Blog
Reminders
“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between [me] and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” – Genesis 9:16 (NRSV)
The world needs more reminders.
Guns need not just one safety lock but five safety reminders, plus a mandatory essay about violence, before each firing of a single bullet. Bombs need civilian ballot measures that pass by majority vote before being detonated against an enemy. Our emails should come with a tone-check, in addition to a spell-check, that we must review and approve before sending. Our picket fences should be engraved with “borders are a social construct” on every post, lest we forget that no one really “owns” the property on which they live.
We need more reminders that we are interrelated, fewer indicators that we are islands. We need more prompts to slow us down before we cause harm, and fewer restraints that limit us from love.
Make it a bow around the finger or a bow in the sky, but make it something that effectively deters us from destruction. Even God needed such a reminder. How much more humanity?
God set a reminder in the clouds to never again allow flood waters to separate living creatures from God’s presence. Paul expanded the list: It’s not only flood waters that cannot separate us from God; neither can angels or empires, histories or futures, perils or threats, nor anything else imaginable separate us from God.
With this assurance, we must remind ourselves constantly not to be separated from one another either.
Prayer: You remember, O Eternal God, what I too easily forget: that I am not my own, that I am inherently caught up in and bound to all others. Remind me.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
The Breaks
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, so far from the words of my groaning? Yet you are holy … and sovereignty belongs to you, the ruler over all the earth. All families and all nations worship before you; all who sleep in the earth and all who go down to the dust bow before you. – Psalm 22:1-3a and 27-29 (adapted, abridged)
Life can break you.
I don’t know whether I believe that God will never give you more than you can handle, but I know from experience that life shows no such restraints. And when life piles on, as it tends to do, sometimes we collapse; sometimes we eke through; sometimes we triumph; sometimes we bruise and bleed; sometimes we persevere; sometimes we break.
Most often, we do all of the above, in varying degrees, depending on the day. But we don’t survive this life in the grand scheme of things. Always, death comes.
Those are the breaks.
So to the One Who Brings Into Existence All That Is, we bow down.
For as long as we keep breathing through life’s breakage, we bend in prayer and humility to the One Who Holds Our Brokenness.
And when this life sends us back to the dust, when survival is no longer within our grasp, we bend in worship and witness to the One Who Continues The Story.
Life can break us. Thank God, there is One Who Remains Undeterred.
Prayer: Be with me in every dawn and dusk of this life, O God, and do not abandon me when I break.
cross-posted on the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
New Songs
Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, God’s praise in the assembly of the faithful. - Psalm 149:1 (NRSV) I used to sing. Not shower singing or holler-in-the-car singing or hum-to-myself singing, all of which I still do. But once upon a time, I sang in trained,...
Here I Am
Here I am: lost in the wilderness, chasing sheep and rabbit holes, out of touch with my own spirit and being, but here I am -- wherever "here" is. Here I am: unsettled and uncertain, overwhelmed by grief and setback, desperate for meaning from burning bushes, but here...
Ready for a Miracle
Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” - Exodus 3:3 (NRSV) If summer is your favorite season of the year, you might want to cover your ears while I say this: Hints of autumn are beginning to appear....
One of Another
Blessed are you, one of another, and most blessed is the other with whom you are one. Blessed is the rock and holy is the river, and beautiful are the shapes & spaces they cannot make without the other. Blessed is the breath and holy is the heart, and precious are...
Praise
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O God, is the smoke that clouds the air with the prayers of the wayfarers and the downtrodden, with the songs of grief and hope, protest and sacrifice. Sweet, sweet, sweet, O God, is the oil that blesses the heads of the ancestors and pours down...
Killing the Messenger
We are not fond of messengers -- O God, we confess it! What is there to love about one who comes dressed unapologetically in freedom to inquire into our weariness? We prefer such a messenger beholden to our labor. What is there to heed in the questions of one who...
Treading Water
In advanced swimming lessons and in lifeguard training, many years ago, treading water was my favorite part of the final tests. Far from being a challenge to exert as much energy and strength as possible, treading water was a challenge to conserve energy as much as...
Wrestling
Let me behold your face, I prayed, but instead you met me in the dark and bent me into painful knots. Let me be relieved, I pleaded, and instead you laid a path among my adversaries. Let me prove my heart, I declared, but instead you withdrew to tend the song of...
At a Distance
Then God said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance. Moses alone shall come near the LORD; but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” -...
