Read: 1 Peter 3:18-22

As I work through the recent loss of my mother, I find myself weighed down with the more problematic parts of my relationship with her — and in so doing I find myself confronting my many personal failings and shortcomings. For this reason, the description of baptism as “not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God,” is particularly poignant.

Lord, Christ suffered once for sins. I find myself wondering how many times I might suffer for mine, and I hope I can be made alive in the Spirit. Amen.
-Michael Boss

Read: 1 Peter 3:18-22

“He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.” – 1 Peter 3:18b

The time of God appearing in burning bushes and pillars of fire was over. God now chose to reach out to his rebellious creatures in a way they could easily relate to. He took on their bodily form. Through it, he walked among them, lived and ate with them, spoke to and touched them. He lived out what he preached, hoping the people would understand and follow him, not just to be healed and fed, but to learn to heal and feed others. To his people, he gave hope for a better world. And then he was gone, a victim of hate, fear, and ignorance. But only the body was lost to his faithful followers. The Spirit was born as the body gave way. The Spirit was in the world, but not of it. It was present not in one body, but in all who took Jesus’s words into their hearts. His Spirit walked in the world with the faithful who continued his work after his ascension. It is still walking today, in the faithful who refuse to give way to the hate and fear mongers of this world, who refuse to give in to discouraging words. It enlivens those who persevere in living out Jesus’s teachings and ministries, sharing love and compassion with a distressed world, healing those who are hurt, and feeding those who are hungry. Knowing this gives me hope.

Gracious God, who has spoken to humanity across the ages and called us into a loving relationship with you, I give you thanks for your constant and faithful presence among us. Grant that I may be faithful to you and your vision of this life. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.
-Carol Treston

Read: 1 Peter 3:18-22

“In which he proclaimed to the spirit in prison” – 1 Peter 3:19

On Saturday, January 20, 2024, Carol Boss, Sandy McDougall, and I attended a mini OPOP, One Parish One Prisoner seminar at First United Methodist Church in Olympia, Washington with Chris Hoke, Alvin Shim, and members of their awesome and dedicated OPOP staff to facilitate the meeting. This was of interest to us as St.Paul’s has sponsored Paul Fuentes and we wanted to hear and share information with other teams with dreams, hopes, stories, and ideas.

After a blessing from Rev. Jonathan Weldon, part of our morning session included a panel of men and women who had been released from prison and had been placed with an OPOP team. The OPOP teams were from different churches, mostly around the Olympia area and there was a lively question and answer with sharing their stories, heartaches, hopes, fears, and successes with lots of tears, laughter, and smiles. After a lunch of pizza, tacos, and salad, we settled down for an afternoon of sharing information with other teams, networking, and sharing updates from Chris and Alvin. An informative report from Candice Baughman let us know about criminal legal and policing bills being introduced in the Washington legislative this 2024 session.

Hope rippled around the room, hope for more inmates to find a team, hope for teams waiting for their new person to be able to start a new life, hope for reconciliation between the released and their families, and hope for “walking alongside just one neighbor leaving the tombs of incarceration”.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Amen.
-Mary Ann Taylor

Read: 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Having spent a few years in Iran, I got to know the works of the Sufi poet Rumi. My Farsi was never good enough to read his poetry in the original, but inasmuch as Farsi is celebrated as “the language of the nightingale,” and knowing its beauty as a spoken language, I can only imagine its power. It is certainly beautiful as rendered in my mother tongue. There is a section of 2 Corinthians that reminds me of Rumi in both spirit and cadence: “…genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” I think Rumi would have related to these dualities.

Lord, grant me the wisdom and grace to live gracefully into the duality of the flesh and the spirit. Amen.
-Michael Boss