We talked about environmental health last week, reminding ourselves that we cannot hope to have a good life on earth if we don’t think of also caring for the earth. We committed to doing all we can to create less pollution for the environment, save as much electricity and water as we can and be conservative in our use of all earthly resources -- reuse and recycle as much as we can so not too much is added into the landfills. I hope we all can do our part to protect our planet.

Spiritual Health was the focus for this week in our Lenten series, and the parable we focused on was of Jesus bringing the dead girl back to life, saying to those gathered, “She is not dead, she is sleeping!” The invitation to us is to think of the part of our life that we have put aside as ‘dead,’ for whatever reason, and see if God might be inviting us to claim that part of us and allow it to bless us. As a community we are invited to learn about new ways to revive our community -- perhaps even by connecting with others in the neighborhood who are working passionately to make this community a better place and to alleviate the devastating effects of the pandemic of virus and race.

Mental Health and the ‘power of our stories’ was the focus for this week in our Lenten series, and based on the parable for this week, we pondered the question: ‘how could we open our eyes to things or persons around us that may need our support?’ We realize that often times we become too focused in our own little world that we fail to see those around us who might be needing our help. We are generally slow to ask for help, and slower when the need is around mental health, even though it has become a huge concern in this season of COVID. I shared last Sunday the statistics, according to Kaiser Family Foundation that: