We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

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Holy Cross Day, Sept. 14

See Our Collection of Crosses

“O BLESSED Saviour, who by thy cross and passion hast given life unto the world: Grant that we thy servants may be given grace to take up the cross and follow thee through life and death; whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship and glorify, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Holy Cross Day is Sept. 14 in honor of Christ’s self-offering on the cross for our salvation. The collect for Holy Cross Day recalls that Christ “was lifted high upon the cross that he might draw the whole world unto himself,” and prays that “we, who glory in the mystery of our redemption, may have grace to take up our cross and follow him” (BCP, p. 192). The themes of Holy Cross Day are powerfully expressed by the hymn “Lift high the cross” (Hymn 473).

This day has been a part of the Eastern Church. The feast entered the Western calendar in the seventh century after Emperor Heraclius recovered the cross from the Persians, who had carried it off in 614, 15 years earlier. According to the story, the emperor intended to carry the cross back into Jerusalem himself, but was unable to move forward until he took off his imperial garb and became a barefoot pilgrim.  It only has been celebrated in the Episcopal Church with the current prayer book

Origin of Sept 14 -During the reign of Constantine, first Roman Emperor to profess the Christian faith, his mother Helena went to Israel and there undertook to find the places especially significant to Christians. (She was helped in this by the fact that in their destructions around 135, the Romans had built pagan shrines over many of these sites.)

Having located, close together, what she believed to be the sites of the Crucifixion and of the Burial (at locations that modern archaeologists think may be correct), she then had built over them the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was dedicated on 14 September 335.

Forward Movement reported this:”During the construction, tradition says that fragments from the True Cross, that is, the cross on which Jesus had been crucified, were found. It sounds fanciful, and perhaps it is. What is not fanciful are the fervent prayers of pilgrims from around the world in that site every day.”

Update for 2017 from Forward Movement: “Recently, the traditional site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection was renovated. During the construction, another miracle of sorts happened. It turns out that under more modern layers of marble, ancient, first-century stone was discovered. This is the latest in a series of archeological finds which support the idea that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built on the actual sites where the actual events of Good Friday and Easter Day took place. It is almost overwhelming.” 

It has become a day for recognizing the Cross (in a festal atmosphere that would be inappropriate on Good Friday) as a symbol of triumph, as a sign of Christ’s victory over death, and a reminder of His promise, “And when I am lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” (John 12:32)

The symbol

Paradoxically a symbol of suffering and defeat but also of triumph and salvation, the cross is the universal Christian symbol, acknowledged by all denominations as the single visual identifier of their faith.

History shows that the cross was used centuries before Christ. For example, in the British Museum is a statue of the Assyrian king Samsi-Vul, son of Shalmaneser, 800 years before Christ.

Early Christians used a wide variety of symbols to express their faith. The second-century Christian teacher Clement of Alexandria identified a dove, a fish, a ship, a lyre, and an anchor as suitable images to be engraved on Christians’ signet-rings (or seals). Archaeologists have discovered a gold finger-ring from the third or fourth century that depicts an anchor, cross, lamb, shepherd, dove, and the abbreviation for Christ. 

One of the best known early Christian symbols, because of its modern revival, is the fish. Some early Christians made the Greek word for fish, ichthus, into an acronym for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.The fish has plenty of other theological overtones as well, for Christ fed the 5,000 with 2 fishes and 5 loaves (a meal recapitulated in Christian love-feasts) and called his disciples “fishers of men.” Water baptism, practiced by immersion in the early church, created a parallel between fish and converts.

Tertullian, a theologian writing at beginning of the third century, interpreted this practice as a symbol of baptism: “But we small fishes, named after our great ICHTHUS, Jesus Christ, are born in water and only by remaining in water can we live.”

The symbol of the anchor, with its crossbar, resembles a cross. An anchor and two fish (probably from the third century) occur together on a grave slab in the catacomb of Domitilla in Rome.

