Today is International Labor Day, and in the US, it commemorates the victory of an 8-hour work day following the Haymarket Affair in 1886. This year, people are taking to the streets not only to commemorate workers' rights but also to lift up the importance of education, healthcare, and immigration.
It's also a day that some - especially in Europe - dance around maypoles with different colored ribbons weaving together a beautiful pattern adorned with baskets of flowers, embracing the start of Spring, earth's flowering season.
No matter your understanding of May Day, perhaps it can be a time to practice spring—a time to notice what is flowering, what is bubbling up, and what needs to come together. Perhaps a practice of prating spring can be setting aside time to talk to our neighbors about what's most important, what you value, and what kind of world you want to spring forth around you.
As we welcome the springtime air and wrestle with the wrongs of our time, let us embrace the Eastertide gift of unexpectedly meeting Jesus on the road of our life's journey. Let us open our hearts to the prophetic imagination that can help us fashion a new kind of world more expansive, colorful, and vibrant than we have yet known.
Throughout this series, Pastor Adrienne is putting together an opportunity for you to talk with your neighbor by equipping you with some deep ways to engage in the imaginative ways of Jesus -- reversing our expectations of the way things have always been.
Join the group to get questions emailed to you every week and to share your experience of talking with your neighbors. Or, just go to the "Talk With Your Neighbor" tab on the website to download the reading and questions for the week.
Let us be transformed in the new ways we can practice spring by engaging with community in deep conversation.
