Rev. Danny Massie
Interim Pastor
Despite all the disadvantages of our isolation and social distancing, one of the opportunities and advantages it affords us is recovering and enjoying the pleasure of reading.
While I love to read, I am painfully slow at it and consequently put it off until time allows for it, which seldom happens, regrettably. But now there is time and opportunity to pick up those writers and books we have intended to explore.
One new writer I have discovered in these days is James Lee Burke, recommended by numerous friends but never read. I am correcting that now with his The New Iberia Blues. As in the passage below, he has a gift of imagination and expression which appeals to me:
When I sat under the tree at three in the morning, an old man watching a barge and tug working its way upstream, I knew that I no longer had to reclaim the past, that the past was still with me, inextricably part of my soul and who I was; I could step through a hole in the dimension and be with my father and mother again, and I didn’t have to drink or mourn the dead or live on a cross for my misdeeds; I was set free, and the past and the future and the present were at the ends of my fingertips, filled with promise and goodness, and I didn’t have to submit to time or fate or even mortality. The party is a grand one and infinite in nature and like the music of the spheres thunderous in its presence, and I realized finally that the invitation to it comes with the sunrise and a clear eye and a good heart and the knowledge that we’re already inside eternity and need not fear any longer.
Recommendations
We have a wonderful resource in church librarian Nancy Fuller. She has gathered recommendations from our staff. Take a look and take advantage of this time and opportunity!
Book club on Zoom
Also, you also are invited to join the Monday Book Club for a conversation about Holy Envy by Barbara Brown Taylor, at 10:30 am April 20 on Zoom. Rev. Alexandra Mauney and Anne Jones will facilitate. Contact Alexandra at amauney@fpcgreensboro.org for info.
