October 2, 2025
Friends, yesterday the federal government shut down. Many civil servants and contractors are not working, including some in our congregation. It has been a tense time and jobs have been tenuous for quite a while, even before the shutdown. There has been so much support offered in prayers and checking in. That continues. And we want to offer a time to gather for dinner and relaxing together. Take time to connect in what is what can feel like an interim time.
One of our parishioners, Patty diJoseph, is coordinating a dinner – a Federal Friends’ Dinner – for our federal employees and contractors directly impacted by the government shutdown, and for those who have lost their jobs, or are concerned about losing a job. And for those whose jobs are solid, please jump in and help and enjoy dinner too! And afterward, sit around the firepit for s’mores!
Please reach out to Patty diJoseph (patricia.k.dijoseph@gmail.com) for more information and sign up HERE.
The prayer below is a prayer for every interim time we find ourselves in.
A Prayer for the Interim Time
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems TO believe the relief of dark.
You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”
You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
