Peace Out(doors)/Interconnect — current program
This is the most recent program from our Peace Out(doors) or Interconnect gathering.
Learn more about Peace Out(doors)
Learn more about Interconnect
Welcome — our time to join together
Greeting
First reading
Today’s first reading is by Dax Franklin-Hicks.
I have been experiencing despair as I witness the sum zero world around me: they win, we lose mentality. This physical world is often about the getting which so often ends up resulting in “the taking”. And oh — the immense harm in the taking.
My eyes and ears have been filled with a consistent hum: people posing their opinion in the aftermath. Some of the answers make my ears perk up — likely because they match my own thinking or answer a question in a satisfying way.
I’m paying attention, though. I am watching for the answers that seem to harden me and encourage cynicism and nihilism — both exist in me.
That’s my tending right now: listen with caution. Take a break. Process what I’ve consumed before consuming more. Take another break. Sit outside. Be.
In all the sum zero ways humans are inclined to operate, nature offers a vital witness of cycling, interdependence, and vitality. There is a different way, a different hum if we are inclined to listen.
What is nature communicating to you about the spiritual aspect of being? Who are the teachers around you that foster other ways of being and how can you tune into this hum?
Recognition of worship space (font, mandala, prayer journal)
Centering
The Word — a time for sacred readings
Recognition of scripture context
There are two creation accounts at the beginning of Genesis. The first begins in chapter one, and another begins a few verses into chapter 2. You might be familiar with the first, in which God speaks everything into existence from nothing in the space of six days.
That account is actually a few centuries newer than the account that appears in Genesis 2, in which God creates the first human from “the dust of the ground.” You might notice some differences between this depiction of our creator and the one who appears in chapter 1.
Scripture reading
Today’s scripture passage is Genesis 2:4b-9.
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no vegetation of the field had yet sprung up — for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground, but a stream would rise from the earth and water the whole face of the ground — then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Special Reading
Today’s special reading is from Walter Brueggemann.
The main theme of the text is this: God and God’s creation are bound together in a distinctive and delicate way. This is the presupposition for everything that follows in the Bible. It is the deepest premise from which good news is possible. God and [God’s] creation are bound together by the powerful, gracious movement of God towards that creation. The binding which is established by God is inscrutable. It will not be explained or analyzed. It can only be affirmed and confessed. This text announces the deepest mystery: God wills and will have a faithful relation with earth. The text invites the listening community to celebrate that reality. The binding is irreversible. God has decided it. The connection cannot be nullified.
Response — our time to join in prayer and fellowship
Prayers
Fellowship
Sending — our time to focus from our immediate to our greater community
Centering
Unison Sending
Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our siblings throughout the world.
Give them today, through our hands, their daily bread.
Through our understanding, give them love.
Give peace and joy. Amen.
Works Referenced
Brueggemann, Walter. Genesis. (Interpretation: a Bible commentary for teaching and preaching). Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1982, 22–24.
Franklin-Hicks, Dax. “Nature’s Witness.” Daily Ripple. November 15, 2024. https://dailyripple.substack.com/p/natures-witness
