MCCC Weekly Update – April 12, 2022
Below you will find our Weekly Calendar of Events as well as the flyer for the Breathe NICU Benefit Concert on April 24th from 1:30-3:00pm. If you missed it before, please take a moment to check it out!
Book Study is Wednesday, April 13th at 7pm via Zoom. Wednesday is also the deadline for signing up for the Fields of Bloom hands-on gardening exhibit and chat, which will take place on Thursday, 4/14/22. All the information is in the calendar and it sounds like a really fun event to attend. On Friday, April 15th, Hiram Christian Church will be hosting our Good Friday Worship Service and all are welcome to join in this combined service. Saturday, April 16th, MARSI (Mantua Restoration Society) will be hosting a community Easter Egg Hunt from 10-12 at the old Mantua Center School! Sounds like fun and I’ll bet you will see many familiar faces from the community there!
On Easter Sunday, we will have our Sunrise Service at Derthick’s (St. Rt. 82) at 6:30am. Please bring a chair if needed. Our regular Easter Worship service will be at MCCC and on YouTube at 9:30am.
During this season of Lent, and now into Holy Week, we have been blessed by the talents of so many artists, poets, and writers affiliated with Santified Art. Carol Magyarics has diligently been posting daily on our website, twitter, and facebook sites messages, prayers, and other meaningful reflections from Santified Arts’ “Full to the Brim.” If you haven’t seen them, or you didn’t know about them, feel free to check them out! You can easily access them on our website: mantuacentercc.org. They are usually short clips but sometimes just the right thought you might need to begin (or end) your day. I would like to leave you with just one of the prayers by Rev. Sarah Speed @sanctified Art, which was posted on April 4, 2022.
“Holy God, Mary poured perfume on your feet and it was etched into the pages of time, for her simple action reminds us that love can be beautiful and brave simultaneously. Show me how to live my life with such brave truth. Remind me that sharing my faith and my love might be a gift to someone who needs to hear it. Give me the courage to speak. Give me the courage to act. Amen.”
I wish you blessings, “Full to the Brim,” with the courage to speak, and the courage to act!
Sandi
*Featured Image: Even the Stones Cry Out by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman | @sanctifiedart
Click to read a message from the Artist…
Full to the Brim { Even the Stones Cry Out
by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman
Inspired by Luke 19:28-40
Digital painting with photo collage
When I began this image, I wanted the medium to be the message. Initially I thought I might make a mosaic of stones, however, I was wisely encouraged by my colleagues to try photography and digital
collage. I went out into my side yard and picked up rocks to take pictures of them. As I quickly scanned for interesting rocks, I was underwhelmed by what I was seeing. I had already decided that the rocks were going to be dull and boring. My color enthusiast self was annoyed by the prospect of dusty neutral tones and minimal contrast.
This was an interesting place to begin my process, considering the text I was working with. I was definitely underestimating what the rocks would have to offer the piece, and was preemptively disappointed about the mundane color schemes and textures I would have to work with from my photographs. Gosh, was I wrong. As I downloaded the images and began to edit them, a wide spectrum of color came into view. Most of the hues were entirely shocking and unexpected:
periwinkle, magenta, turquoise, mauve, rust, orange, gold, and plum, just to name a few. It was as if God was saying to me, “See, even if you turn a blind eye, and your assumptions distract you, the stones will cry out.”
In this piece there are three stones bordered in gold to reference the voice of God, the truth that will not be quelled. Down the sides of the image are the Pharisees or the “silencers” in postures of quieting judgment. My hope was for the silencers to be completely visually enveloped and drowned out by the stones. I left the silencers simplified and unfinished to signify that their attempts at diminishing the truth would ultimately and always be in vain.
—Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman
