet Isaiah spoke and about which we read each Advent season as we prepare for the coming of the Christ:  “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse.”  Without Ruth, there would be no King David.  Without Ruth, there would be no royal lineage from which the life-giving Messiah would emerge.

         Death does not have the final word.  Out of tragedies that we think we will never survive can emerge life-affirming hope.  Love is indeed stronger than death.  We are bound together by love across the ages, across the worlds, across the veil that separates us from whatever it is that comes next.

         And that is what I pray each one of us will remember on this All-Saints’ Sunday.  Because if we do, then we will surely sense that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses – grandparents, children, mothers, fathers, spouses, special friends –

all those who have gone on before us but who are still connected to us by the gossamer tendrils of love.

         As the 19^th century American poet Emily Dickinson wrote in her brief poem entitled “Faith”:

You will not see me, so you must have faith. I wait for the time when we can soar together again, both aware of each other. Until then, live your life to its fullest and when you need me, just whisper my name in your heart, ...I will be there.

         Those are beautiful words to keep in mind when we remember, as we traditionally do on this particular Sunday, those individuals in our church family and in our own individual families who died since this time last year.  And so this year we remember:

TOM ELDRIDGE – Tom was Linda’s devoted husband and best friend for nearly 50 years.  He was active here in this church, supporting Linda in all that she did, helping at suppers, and regularly attending worship.  Tom was a Mason and was active in the Kora Temple Shrine.  If you ever went to a local Shrine Circus and happened to encounter a clown named Sunny, well, underneath the make up and costume was Tom.  He loved his family, his daughters, his grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  It was generally agreed that he gave the best hugs. 

         Tom lived with cancer courageously and always with his sense of humor close at hand.  His will to live was phenomenal.  I will never forget visiting with him one afternoon after the hospice nurse (and they generally know what they are talking about) had told his family that he did not have much more time – maybe a day or two. 

         And so I said my goodbyes – and was astounded that the next day Tom was up and out of bed enjoying the summer sun in the back yard and riding his mower up and down the street to visit his neighbors.  However, Tom also knew when his time had really come, and he departed this world graciously and gracefully – just as he had lived his life.

ELLIE MCNUTT – Ellie was Caryl’s mother.  She was a remarkable and determined woman.  Well-educated, she went back to school 29 years after she had finished college to earn her master’s degree in library science.  Over the years, she worked as a school librarian, a reference librarian, and principally as a medical librarian in Albany, New York. 

As you might surmise, Ellie loved to read books.  However, on her own time, she buried herself not in medical textbooks but rather in mysteries and children’s stories.  Though we know that books can transport us to many distant times and places, Ellie also loved the real thing as well.  She traveled extensively and was a patron of the arts, particularly theater and dance.  She loved square dancing with her husband and enjoyed it for over 30 years.  And I do not know if she ever traveled to Scotland, but Scottish Highland Games were a real favorite as well.

         Caryl said this of her mother:  “I remember my Mom as being her own woman (which was a big thing in the 50s and 60s)- she decided how she wanted to birth her children (naturally).  She decided she wanted to go back to school and be a librarian.  She was a good example for her children in this regard.   It is one of the things I am grateful for.”

         Ellie’s final years were difficult ones.  Health issues impeded, and crises came and went.  Caryl took a lot of trips down to Massachusetts to care for her, and I know it was not easy.  It is never easy to see those you love declining so much. 

But Caryl, I hope you will always remember – “The days are long, but the years are short.”  You did a good, good job.

JANE WARREN – Jane was Adma’s cousin.  She taught school for 31 years. Jane loved gardening, berry picking, and simply a good walk in the woods.  Jane and Adma grew up across the road from each other.  One of Adma’s earliest memories with Jane is the two of them sitting wrapped in blankets in the rumble seat of Jane’s parents’ car.  If it rained, they would close the top and giggle in the dark.  As young mothers, they raised their own children together – sharing meals, play time, and babysitting.  They encouraged each other to go back to school at the then named Gorham State Teachers’ College.  Jane was Adma’s “sister of the heart.”  Theirs was a very special relationship.

         Another love the two cousins had in common was baseball, most particularly the Red Sox.  Adma and Jane took two wonderful baseball trips together – one to Chicago to see the Cubs and the other to Baltimore to see the Red Sox in action.  Of Jane, Adma says, “I miss her everyday.” 

CHARLES “BUD” WILSON – Charles was Stacey’s father, and Stacey has many fond memories of her Dad.  Unconditional love was perhaps the greatest thing he taught her, something she tries to give to her own three children as a special tribute to him.

         Here is what Stacey wrote about his father:  “He was very involved in The Boy Scouts of America throughout his life and spent a lot of time up at Camp Hinds in Raymond. As grown children, we were still very close with Dad. He spent Saturdays with my brother in my brother’s wood shop, and Sundays at my house, waiting for Sunday dinner.

         He was an amazing father but he was an even more amazing grandfather. He had had his stoke by the time the first grandchild came along, but Dad relished his role as Grandpa Bud. Oddly enough, the stroke that took so much gave him so much. He had lots of time to spend with his four grand kids, Collette, Sarah, Bobby and Aubrey and was very excited over the news that a 5th was on the way, due in January.

         The stroke also gave my dad the opportunity to find a love of painting that he never knew he had. He regularly went to the outpatient rehab painting class at New England Rehab and leaves behind many beautiful paintings. He will be missed more than words can express.”

         We do not know what happens after death, but I leave you on this All Saints’ Sunday with two thoughts.  One is from J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, The Lord of the Rings.  In it, there is a conversation between Gandalf and Pippin that goes like this;

         “I didn’t think it would end this way.”

         “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here.  Death is just another path, one that we all must take.  The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.”

         “What?  Gandalf?  See what?”

         “White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

         “Well, that isn’t so bad”

         “No, no it isn’t.”

         And second, this prayer from the Reform Judaism Prayer Book:

In the rising of the sun and in its going down, we remember them.

In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them.

In the opening of buds and in the warmth of summer, we remember them.

In the rustling of the leaves and the beauty of autumn, we remember them

In the beginning of the year and when it ends, we remember them.

When we are weary and in need of strength, we remember them

When we are lost and sick at heart, we remember them.

When we have joy we yearn to share, we remember them.

So long as we live, they too shall live, for they are now a part of us as we remember them. Amen

“Wherever you go, I shall go.  Wherever you live, so shall I live.  Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God too.  Wherever you die, I shall died and there shall I be buried beside you.  We will be together forever, and our love will be the gift of our lives.”

         And Amen.

by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, ME

www.rvccme.org