 

Writings about the cross did begin as early as 150. Justin Martyr, a Christian apologist writing in the 150s–160s, argued that God had providentially put the shape of the cross in everyday objects, such as the masts of ships, tools like the plough and the axe, and the standards of Roman legions. Christians would often pray standing up with their arms stretched out in the form of a cross. As early as the 200s, Christians were making the sign of the cross with their hands. The cross was so important that pagans charged Christians with worshipping the cross.

Early Christians took two abbreviations that occurred in non-Christian writings and gave them special meaning. The Greek letter tau (which looks like a plus sign or a T-shaped cross), with the vertical bar curled at the top to represent the letter rho (which looks like a P), was an abbreviation for words beginning tr. The tau was used in the Old Testament and was said to be the anticipation cross. This form of the cross was used by Egyptians and is proposed that this sign was made by the Egyptians on the “Lintel” in accordance with God’s command to save the first born from destruction. It is thus represented as meaning life.

The tau-rho occurs in Christian writings dated 175 to 225 in the spelling of the Greek words for “cross” (stauros) and “crucify” (stauroo). Since Christians saw the tau as symbolizing a cross, the superimposed rho may have suggested the head of Christ, making the tau-rho the first visual representation of the crucifixion by Christians. 

 

The second abbreviation Christians used was the chi-rho monogram, composed of the Greek letter chi (which has the shape of an X) intersected by the letter rho. It appears in Christian writings as an abbreviation for Christ (Christos). Chi and Rho are the first two letters in Christ’s name in Greek. In 312, according to the early Christian writer Lactantius, Emperor Constantine had the chi-rho marked on his soldiers’ shields as they marched on Rome; according to Eusebius, he had the emblem put on a military standard. After Constantine’s victory, the chi-rho cross, often combined with the letters alpha and omega, became the ubiquitous symbol of Christianity. 

The use of the cross did not begin in significant numbers until the time of Constantine, three centuries after Christ.

A Spiritual look at Climate Change

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer

1. Creation is a reflection of the glory of God to be good stewards of God’s creation, which includes all of us who live within it

2. Climate change is a spiritual challenge.  Handling climate change is part of how we live our faith.

3. We have a responsibility to care for the least of us. The poorest amongst us bear the greatest burden and risk of climate change.

4. We are called to respond to what we see around us. We are moral messengers for the common good, translate  compassion into action.

Beheading of John the Baptist, Aug. 29

Matthew has told us of the beheading of John the Baptist – killed because John denounced Herod Antipas’ marriage to his brother Philip’s wife when Philip was still alive (a violation of Jewish law). Jesus is reeling over this.

His reaction is to withdraw privately to a desert-like, remote place. So Jesus withdraws to be alone with his thoughts and his sorrows – in a “deserted place” to regroup, to recharge. But it doesn’t work, of course. The eager crowds are on him – there is no rest for the weary – and he can’t let them down since he is compassionate. Out of his own heartache, he bring riches.

This is the story of the feeing of the 5000. It is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that gets recorded in all four gospels.

The question has surfaced over the years as to why Mark reports it at all. Later evangelists must have asked the same question, as Matthew shortens it markedly and Luke omits it altogether.

The majority opinion is that it serves two key purposes in Mark: it foreshadows Jesus’ own grisly death and it serves as an interlude between Jesus’ sending of the disciples and their return some unknown number of days or weeks later.

Another reason is simply to draw a contrast between the two kinds of kingdoms available to Jesus disciples, both then and ever since. Consider: Mark, tells this story as a flashback, out of its narrative sequence, which means he could have put this scene anywhere. But he puts it here, not simply between the sending and receiving of the disciples but, more specifically, just after Jesus has commissioned his disciples to take up the work of the kingdom of God and when he then joins them in making that kingdom three-dimensional, tangible, and in these ways seriously imaginable.

“Herod’s Kingdom – the kingdom of the world and, for that matter, Game of Thrones and all the other dramas we watch because they mirror and amplify the values of our world – is dominated by the will to power, the will to gain influence over others. This is the world where competition, fear and envy are the coins of the realm, the world of not just late night dramas and reality television but also the evening news, where we have paraded before us the triumphs and tragedies of the day as if they are simply givens, as if there is no other way of being in the world and relating to each other.

Poem for the Week – “Kindness” – Naomi Shihab Nye

“Your Life Is a Poem. Growing up, the poet Naomi Shihab Nye lived in Ferguson, Missouri and on the road between Ramallah and Jerusalem. Her father was a refugee Palestinian journalist, and through her poetry, she carries forward his hopeful passion, his insistence, that language must be a way out of cycles of animosity.” She has been a poet for most of her life, sending out poems at age 7.

 

Listen to her read her poem, “Kindness”

She feels this poem was given to her. Here is the background to the poem – she had just married and was with her husband in South America, in Columbia. They were to travel 3 weeks. However, they were robbed on a bus in the first week. It was serious, one person was killed and they lost all their possessions. (She did have a notebook in a back pocket). They had no passports, no money. Where would they go ?

In a plaza a man came up to them on a street and exhibited kindness. He could see their disarray and asked what happened. He listened and was sad for them – he expressed sorrow in Spanish. Her husband was ready to embark alone to go to another city to try to get their travellers checks. As she was alone, a voice came across the plaza as night was coming on and she reached in her pack pocket for the notebook and she felt like as a secretary as a female voice dictated this poem:

“Kindness” – Naomi Shihab Nye

“Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever. 

“Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive. 

“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth. 

“Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere
 like a shadow or a friend.”

The Rich man in Luke, Pentecost 8, July 31, 2022

The Sermon in 2019 using Luke, Ecclesiastes and Colossians. The rich man in Luke only knew life in the horizontal feeding his own wishes but not the vertical leading to God. “What the rich man has forgotten in his grasping focus on this horizontal line of his life is the vertical line that reaches up toward God.”

Catherine showed how the early Christians prayed – “The early Christians prayed like this—by reaching up and out with their palms up. As they prayed in this way, they remembered this vertical line of their lives, their feet rooted in the goodness of God’s creation, while they reached up to God with open hands…”This prayer posture with open hands stretched out and up reminds us that God is the one that fills our open hands when we ask. Open hands are open to all that God wants to give us, and all that God intends for us to share. Open hands reach beyond the finite into the infinite. Open hands reach up into God’s light.

“In the Colossians reading for today, the writer shows us that reaching up into the infinite helps us become rich toward God and generous toward our neighbors…In the light of God’s love, then, our lives are not meaningless, but full of meaning, full of light and God’s goodness that we shine into the world.

Finally Catherine used a story Rabbi Daniel Cohen writes in his book What will they say about you when you are gone? Creating a Life of Legacy

“And then he tells a story about a man who wanted to decide which of his three sons would inherit his estate. So the man came up with the idea of giving his inheritance to the son who could best fill an empty room. The third son won with a candle, lit a flame which filled the room with light.

Cohen says, “When we lighten a dark world, we emulate God, and our souls will be on fire. When we make small differences in the world for even one person, we align ourselves with life’s purpose,” and, I would add, we align ourselves with God’s purpose for us.

“When we live with open hands full of God’s light, everything that we do in this life, on this horizontal line, is full of meaning that will stretch far beyond the day when our hearts stop beating because we have become conduits for God’s infinite light to flow into the world through our us long after our hearts have stopped beating.

“Stand up again. Reach up into God’s light in prayer, open your arms in love, open your hands, and go be God’s light in this world. ”

Today’s readings encourage us to discover true riches in order to live a happy life. In Ecclesiastes, a Jewish wisdom teacher ponders the vanity of human life. The psalmist invites us to bow in worship and praise before God our Maker. The second reading encourages followers of Christ to focus on the things that are above. In the gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool. 

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23

The Book of Ecclesiastes recounts a wisdom teacher’s exploration of the meaning of life. The author is described in 12:9-10 as a teacher and writer. The name of the book, derived from the Greek word ecclesia, is a translation of the Hebrew, Qoheleth, which probably identifies the one who gathers an assembly.

