Being the forth born child in my family who is well acquainted with hand me downs, I have a deep love of brand new things.  I got my first new bike in junior high (it was truly a coincidence that the hand me down I had was run over as my parents backed out of the garage), and while I could ice skate before I was four, my first brand new pair of skates came at age sixteen.

    I realize I am susceptible to a romantic view of brand new things and that which their siren songs say to me.  Newer is better and it will bring me everything I need.  I think God was not broken hearted when during the first week after Becky and I purchased our first brand new car, someone put a great scratch in it.  Brought me back to some reality.

    Perhaps Isaiah has a helpful sense of what new is about.  "Behold I am doing a new thing, says the Lord.  Do you not perceive it."  Isaiah is proclaiming to the people of Israel that God is bringing them out of their exile back to the land of promise.  The new thing awaits them.  I wonder why they did not perceive it?  Was it part of something seemingly familiar that caused them not to see it more deeply?  Was it something whose appearance was not familiar and thus suspect?

    What we do know is when Israel returned to the land of promise, it is not at all what they had hoped.  This new thing was not only the old land, it seemed to have gotten worse in many ways.  So what was the new thing?  Perhaps it was something about spirit, their spirit.  Perhaps the new thing was about a new longing, a new hunger, a new passion for God.  Perhaps it was not about the incidentals, but about how they saw and received things.  Perhaps the new was not so much an obliteration of the old, but a new heart to see that which was before them. 

    It was certainly not about something shiny and glitzy. I am a sucker for the new glitzy thing (I often think I need an 'anonymous' group for my powerlessness in bike shops- 'But Becky, this new piece of equipment will do...').  For Israel, the new was not about the shiny and glitzy, the new was about a way of being with God and each other.

    We are launching a brand new web site and it has some wonderfully glitzy stuff.  You now can hear sermons right here- no need to order and keep up with tapes, not to mention there is no cost.  There is a search window in which you can type a word and it will bring up all entries in the site with that word.  I confess to being a bit entranced by this stuff (my kids regularly remind me that I am easily impressed).  And the stuff is not really what is new.  There is something more deep.

    The site is simply a vehicle of our connection to opportunities for transformation.  The things found here, even the 'new' things, are simply icons connecting us to the old, ancient rituals and practices (study, prayer, fellowship, hospitality, engagement with the 'stranger', stewardship of our gifts and graces) that can introduce us to new experiences and understandings of the sacred.  This site is much like Isaiah's vision: God using things in our life to help us see and respond in new ways, with new and deeper hearts.

    May the 'stuff' you find here be just that, a vehicle, an icon, for connection, a vehicle toward the sacred, a vehicle toward things more deep. It is our hope that this site will tell you both the what, where and with whom of things happening here, but also will tell  you something of how this will change your and our life.  So let us know where and how this is working for you.  And let us know where it is 'scratched'.

    You can make blog replies through registration.  email me if that process is confusing: tdonatelli@allsoulscathedral.org

Peace,

Todd Donatelli