‘Tis the season of Convocation meetings where we gather in each of our seven regions to review the material coming to us for our consideration at Diocesan Convention.

‘Tis the season where we push the sandals and t-shirts to the back of the closet and put on blazers and lace up shoes and transition from summer to serious.

‘Tis the season where we set the alarm clock at bedtime and go back to the gym and buy new notebooks and renew those New Year’s resolutions about not making ice cream the main course of a meal and committing to drinking eight glasses of water a day.

At least in my life, that’s how it goes:  from full-on vacation mode to full-on work mode, from zero to one-hundred, from not looking at email at all, to spending hours in front of my computer.

Some of this is inevitable, or inescapable, I think, and it does not come as a surprise.  I am fortunate and grateful to have a generous vacation each year.

As I begin this “new year,” it is, for me, with renewed vigor and excitement about all that we are called to do and be as Episcopalians in Central Pennsylvania.

This year, you will hear me and your diocesan leaders- lay and clergy-  talking about The Way Of Love.

If there were one phrase for us to have taken away from our General Convention gathering in Austin, Texas this summer, it would be:  The Way of Love.

Presiding Bishop Curry has given us this gift of an organizing set of Christian practices to help us live more fully as members of the Jesus Movement.  The three foci for our Episcopal church remain:  Creation Care, Racial Reconciliation and Evangelism in the Jesus Movement.   The Way of Love is the means by which we are strengthened to participate fully in the Mission of God (and, I would argue, it is also seven of the ways in which we serve the Mission of God.)

I like this.

The Way of Love is not complicated.  It offers us seven practices to engage, again and again, as we move through our days: Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest.  These seven practices remind us of the seven days of creation in which God created all that is.  There is something “right” about a set of practices that reminds us of the wholeness of creation-  by participating in these seven practices, we are formed in the fullness of what God desires for us-  and as disciples (learners) and apostles (the ones who are sent)- of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

In the next seven weeks, I will blog on each of the seven practices of the Way of Love.

We’ll begin next week with “Turn.”

Until then, if you would like more resources, check out our diocesan website homepage which has a link to materials (www.diocesecpa.org) or The Episcopal Church website at  www.episcopalchurch.org

Blessings in the Way of Love,

+Audrey

Turn · Learn · Pray · Worship · Bless · Go · Rest