The 2nd and 3rd Books of Isaiah
Fall 2004 Bible Study

Remembering and Celebrating

"St. Joan of Arc Bible Study is an open and growing group that meets for fellowship and to discuss the Bible and other faith-centered literature. Our informal study group draws from biblical scholarship, historical perspectives, current events and personal reflections. We welcome honor and respect the personal ideas and spiritual journeys of all who join us."

Greetings

We shared quite a moving evening down in "Hall" at the ol' country church. We began with Claire sharing the tragic news of her brothers' partner missing in Chicago. At this time we have no new news. We gathered in our circle and prayed for all involved and were asked to envision Beth and hold her and embrace her in our light. We ask for guidance and some peace during this time that feels like a nightmare. We continue to do what we can to support Claire, her family and ourselves.

We realized we could not simply go back to bible-study-as-usual after the loss of our dear friend, Bruce. So the first part of our gathering we spent sharing our feelings and memories of Bruce and what he meant to us and coming to grips with what his passing means for us in our lives. It was truly a remarkable experience. It was so much the right thing to do. We laughed and we cried and we cleansed. We shared a wonderful blessing with Claire as she spoke to us about her love of and relationship with Bruce. Through the tragedy, I think we all realize how unbelievably lucky we are to have this type of community - this type of fellowship. You are the people I want to place my chips with. You are the people I want to grow with. You are the people I want to serve. You are the people I want to journey with.

Bruce must have been present because at 8:00 we just knew it. We looked up, and sure enough it was treat time. And we do mean treat time. It happened to be Claire's birthday and it just so happens we had a spectacular birthday cake and ice cream to go along with our birthday song.

The cake was prepared by a master baker with loving hands and tremendous heart. It was high and thick and layered. There was a veritable bouquet of frosting-flowers of every imaginable color! The frosting was of butter, linen white in color, the kind of frosting you only hear about these days. There were candles at the edge of the banquet table fit for a Liberace' concert and indeed a concert broke out as one cut deep to the middle of the delight to find yet more dreamy butter frosting.

And as we know, cake is never enough, so we also were served any variety of the real deal Holyfield, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, kind of a happening. Your choices are, Whole Bean Vanilla (straight from the Yucatan), Dutch Oven Chocolate (straight from the Dutch), and the Italian favorite, Spumoni (which we discovered may not be Italian at all, at least our Italian members had never heard of it!)! Are you kidding me!!! The taste receptors are firing on all cylinders, thank you very much. And then, to turn this into a genuine feast of feasts, there were whole cashews free for the sprinkling on our cake and ice cream. Who are u kidding!! Ok, I give up! Uncle!! Thank you so much Marlys and Denny.

Don't forget, for our next potluck, we will attempt to meet at Punch's Pizzeria (no date set as of yet). Andre should decide which one we go to because he knows his Pizza!

We closed with a reading from the Psalms and then cleaned the joint up.

For next week, please read Isaiah 56, 57, 58.

• Facilitator Rita
• O. Prayer Tammy
• C. Prayer Vi
• Treats Cristina