People say the Lord works in mysterious ways. For proof of that we took the opportunity to meet with friends of Kel Friesen (On his suggestion) at their adopted church this morning. We met Mark and Anita Gingrich outside the sanctuary of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson. Since we arrived, we've attended Northminster Presbyterian, which we enjoyed. Today was something different. Southside Presbyterian Church has been in service since 1906, originally built to serve the Tohono O'odham Indians. The church''s mission statement says they're a community of faith, hope, love, and witness in the borderlands. The service brought me to tears. Centermost in the experience is inclusivity. The sense of equity was palpable. In the call to faithfulness a prayer was spoken in the language of the Tohono O'odham; another was prayed in Spanish, and the music had a distinct Gospel flavor. The message centered on an interpretation of the beatitudes. Especially provocative was Pastor Alison Harrington's take that Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount was actually using performative language meaning that in each "Blessed are the....whatever... were already blessed, already accepted, already favored by the Lord. Nothing needed to be earned; each of "these" blessed already belonged in heaven. We sat with Mark and Anita and they made efforts to introduce us around. We'll be attending there from now forward. After church we enjoyed lunch with Mark and Anita, shared the usual background jibber-jabber minus the grandchild photos. They are delightful, and maybe we'll share more time with them as we go. Who knows? In the afternoon, we watched football with our friends the Kral's (David is an avid football fan, especially the Steelers). Ginny made a delicious dinner of pasta with meat sauce. We brought a green salad. In all, another fine day. Oh, and I did manage to skunk the Cager this morning for a lead of $1.53. We'll have to get a new deck of cards because her blubber, blathering misery soaked the cards we've been using. They're really hard to shuffle after they've been used as Kleenex. I'm exaggerating, but I did hear a couple of moans from her side of the table. Regardless, our lives are good, especially today.
Our new insight to the mysteries of the Lord. the Kiva shaped sanctuary is circular, designed in the way of the Tohono O'odham people.
Judy and Ginny, two peas in a pod, knitted and cheered. Ginny cheered for the guys in the prettiest uniforms (Chiefs); Judy kept her allegiance to Kansas.
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