Today’s reading centers on the supreme futility of life, which like a cloud or a mist is a vanity–not substantial and stable but ephemeral and passing. Life passes by and the endless grind of work changes nothing. What good is all that effort when the fruit of one’s work and efforts are simply turned over to someone else. 

Psalm 49:1-11

This psalm encourages confidence in God’s justice, especially when it seems that evildoers prosper. The psalmist urges his audience to remember that the ungodly and those who rely on their wealth are deluded for they cannot protect themselves from death. 

Colossians 3:1-11

Paul now turns to discuss the practical consequences of the believer’s acceptance of Christ as Lord. He uses a form of teaching probably developed as a part of baptismal instruction (Ephesians 4:22-5:5). In living out the reality of having been “raised with Christ” (v. 1) the Christian is to exhibit a transcendent quality of life here and now. In baptism those to be baptized put off their old clothes and put on the new white baptismal robe as a token of their having put off the old nature and put on the new.

This fact must now be lived out in putting to death the old way of life and putting on the new life in Christ (Romans 13:14). They are to show forth the characteristics proclaimed and exhibited in Jesus’ ministry. Being clothed with this “new self,” they experience a continual process of renewal, the goal of which is the knowledge of God. Barriers are broken and all live in Christ as a community of believers. 

Luke 12:13-21

Today’s reading comes from a section of the travel narrative (12:1–13:21) that stresses readiness for the coming crisis when a decision for the kingdom must not be delayed. The man who approaches Jesus is presumably a younger brother who wishes his elder brother to divide the inheritance that he was likely given as the oldest son. Jesus rejects the request for arbitration and tells a parable that challenges the greed in us all.

The parable of the rich fool has many parallels, both in classical literature and in Old Testament Wisdom writing (Sirach 11:18-19; Ecclesiastes 8:15; Wisdom 15:8). The rich man is “a fool,” that is, one who in practice acts as if God does not exist (Psalm 14:1). He has made provision for his own comfort but not for his ultimate destiny because without warning, his “soul” (Greek, psyche), meaning his life or self, is required of him. He illustrates the fate of all who confuse their priorities and rely too confidently on their own power.

Butterflies in July

July is often called the butterfly month, and with good reason. They seem to be more visible. At St. Peter’s we have swallow tails, monarchs and this one taken on July 20. There are about 20,000 species of butterflies worldwide. About 700 inhabit North America.
Great Spangled Fritillary

Lord’s Prayer in Luke Chapter 11

Another famous story from Luke. The Gospel reading is here. 

“”The Lord’s Prayer” -Psalter (2008) 


The Lord’s Prayer is both in Matthew and Luke. Luke’s version is probably older since it is shorter. There are also a few differences in word choice (“sin” instead of “debt/trespass,” for example)

Luke puts a greater emphasis on prayer than the other gospels. -Jesus is praying at his baptism before heavens open (3:21) -Jesus spends the night praying to God before selecting the twelve (6:12) -Jesus is praying before he asks the disciples, “Who do the crowds/you say that I am?” (9:18) -Jesus is praying on the mountain before the transfiguration. (9:28, 29) -Jesus is praying before the disciples ask him to teach them to pray. (11:1)

It may be that Luke was writing to a group of people unfamiliar with Christian/Jewish prayer, so he emphasizes the importance of prayer as he moves among the gentiles.

The contexts for the Lord’s Prayer in Luke and Matthew are quite different. The audience in Matthew (6:5-15) seems to know about praying. Jesus says, “When you are praying,…” They seem to know how to pray and the importance of prayer, but they need further instructions about prayer. In Luke, the audience, (including the disciples,) don’t know how to pray (at least as Jesus’ followers).

The disciples (and Luke’s readers?) ask Jesus to teach them to pray.

There is a reference to John the Baptist. John’s disciples were known for certain practices, such as prayer and fasting (5:33). These practices served as markers for their identity as John’s followers. Jesus prayer also puts an identity on us as Christians. The prayer is intended to be communal, rather than personal. Note also the plural pronouns in the prayer: “our” and “us.” The Lord’s Prayer is a list of those “good gifts”, gifts we may ask of God in the sure knowledge that they are ours in the asking.

Clift Notes version – “God is Holy. Ask for God’s kingdom – reign over all things to become a reality in your life and in your world. Live simply; one day at a time. Stay humble and ask pardon for your wrongdoings. Offer pardon to others just as you want that for yourselves and ask for help to stay out of trouble. When you live with these things uppermost in your life, you will begin to live in God’s kingdom with the help of the Holy Spirit to help you”

There are five key words in the prayer 1. Relationship 2. Hope 3 Nourishment 4 Reconciliation, 5 Peace

1. “Our Father in heaven” – “Relationship” 

Possibly the most important one is relationship. Prayer is a relationship — as an intimate, loving, caring parent/child relationship. Jesus begins his prayer with the expectation of close relationship with God.  The intimate relationship with God and becomes a model we should have with others. Rather than saying something like “Almighty God, Lord of the Universe,” Jesus starts with a familial word. By addressing God as “Father,” Jesus tacitly shows himself to be in the role of child. And because he is teaching his prayer to his friends, he lets them and us know that we, too, are God’s children.

When we think of prayer we think of asking – and that get’s back to understanding our fundamental dependence on God. When we ask God for something in prayer, we acknowledge both that our need and God’s goodness and mercy God’s presence can often change you as it brings their comfort and love to the situation — and perhaps you are better able to accept what lies in the future with their support. You can live with the uncertainty of the “we’ll see” answer.

Prayer is the presence of God — not that God will always change the situation, but knowing that God is with you, that God is going through the tragedy or suffering or depression or even death with you, not as a far off God, way out in space, but as your very close and loving father.”

“Hallowed be thy name” Hallowing means respecting, treating as holy. This is fundamental to our relationship with God and to all other relationships. Acknowledging the holiness, the dignity, the otherness of the other

Joel Green in The Gospel of Luke also comments on this petition: “Why must God sanctify his name? Because it has been profaned by God’s own people (cf. Lev 22:32; Isa 52:5-6; Ezek 36:29-21). God’s work to reestablish the holiness of his name, then, invokes shame on the part of his people and invites them to embrace practices that honor him

2. “Your Kingdom Comes” – “Hope”

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

It has to do with the “reign of God” coming to earth. This asks for an end to life on earth as it is, and end to all oppression, injustice, and unrighteousness, and instead for God’s realm to replace all earthly rulers and rule. The early Christians were very familiar with this.

With the words “Your kingdom come,” Jesus introduces hope into the prayer. Hope is about the future. When we hope, we begin to expect that the boundaries of possibility are far wider than we once supposed. When we pray for the coming of the kingdom, we show our willingness to participate in the advent of that kingdom here

Our eucharist remembers the image of that kingdom as a great feast where all are included focused on a life broken and poured out in compassion

3. “Give us this day our daily bread” – “Nourishment”

This section and the next focus on needs fundamental to every human and what is necessary to realize this Kingdom of God now.

Nourishment that sustains us just for this day – not yesterday, which is past, nor tomorrow, which is yet to come, but right now. When we pray for sustenance today, we remain grounded in the present moment, the moment in which we can encounter God moving in our lives. Nourishment today helps us hope for tomorrow, and sustains us to continue walking the path with Christ.

“Give us each day our daily bread” may be a reference to the manna, the bread from heaven, that was provided enough for each day during the 40 years in the wilderness between the time of fleeing slavery in Egypt and entering the promised land. ( Exodus 16.). And it is what is needed for service. And it may be a reference to the feast yet to come in the future life to come. But it most certainly addresses the very real and present concern of Jesus’ followers – to have enough to eat that day

4. “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtor” -“Reconciliation”

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” – Anne Lamott

Forgiveness is the action we take in the present to participate in the coming of the kingdom. Nourishment sustains us in the present. Hope drives us to the future. And a close relationship with God allows us to pray

We ask for forgiveness, and at the same time we make a commitment to forgive others. It is when we serve God imperfectly. That we can forgive a little reminds us that God can forgive much.

