The book - For Such a Time As This - An Emergency Devotional by Hanna Reichel

This book is so good, these days are so fraught, and St. Markans are so ready to challenge and support each other that we feel compelled to bring Hanna Reichel's "emergency devotional," For Such a Time As This back for a second look. 

The book was first used last month by a handful of St. Markans during Advent. It was obvious from the three lively discussions sparked in those pre-ICE Age gatherings that a second look is needed, affording more time for shared reflection in smaller, more intimate settings. 

Now is the time, and Lent is the appropriate season, as together we follow Christ and the disciples to Jerusalem, the cross, the empty tomb and the Upper Room. 

The Meaning for Us in Minneapolis - More From Roger Larson's Blog

Reporter Chris Hayes then segued into a segment with Senator Rafael Warnock, who is also a senior pastor at Ebezer Church in Atlanta, the same church Martin Luther King, Jr led during the Civil Rights era. When asked if we are confronting a similar moral crisis in America as that confronted in the 1960s, Warnock replied “Oh, absolutely. We did not only witness (last week) the killing of a man, we are witnessing the spiraling spiritual death of a nation, and it’s the people who have to stand up and redeem the soul of the country. Soul force meeting brute force”.

Warnock recalled John Lewis crossing the Edmund Pettit Bridge in 1965, “with brute force under color of law on the other side of that bridge. But he kept marching, and not only did he cross the bridge, he built the bridge into a new America. Every generation has a moment like that. This is our moment.”

Warnock, essentially, anticipated and answered the question George Packer asked the following day in an on-line essay: “What Do Americans Do Now?”: “For an American who grew up in the postwar order with its apparently permanent rules, in a democracy with obvious flaws that nonetheless seemed on a course of gradual, inevitable progress, I find it extremely hard to assess the perils we now face….We’ve never been here before, and either the nervous system overreacts or the imagination fails. After Minneapolis, I fear the latter more. Trump is taking the country on a path to tyranny. The first obligation for each of us is to see it and name it. The next is to figure out what to do about it.”

We have an opportunity in the weeks to come to resist succumbing to a failure of imagination, to live instead into God’s imagination, by reading Reichel’s book alongside the scriptural lessons of the Lenten season, discerning in small group discussions with friends and neighbors at St. Marks—including those St. Markans who for weeks now have been bravely, humbly and directly serving their immigrant neighbors in need—what we are we called to do, who we are called to be, how we are called to live in love and peace, sharing and working toward a democratic society made up of all God’s children.

Lenten Small Group Discussion Sessions

The sessions will begin on/after February 8 - sign-up is underway (see below). Each discussion group of 6-8 people will meet weekly with a trained facilitator, either in-person or online. Copies of the book are available in the Saint Mark's Book Shop. 

Questions? Email Roger Larson. Sign-up begins is underway Select options below using the SurveyMonkey Link.

Session schedule

• Group 1 meets Mondays on Zoom, 12:15 - 1:30 pm beginning Monday, Feb 9.
• Group 2 meets Mondays in-person, St. Mark’s 6:30 - 7:45 pm beginning Monday, Feb 9.
• Group 3 meets Tuesdays on Zoom, 6:30 - 7:45 pm beginning Tuesday, Feb 10.
• Group 4 meets Wednesdays in-person, St. Mark’s, 10:30 - 11:45 am beginning Wednesday, Feb 11.
• Group 5 meets Wednesdays in-person, St. Mark’s, 6:00 - 7:15 pm beginning Wednesday, Feb 11.
• Group 6 meets Tuesdays on Zoom, 7:00 - 8:15 pm beginning Tuesday, Feb 17.
• Group 7 meets Thursdays in-person, St. Mark’s, 10:30 - 11:45 am beginning Thursday, Feb 19.