Welcome! The St. Martin's Prime Timers invite you to join our group!

Each Sunday in the Payne Education Center from 10:10am to 10:50 in rooms 207-209 we meet and you are invited for coffee, breakfast treats and readings from the "Wisdom Literature" of the Bible. It sounds like the perfect time for you to join in!

Yes, that's Caroline Maryan in front of Henny Penny gone wild! From the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper of course.

I think this is a boat for the fisher of men. Is that a shell game Rev. Chris Bowhay is playing with those red buckets?

The Rev. Stuart Bates in an Olympic themed float at the St. Martin's Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper.

Prime Timers Good News

For $1 you can tell us your good news at the beginning of our class. This morning Caroline Maryan told us about Rev. Graham's sermon, that concluded with the playing of J. S. Bach's Toccata in D minor on the Gloria Dei organ.

God Created Wonderful Things

Today's class began with a review. The Psalms are part of what is called the Wisdom Literature in the Bible. This is the Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Ecclesiastes. The Catholic Church extends the category with readings from the Apocryphal literature, Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon. This has the character of an "Old Testament in Miniature."

Each Psalm has a single theme and as such is an aide to meditation. A Psalm is presented more to be absorbed than to simply be read, a poem more than a text.

Skip Maryan began the exploration of today's reading with the image of a child crying out in the night, awakened by a bad dream. The Mother comes into the room, gathers the child in her arms and speaks reassuringly to the child:  everything is all right. Then pick up today's paper. On the front page there is the story of a horrific car crash that took the life of five pre-med students at the University of Texas, a story about the wonders of Enron, farmers in Colombia setting deadly traps for the people hired to chop down their coca plants and news of the death of Slobodan Milosevic. To be fair the lead article tells of our country finding ways to help undocumented children who crossed the border illegally.

So, is the Mother lying to the child about "everything is ok?" Is fear a reasonable response to the events of life? In Psalm 104, the answer lies in not just observing and evaluating life, but in having a deep trust and faith in the divinity...that all creation has a useful purpose. In most Wisdom Literature, and in Psalm 104 especially, the world is seen as orderly, dependable, reliable and predictable.

In discussion of this topic, Caroline Maryan described her daughter having two new friends, who she never would have met if they hadn't been uprooted by Hurricane Katrina. Another member said she thought there were 365 "fear nots" in the Bible, enough for every day of the year.

Since class started out with "the media" another member pointed out that finding bad news is their job. Bad news sells papers, or makes ratings. While the spirit of despair can lurk around every corner, God gave us the Spirit of Joy to counter it.

Bill Akers reminded us of Franklin Roosevelt's famous call to arms:  "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

Max Kech then led the class in our healing prayer and Skip Maryan then delivered a benediction prior to closing the session.

Prime Timers Contact names and numbers

Mentor

Rev. B. Massey Gentry
mgentry@stmartinsepiscopal.org

Leader

This is Prime Timers Leader and Teacher Skip Maryan. The Prime Timers are looking for teachers. Would you like to teach us? Let us know.

Believe it or not this is our own Rev. Dr. John K. Graham!

Who is this man? Its the Rev. Larry Gipson at the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper!

Yes its the Pope-mobile, with Rev. Ron Morris at the St. Martin's Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper. He was giving out Pope-corn!

What can you say except its Rev. Bentley's Bentley!

These musicians played for the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper.

The Lesson for Sunday, March 19th is titled "Searched and Known by God"

Key Verse:  Psalm 139:14

Focus of the Lesson:  People often forget how unique and amazing our bodies are. What is the source of these amazing bodies of ours? The psalmist celebrates God as the One who creates us in this wonderful, intricate form and who therefore knows us intimately.

The reading is Psalm 139:1-3, 7-14, 23-24. This text is from the New International Version^®.

1 O LORD, you have searched me
   and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,"

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
  for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and
   wonderfully made;
  your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

NIV®