Arts in the Alley aims to revitalize inner-city and downtown neighborhoods by cleaning up and revitalizing alleys and streets that are currently in disarray, making them into safer places for residents, schools, and businesses and transform the alleys into a bright, outdoor mural gallery.

We’re taking orders between now and Monday February 28, and your doughnuts will be available for pick up Wednesday March 2! To order: send $8 per box via paypal to info@offeringband.com (with a note: doughnuts)! Of course, you can also send a good old-fashioned check for the amount to Offering, P.O. Box 35423, Richmond VA 23235, but paypal is preferred .

And of course, help us spread the word! We need to sell 100 boxes to get the best price, and if we sell those 100 boxes we make $500 for paint – about a third of what we need, so that will be a big help!

Changing our world, one alley at a time. Will you help us raise the money for the paint to do that?

“Participating in the liturgy of the worldwide Christian community , whether on a Sunday morning or at another time, is more than attending a service or a prayer meeting. It is about entering a story. It is about orienting our lives around what God has been doing throughout history. And it is about being sent forth into the world to help write the next chapter of that story.”

There is something so powerful about praying prayers like the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy), and reciting the Nicene Creed (I believe in God the Father…). It’s not that, as protestants, we *don’t* use either in our worship experiences. But I think we often do not realize the sense of  community that these prayers, these statements of faith, are being prayed and proclaimed by Christians all over the world at any time during the day. They often date back to the very early days of the Church. So, I am grateful for the reminder, and am looking forward to celebrating more in this way in the months and years to come.

We did not really do anything extra-ordinary. At all. We brought some dinner (chicken wings, drumsticks, strips courtesy of the *amazing* manager of Applebee’s in Chester – also the father of our violinist; salad; different type of chips; sodas; and homebaked cookies – all wonderful but nothing extravagant, just what we could pull together) and we played some music (some love songs, and some just-for-fun songs). The extra-ordinary ones, that would be the patients and their families.

A man who had just had a liver transplant three weeks earlier and who is there with his wife and (adult) daughter. They are so grateful. And yet, it is hard. Hard for the daughter, who misses her own family, several states away. Hard because they are in a city that is unfamiliar for them, where there’s no family and friends. They have been at HHH for two months, and will be there for another three at least.

The couple from Mexico that does not speak English. And it so happens that no one that night spoke Spanish. Except our keyboard player, and so she talked a bit with them. I tried, too, with hands and feet and the remnants of six years of junior high and high-school Latin. I know how lonely it can be if no one speaks your language (my native tongue is Dutch) and that is *without* the stress of life-threatening illness and harrowing treatments.

The woman who was wearing a mask to prevent infection, she was going through some sort of transplant procedure. Her entire life is MCV, and HHH. She cannot go out, go anywhere. For months. No matter how wonderful HHH is, those walls *do* start closing in.

The woman who sat in the dining room with two of her friends. Her husband had died that afternoon. Her grief was palpable, and yet she took the time to thank us. My heart is still breaking for her.

They are the extra-ordinary ones. They are the heroes. We, the Richmond community, can do these non-heroic simple things. Make a meal. Bring a salad. Bake some cookies. Play some music. Be there. Because we can, and because we need each other. HHH has a lot of people who help, but they need a lot more. Want to bake cookies sometime?

I love the heart and flexibility of our band. It’s one thing for me to jump on this and say yes – after all, this band is my passion, and I am the one who pioneered it – but I love, love, love the fact that immediately three of my other band members said no to the event. Why? Because they were available. Because they could. To me, it’s the “ministry of showing up” – the power of being somewhere when the need presents itself.

So this afternoon we played. We met some great new friends. We celebrated all that is good in life, we celebrated the beauty of the Christmas season, and we sang Silent Night in just another city office building, and for a moment, it was a holy place.

This is the plea they sent out almost three weeks ago: “Imagine being a homebound senior or disabled adult who writes a “holiday wish list” with trembling hands, hoping just to receive a few daily necessities—and perhaps a couple small gifts for the grandchildren.”

It literally brought me to tears, and I decided on the spot that this would be one of the things we would try to collect money and gifts for this Christmas season. Over the past three weeks, we were able to collect and buy more than 300 gifts, ranging from shampoo and body wash to blankets and batteries. Items that most of us pick up at our weekly grocery store run, not items we wrap and put under the tree. Throughout all this, one thought has not left my mind: what if this was my mom? My dad, my grandfather, my grandmother? What if I was not able to help, or be there? Life already is hard for these seniors. Now it’s Christmas time – and the words to God rest ye merry gentlemen come to mind: “Comfort and Joy”. Can we bring some comfort and joy to some of our fellow-residents who need it the most this Christmas season?

Sometime life is a struggle, and sometimes things just run smooth and seem easy – and today, so far, has been one of the easy days. Thank you, God, for that grace!