They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. Ps 84.7 One of the few fun things about moving is that thorough search for that ever-elusive item that you know made the move, but you just don't know where it is now. And in the process of the quest, you stumble upon a different treasure. It's not what you were looking for, but it's a valuable find, none-the-less.

Fourteen from the US and Rwanda gathered in Kigali and then half went to Kibundo, Tanzania and half went to Gisenyi. Several bishops with leaders from their dioceses were coming together in both places for a week of teaching, worship and prayer, and sharing about ministry.

Listen to these voices, voices of the soul: "Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real." -- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses "The soul is healed by being with children." -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky "And I felt like my heart had been so thoroughly and irreparably broken that there could be no real joy again, that at best there might eventually be a little contentment. Everyone wanted me to get help and rejoin life, pick up the pieces and move on, and I tried to, I wanted to, but I just had to lie in the mud with my arms wrapped around myself, eyes closed, grieving, until I didn't have to anymore." -- Anne Lamott, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year

On previous Sundays, the lectionary readings taken from Luke’s narrative centered on amazing stories of conversion and faith, stories about people not ordinarily considered to be worthy of such a close relationship with God. Through these stories Luke has confronted his readers with the legalistic and materialistic nature of their day, pointing out that their ways, from the leaders to the general population, provide severe hindrances to a loving relationship to God.

Dear Friends at New Covenant, I want to share a few things with you: PLEASE PRAY Fr. Christopher, Sheryl, and I leave for Rwanda Friday and return July 6 and 7. Christopher and I will be ministering in Gisenyi, Rwanda, on the Congolese border, with 5 bishops and their leaders. Sheryl is on the team going to the Kibondo Diocese in Tanzania. Please pray for us.

The Kindergartners in our class were taking turns walking on the water, and pulling their friends, (a parade of Simon Peter stand-ins) to safety and smiles inside the boat. Vacation Bible School has been a beautiful week of busy volunteers preparing early each morning, children arriving with their parents or grandparents just before 9 and then a whirlwind.

The Peddler of Choices is one of the more provocative and lesser-known appellations ascribed to our Lord. As in the gospel reading for this Sunday, the story of the widow of Nain, Jesus reveals God's mercy and the oppression of people. And when our eyes are opened and we can see more clearly we realize the choices before us.

What can we do in 100 days? If we ask Satan he'll remind us that it's doable to slaughter, kill, murder 10,000 men, women, and children every day for 100 days. Just look at Rwanda's spring of '94. Let's not ask or look.

What is Infinity + 1? I remember sitting in my eighth-grade math class, half-excited that it was nearly over and half-annoyed that we were listening to a classmate argue with the math teacher about the definition of infinity, in math used to symbolize the largest number imagined. She wasn't really arguing. She was trying to understand how infinity could be the largest number possible. Every time the teacher tried to explain that the term was not really a number but a rather a symbol, she would exclaim, "Well then, what is (Infinity+1)?"

The colors are still visible but not nearly as vivid as they were in person. A rainbow streak appeared in the middle of the picture from the green streak, still visible, down. As a family was walking out the front doors of the church at the close of Sunday’s service, one of the children said something like, “I never hear from God or see anything like others do.” Just then he looked up and saw what’s below and took a picture of it. His father came to get me and said, “Fr. Carl, you have to see this!” It was gone by the time I got outside. But then, it wasn’t for me.