I spent the morning on my knees. Nope, I wasn’t praying, at least not in the typical sense of the word. I was on my front sidewalk with a package of egg-shaped colored chalk marking out these messages in opposite directions from my front door.

It’s Eastertide, Solstice, a season of light. The light in me greets the light in you.

May the blessing of light be on you, may the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great fire.

In the middle there’s a big, poorly drawn sun with the world ‘elohim’ under it in little tiny letters. Some would say that I should have just skipped the ‘elohim’ all together, but some are not me; and me, I’m Jesus-y (as Anne Lamott would say) so the ‘elohim’ stays.

Here’s a little aside for you: I read somewhere recently that ‘elohim’ is term used to represent the feminine side of God’s nature and that it fell out of favor for the more masculine “yahweh.” (I really really hope that this was not in the DaVinci Code, because it would be really lame to quote that particular piece of fiction as though it were a textbook. Please please let me be thinking of Susan Monk Kidd or something.) I wonder if that’s true, about ‘elohim’. And if it is true, why did we abandon one for the other? Probably because of whom the story tellers have been in the past. But now women are starting to be story tellers again, in the public realm, so maybe the stories will change. Maybe we could start telling elohim stories. We were standing on the sidewalk, admiring my handiwork when I said this to my housemate, and then I added, “Or we could just be pissed off.” And Sharon, who is the gentlest person I know, said, steadily, “Yeeeees, but sometimes you have to be a little pissed off so that you get to the point where you are telling the stories.” As the Brits would say, “Right.”

Anyway, I am totally obsessed with all things light related. …

I washed all the windows in the living room/dining room, saying prayers of incantation to “come and fill this place.” I stacked a dozen white candles in front of the mosaic on the mantle. I turned on Van Morrison song “Whenever God Shines His Light” and then played Waterdeep’s version, and then dug out Hothouse Flower’s version of “Bright Sunshiny Day” (in which the lead singer pounds the heck out of the key boards.) In a non-light related pique of prayer, I also prayed while I stacked our ridiculous number of shoes in the shoe bin by the front door. As I stacked her slippers, I prayed for Sharon, that when she was lonely as a single person our family would be a comfort and that when she was celebrating her singleness (which is most of the time) we could relish in that with her. Then I prayed a little confession-and-regret prayer that we, a group of mostly couples, still don’t really know how to do this for our single folks; and I lamented that maybe we never will.

At lunch I ran up to the store for extra stewed tomatoes. (I accidentally gave the ones for our soup away on Saturday for the Letter Carrier’s Food Drive. Our Letter Carrier’s name is Steve, I just met him.) While I was there I bought four bundles of yellow flowers and now we have a sunburst arrangement as big as my head. (The actual physical size of my head, not the ego size. They didn’t have enough flowers for that.) Soon I’ll put the night’s order on the dry erase board, vacuum the floor, dust the altar…

Speaking of altar…that’s where we toss our offerings, in a ceramic bowl someone gave us. Well this morning I came downstairs and there was this really cool drawing on the big easel in the kitchen. Eden had drawn a purple bear with circles all over it. Some of the circles had designs in them…curlicues, stars, etc. I asked her about it and she told me it was an “Offering Bear.” “You put your offerings in the circles Mommy, cuz offerings don’t have to be money.”

Can you dig it?

So tonight, as part of our time together, we will move the easel in front of the altar and the grown ups will get to fill in some of the circles. Eden says she will only save us 7 and we will have to share.

Here’s what we are doing tonight:

Communal(ion) Meal With our ThPM Prayer also announce Offering Bear

Van Morrison Tune/Mini Meditation We’ll play this tune on the CD and people can light candles or make “light” ornaments likes suns or tiny mirrors for the tree we started during Lent. I want to be able to learn this as worship song this season.

Light Examen This is our Eastertide practice now. Where did you most experience the Light this week? Where did you feel its absence? Next year I want to offer a transfaith spirituality group for Solstice Parade participants using this practice.

Solstice Sketches We’ll share ideas for our entry in the Solstice Parade – people will probably be sketching on this throughout the night.

Benediction Blessing of Light