Forgiveness is in the present tense – it is continual. The word forgiveness means “release” or “letting go.”

People would have understood the reference to debt which was devastating on the people. Debt is control. When the Romans conquered the region, they claimed they owned all the land and promptly started charging people rent. People who, heretofore, were living and farming their own land found themselves burdened with debt. Debt was a way in which the conquerors continued to afflict the conquered.

In forgiving the debts of others, the followers of Jesus reject the power to coerce others. “Release” of debt was a way of living out the reign of God on earth. Forgiving others, both sins and debts, is a sign of the coming kingdom. Disciples who do so “get it,” and they request the same from the Father.

The “forgiveness” we are invited to extend to others is not a personal well-wishing; it is changing the material circumstances of the poor such that they and their families no longer teeter on the brink of disaster, but can earn their living by their work. And we as Jesus’ followers are taught to ask God to extend mercy toward us in our sin precisely to the degree that we extend mercy toward others with our wealth and our power.

5. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. – “peace”

This is the fear, the fear of being tested. But we are encouraged to send this fear up to God. And the thing that occupies the space left by that fear is peace. This peace frees us from the worry that might keep us from praying in the first place.

We will always be tempted and will often fall, but Jesus promises that no temptation, test, or trial has the power to destroy our faith. Let us not be overwhelmed

The sense of the petition seems to be that God not make life any more difficult than it already is: “Dear God, don’t give us more than we can bear.”

->Parable of the Friend At Midnight – Persistence

The “Lord’s Prayer” is only the beginning of Jesus response to the prayer request. The last verses emphasize how much more God will give in this parable.

Summary -A friend comes calling for bread at midnight when you are asleep with your family. The sleeper at first declines but due to the persistence of the friend he gets up and provides.

This parable, which is only found in Luke, is connected to the previous prayer by the words for “bread” and certainly the idea of testing. How could the sleeper ask God to “give us each day our daily bread,” and then fail to give that bread to one of those for whom he has asked God to provide?

Is the friend shameless for asking at midnight or would the sleeper be shameless for not supplying the request. Most authors suggest the latter. Honor which was important at that time demanded that a neighbor get up, awaken his whole family if necessary. The neighbor is shaming the sleeper whose honor was at stake.

Like the person who keeps knocking and knocking to get his friend to come to the door, Jesus tells us that persistence is the key to prayer. Just like improvement in sport comes through constant training, practicing prayer makes the act of praying second nature (or perhaps, even first nature).

God unhesitatingly meets his obligations when asked; he is always found by those who seek him and will immediately open himself up to those who approach him.

How much more will God give than these sleeper ?

The last paragraph “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” – blessing

This goes back to the idea of persistence and note it is in the present tense. The image is with a young child badgering his parents until she/he gets what is wanted. God is compared to a human father. If human fathers give good gifts to their children, how much more will God do? So what are the good gifts ?

Luke tells us that the good gift is the “Holy Spirit.” Matthew just leaves it as “good things.” The gift of the Holy Spirit to the believer does not just entail the gift of the personal presence of the Spirit of Christ in the life of a believer, but all the promised blessings that flow from our union with God through the Spirit. The “good gifts” are the promised blessings of the kingdom, not the presumed needs of believers.

This scripture also prepares the readers for the events and Pentecost and the Spirit’s work throughout the Book of Acts.

Let’s bring it all together. The persistence in defining a close relationship with God, hoping for the future, finding nourishment for the present, reconciling and asking for forgiveness, and discovering peace leads us into deeper faith in God. Through prayer, we participate in God’s movement in our lives, and our persistence helps us notice God’s blessing in our lives.