When I was pregnant, I spent hours and hours googling for midwives and doulas in the Tri-Cities area (Kennewick, Richland, Pasco) but now nobody needs to anymore. Just go to tricitiesnaturalbirth.com. Expert local help is just a phone call or an e-mail or a short drive away.

(I made the site.)

Worship without communion is like marriage without sex: if you’re forced into it under the circumstances, it can work, but it is not the way God intended it to be. When worship is a sermon instead of communion, an offering of man’s words to God instead of partaking of the offering of His Body to us, it divorces spirit and body, it is a wedding without consummation, and that sort of thing tends to create problems. It was so wonderful being back “home” with my family and friends but marriage is easier for me when I am living with my husband than when we are apart. I missed you, Ben.

And now, I miss everyone back there, my mother and my father and my brothers who are getting all manly and grown up and responsible but staying boyishly fun and crazy, too. I am with you in spirit, if not in body.

May God have mercy on us all.

What happens when there is no communion, no words, no spirit? Pent up feelings keep piling up inside. Feelings that have nowhere to go and no one to understand them wither and fester. Little by little, they rot and turn a living soul to a mouldy, ghostly, ghastly ghoul, dead and decayed from constipation of the mind and shattering of the heart. Hope dies. Laughter is a lie.

But, oh, joy. They feel each other’s thoughts. All they need is to hear the other breathe and they know. They have a love founded in words on the Word and her fire is balanced by his water.

She is his life, his muse. She makes him alive. He keeps her alive. He tends the fires of her passion, so they hurt no one but instead burn bright and shed light all around, giving warmth, smoking fragrance. He gives her strength and shelter, calm and comfort. She makes him radiant. He makes her beautiful.

With one heart and soul, they share communion in the outpouring and inbreathing of words and spirit. They are glorious together, reflecting the Trinity in word and spirit.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us: have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us: as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.

I received the following from Tala. There is another different correction on TulipGirl’s blog. Names have been deleted to protect the innocent.

From —– —–, the pastor of Diyarbakir Church

30 April 2007
Diyarbakir, Turkey

Dear brothers and sisters,

I greet you in the peace and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Lord abundantly bless you, your families, your churches, and your work.

We know and appreciate very much your heart for us.

Brothers and sisters, in the last ten days we have experienced very painful moments, which words cannot begin to express. Our painful experience has shown us that our lives are as the Lord describes: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” For this reason we have understood one more time how holy and close to the Lord we
should live our lives.

We have also understood that our society is easily given to emotion and that in such painful moments some people, whether intentionally or not, report certain events inaccurately and we have not prevented this or have not been able to do so.

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