Cycles of Worship - Part 1

The summer grasses waved their glory every day I passed; glowing golden in the late summer dusk...

Reminding that the later harvest was almost here.

I wondered how so many days had crept by, the desire for Lent to linger - pulsing and burning the path of life and liturgy and contemplation - dying down {yet not out}, counting by adding stalks of wheat in a vase...

four days:



             thirty days:

counting to Pentecost (fifty days and fifty stalks of wheat)   

                                               

and the idea occurred to me to continue on past Pentecost:  

Here is what 100 days (after Resurrection/First Fruits) looks like:

                                                     

The counting seemed natural, like how we count the days to Christmas and thus we know how to plan our budgets and time and ways to show love, just as the Jewish people knew because they were to count the days from one Feast to the next...

Somehow, when I had allowed the habit of the daily count to slip away, my attendance to the details of each day also slipped - of course the laundry was done and meals prepared and worship was given and scripture studied; joy and sadness and firmness and, yes, contentment was still woven through the life liturgy I live - and the conviction of purpose and meaning, that my existence was important also slipped.  My ministry to my family seemed small and inconsequential, as if it didn't matter in the larger picture of life...

and yet the golden heads waving desperately declaring that counting helps keep one: 

present:

looking forward to what is yet to come,

 aware of the day that today is  - 

focused:  

to make the most of today while

making the most of each day to come,

full of anticipation... 

grounded in purpose...

living in celebration of life... 

When God created "lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night," he said, "Let them be for signs, seasons, days and years".  Later, these mo'adim became known as mo'adey Adonai (the appointed times of the Lord)— the yearly cycle of festivals ordained for Israel. Before Israel or even mankind had been created,God anticipated Israel's life of worship and made detailed provision for it.

And while the appointed times are to help turn our eyes and hearts to the Lord and to reveal Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He is showing me even greater depths of His love towards us...

What can you count?  1000 gifts with Ann Voskamp?
                                       Days of the Jewish Festivals and between?
                                       Days of the Liturgical Church Year?
                                       or make your own calendar of days?

Sharing with the community "Walk with Him Wednesdays" at A Holy Experience