In a narrow 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court has blocked California from stopping in-home bible study groups from their religious assembly.  Chief Justice Roberts joined the three leftist judges Kagan, Bryer and Sotomayor.   [pdf link here] Apparently the first amendment barely survived this visit by the high court.

♦ Amendment 1  – Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

(SCOTUS BLOG) – […] In an unsigned opinion, the majority wrote that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit’s failure to put California’s COVID restrictions on hold was “erroneous.” The Supreme Court’s decisions in earlier challenges to COVID-related restrictions have, the justices wrote, “made several points clear.” Among other things, the majority stressed, government regulations are subject to heightened scrutiny whenever they treat any secular activity more favorably than religious activity; it doesn’t matter that the state also treats some secular businesses or activities poorly. Moreover, the majority added, a case may remain a live controversy even if the government changes the policy – particularly when, as here, “officials with a track record of ‘moving the goalposts’ retain authority to reinstate those heightened restrictions at any time.”

In her dissent, Kagan contended that the First Amendment “requires that a State treat religious conduct as well as the State treats comparable secular conduct.” That, she wrote, is what California has done, by adopting “a blanket restriction on at-home gatherings of all kinds.” (read more)

This is how all efforts to stop Christian worship should be handled.  Christian pastor Artur Pawlowski confronts the COVID compliance police who attempt to enter his church on this holiest of days.  This is righteous !

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Today we observe Good Friday, the day of the death of Jesus. Many Christian Churches have different ways of observation, to prepare us for the coming resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. Today, the sacrifices we have made during Lent culminate in our internalization of the great offering of Christ’s life. If we have been diligent in our Lenten preparations, Good Friday hits us with a power and force that brings us, literally and figuratively, to our knees with the grasp of what Jesus poured out for us. It becomes personal, a tiny sliver of the cross is buried in our heart. And so each year, we find that we give ourselves over to Christ just a little more through this time of penance and reflection.

It is our wish here in the Tree that you all, so dear to us, and to each other, have a blessed and holy weekend, this most holy time of the year. May the Lamb’s Good Friday sacrifice lead you to the joy we rightfully claim on Easter Sunday. This post mentions some things from my Catholic “language” or viewpoint, if you will.  Please share some of the traditions and customs from your church or family with us. Are there special observations and services at your church this weekend?

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On this day Catholics celebrate the institution of the Eucharist, as well as the establishment of the Sacrament of the priesthood. Jesus willingly offers himself up at the Last Supper.

After sundown, the Holy Thursday Liturgy takes place, the beginning of the sacred Triduum, the three holiest days we observe as Christians. No Mass will be celebrated again until the Easter Vigil Mass, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus.

Last year we Christians had just been deprived of our right to worship together in our churches. The priests celebrated this mass alone, and we watched from home, heartbroken and also alone.

This year we return to our churches, and Christians will joyfully celebrate the Resurrection. I invite you now to spend these three days in deeper preparation and longing, opening your heart, readying yourself for Christ.

In these next days can we be better models of Christ? Can we take extra time to offer kindness, help someone in need, pray for our fellow man, reach out to someone who might like to go to Easter services with us?

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Stop for a minute.  Stop and breathe….

Stop and sit in peace… Just stop, and join together.

All around us is this great sense of foreboding ugh, and it’s not just connected to an election; it’s everything.  Everything is weird, everything is not comfortable, everything is less joyful and requires an intensity of thought just to carry-on ordinary events.

Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is a week away; and yet everything around us seems less focused on joy – and more focused on what joy we are missing.  At the heart of that anxiety is this sense of foreboding. A sense of fear and worry; a sense of trepidation.

In our daily lives we encounter ordinary disconnects now. Masked faces are disconnecting our sense of interaction, our human connection. Unfortunately, and as a natural outcome of these challenges, we are accepting disconnect and creating a void inside ourselves. At the same time COVID is physically disconnecting people from their family.  Many families will not gather this year to celebrate the joyous event of Christ’s birth.  Many parents and grandparents will not see their adult children for the first time in years, perhaps ever.

Amid all of this flux and ugh, even simple tasks like decorating the Christmas tree somehow feels, senses, seems less joyful.  Perhaps financial worry stems the joy in shopping for family and friends.  Perhaps the shine within cheer is slightly dimmed because all around us is something we cannot quite describe, yet we feel it.

Perhaps tears flow at times and we struggle to understand what this unusual anxiety is all about. Then, we begin to struggle with the feeling of shame or guilt for being weak and allowing our humanity to pour out of our human-selves.  Then, at the worst possible time in the year, our faith organizations are slow to understand the importance of fellowship and community amid an upheaval that takes our center from under our feet.

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Click HERE to see Part 3 of “The Chapel Door is Open”.
Click HERE to see Part 2 of “The Chapel Door is Open”.
Click HERE to see Part 1 of “The Chapel Door is Open”.

One of the things we’ve talked about on the open threads is provided for in the Chapel in the Woods which Sundance has constructed at the lower right.

Comments and conversations about what the Bible has to say about world events have always been welcome here in the woods, and the Chapel is where we can extend those conversations.  It will be open 24/7, just like the Prayer Request thread, functioning as a “perpetual open thread.”

The Chapel is the place to drop in when we notice that our questions or statements, reasonings or fears are best expressed with a Judeo-Christian historical and spiritual context. Anyone who doesn’t care to talk about or pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is  just as welcome in the Chapel as they are in the Treehouse.

The tone and content of Chapel conversations is expected to be the same as elsewhere in the Treehouse: honest and thoughtful.  The Chapel has been built to provide a place for folks to discuss what the Bible says about any number of things~~past, present or future.

Argumentiveness and unkindness will be quickly deleted.  Anyone who comes through the Chapel door to argue against the Bible as our primary source of information about God and what He thinks about things will be ushered out by the ushers.  Anyone who comes to the Chapel for the purpose of Christian-bashing will be thrown out on their ear.

This nation has been a gift of God for well over 200 years, displaying among the nations what a fine thing it is when people are allowed to enjoy those things given by their Creator; among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The United States of America is our nation-house, and there are people trying to burn it down.

This nation is a blessing given to all of us, and there is no supposed “spiritual reason” for people who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to sit back and fold their hands and somehow assume that it would be wrong for them to stand up and fight.  We will fight and we will stand~~and we consider ourselves free to talk about, refer to, think about and pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob while we do it.

So come on in.  The Chapel’s open.
Our thread was getting pretty slow to load, so this should get us back up to speed!

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against the state of New York and Governor Andrew Cuomo in a late night emergency ruling barring the state from reimposing limits on religious gatherings.  [full pdf here]

In the 5-4 ruling the newest supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett sided with the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, while justice John Roberts sides with the liberal justices in the minority, but seems to agree on the merits.

“Stemming the spread of COVID–19 is unquestionably a compelling interest, but it is hard to see how the challenged regulations can be regarded as ‘narrowly tailored,’” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

“They are far more restrictive than any COVID–related regulations that have previously come before the Court, much tighter than those adopted by many other jurisdictions hard-hit by the pandemic, and far more severe than has been shown to be required to prevent the spread of the virus at the applicants’ services.”

“It is hard to believe that admitting more than 10 people to a 1,000–seat church or 400–seat synagogue would create a more serious health risk than the many other activities that the State allows.” (full pdf)

Complete Ruling Below

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‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper‘… U.S. President Donald Trump attended church services today at the International Church of Las Vegas where Pastor Paul Marc Goulet and the congregation prayed for provenance and blessed our President.

Kayleigh McEnany, Dan Scavino and Hope Hicks attended with President Trump.

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