Comforted by Liturgy?

I am not typically one who migrates toward repeated liturgical prayers. By nature I migrate toward change, toward new things, toward spontaneity. Yet over the last 6 months I find myself comforted and encouraged by the morning prayers found at The Northumbrian community's website.

I can not quite define why I find this comfort in this season of life, and I am sure that most attempts to psychoanalyze this will fall short of describing why things are this way for me right now. Perhaps to know that it is is good enough.

Are you comforted by repetitive liturgy? Maybe you know why. What does it do for you?

Synching on Syncing (a Synchroblog on Syncretism)

This month there is a rather quickly put together set of posts on the subject of Syncretism. This is a subject rather close to my heart primarily due to the fact that I have been falsely accused of such activity by people who have not even graced the doors of our church. Of course, the term "graced" is not one which would really apply to them I suppose.

As my consideration of the subject this SynchroBlog I would like to make a statement about a potential future arrangement near our church, and post a question.

Our potential future neighbors at church

Now it appears that next door to our church, in the same building, and sharing the same bathrooms, and having doors facing one another that the newest tenants to our building just might be a a rather large and famous school of witchcraft. This is nothing peculiar for our city of Salem, Massachusetts. The Pagan community is not a group we are either afraid of, nor antagonistic towards. We have many witches who are our friends. That is life in Salem with the loving heart of Jesus.

Now the Question

So, what would you do if your church was saddled up next to the world's largest witchcraft school? I am not sure that this is a definite, and I am not certain I have the answer to the question myself.

Perhaps some of you my Pagan friends might have some thoughts. Perhaps some of you my Christian friends might have some concerns. Perhaps some of you are just scratching your heads and saying, "wow." What's your take? WWYD? Uhm, that's What Would You Do? :-)

The other synchrobloggers so far:


• Matt Stone Master Chef: How To Cook Up A Personal Jesus
• Susan Barnes Our Uncomfortable God
• Liz Dyer Does Interfaith Dialogue Lead To Syncretism?
• Phil Wyman Synching on Synching Synchroblog on Syncretism
• How to be a Syncretist by Ellen Haroutunian
• Steve Hayes The Man in the Moss
• KW Leslie The Syncretists I Have Dealt With