Hello friends,
Our first pastor was famous for his “concordance.”
A concordance is like a dictionary. It alphabetically organizes all the words used in the Bible and shows you where to find each word. For example, if you wanted to know how many times the word turtle is mentioned in the Bible, you would go to the “TUR” page of the concordance where you would see the fifteen biblical references to turtles!
Published by Samuel Newman in 1643, the Newman Concordance was the best concordance of its time:
“The voice of the turtle is heard in our land,” Samuel Newman recorded in his concordance. The snapping turtle who came to visit the church parking lot yesterday didn’t have much of a voice, but she was clearly on a mission!
Like the turtle, sometimes we don’t have words for what we’re experiencing; sometimes we just snap at the world. Words fail us when we are disappointed, or hurt, or disoriented. In these moments, it’s okay to let our silence speak, and let our actions talk, too.
As the East Providence Animal Safety officer explained when he came to see the turtle, “with turtles, where there’s a will, there’s a way!”
May it be so for us too.
Traveling together,
Sam
https://mailchi.mp/1d73d75531d1/easter-sunday-8334589
