Today’s feast of the cross is perhaps God’s greatest reminders, a reminder so big, that it goes from now through mid-November, this entire season of the church is the season of the cross.  It puts in front of us three holidays of the cross, it changes the hymns and variables, the color of the season.  It’s a big reminder of who we are, but is also meant to be an intimate one that we recall prayerfully every day. Do you know what people used to do to remember something, before the days of device calendars and notifications?  They tied a string around their finger or wrist, and when they saw it they remembered. I like to see the cross we tie around our necks from baptism in the same way. A reminder we actually see in the mirror and remember who we are, a reminder to others who see it that we are to be different as Christians-we are to give our lives away in loving service to God and others as Jesus did for us on the cross.