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Praise
Praise the Lord! Praise God, sun and moon; praise God, all you shining stars! Praise God from the earth, you sea monsters and creatures of the depths, you fire and hail, snow and frost!
(Psalm 148:1-2 & 7-8, NRSV adapted)
What makes the T-Rex dinosaur a scientific fact and the Loch Ness monster an ancient myth?
It’s a rhetorical question, mainly. To a large extent, I believe the distinction doesn’t matter. It’s certainly not worth fighting over. It doesn’t make much difference in the daily lives of millions of people.
But the question of science vs. myth points my spirit toward something important: faith needs fiction, perhaps far more than it needs facts.
By which I mean: faith needs imagination. Wild and wondering and expansive imagination. Faith needs the unimaginable and the improbable. Faith needs awe. It needs questions that cannot be answered; it needs stories that reach beyond the limits of knowledge.
While faith might long to claim certainty, it does its best work when it claims surrender. When it gives in to hope. When it opts for unearned trust. When it lives in dreams and aspirations beyond what can be proven. When it tells stories.
Madeleine L’Engle wrote in Glimpses of Grace: “Myth is the closest approximation to truth available to the finite human being.”
Somewhere in the chasms of the oceans, there are sea monsters praising God. The Bible tells us so, although we may never know whether the psalmist was writing about a cousin of Loch Ness, a descendent of T-Rex, or a creature of the psalmist’s own imagination. The provability of the monster isn’t the point.
The point is creation’s praise for God, which is beyond imagining. In fact, creation’s praise of God is so vast and wild that it can only be told in fiction.
Prayer: Praise to you, O God, for the praises too mystical and magical for me to perceive!
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
Bad News
The spirit of the Holy One is upon me, because the One has anointed me and sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of divine favor, and the day of God’s vengeance.
(Isaiah 61:1-2, NRSV adapted)
On that holy day when the prisoners are set free, a whole lot of people will be out of a job.
Also, a whole lot of public services will be halted. Some wildfires will rage without resistance. Some streams and parks and highways will not be cleaned of litter. Some sandbags will be unfilled and unavailable for the next hurricane. All un- and under-paid tasks currently assigned to the incarcerated in our prison system.
When Isaiah’s vision is realized, what some experience as a year of God’s favor will be experienced by others as an endless day of God’s vengeance:
The oppressor will no longer be propped up by power over the discounted. The captor will lose their chains of control over the imprisoned. The mercenary will no longer be insulated by selfishness against the outcries of the brokenhearted.
That holy day of divine release will make many people very uncomfortable. Probably you, too. Probably me, too. Because even if we don’t consider ourselves to be capital “o” Oppressors, even if we have been on the heartbroken side more often than the heartbreaker side, even if we agree that the prison system is unjust, we still live and breathe and carve out comfort zones within systems of oppression.
We might not recognize the day of God’s good news. We might even, heaven forbid, lament the day as bad news in rejection of our comfort zones being transgressed.
Let the good news come mightily nonetheless.
Prayer: Teach my comfortable heart to love others’ good news, to break for others’ pain, to cry with joy at others’ release—even as much as I would do for my own.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
Coffee
O Most Holy, O Most Inspiring, O Most Enlivening Fount of Daily Renewal: overflow abundantly upon our dust that the stiff joints of our spirits might leap with joyful wonder, that the bleary eyes of our hearts might open to recognize you, that the dragging feet of our...
Clinging to Metaphors
We are underwater. Let there be a Rock that is higher. We are weary and worn. Let there be a Peace beyond understanding. We are frustrated, impatient. Let there be a Seed in every season. We are heartbroken. Let there be a Fire to gather us together. We are frantic,...
Lions
Listen to the roar of your people's prayers, O Holy Lamb, as our spirits growl with hunger for your healing. Bend your woolly ear in sympathy as these great egos of dust mew for comfort. We ask: do not mind our snarls or teeth, for in deep pain and distress we have...
Noisy
o my soul, do not keep quiet your deep confession cry aloud your daily failure to love the life of your neighbor beat your breast before the throne that you have tried to be god toll your heart's bells until they awaken repentance
Blessed
Blessed be the Wind: racing, eroding, unsettling, compelling, and blessed are we that the Wind does not leave us alone. Blessed be the Flesh: grieving, straining, delighting, satisfying, and blessed are we that the Flesh reveals the fullness of life. Blessed be the...
Bliss & Blues
Blessed are you, O GOD, O Eternal Mercy, and woe to us who cannot welcome mercy in our hearts and in generosity to others. Blessed be the strangers who bear grace. Blessed are you, O GOD, O Delightful Joy, and woe to us who cannot dance & whirl without the highs...
Sensual
How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your hair is like goats along the hills; your teeth are like shorn ewes that have been washed; your lips are like a crimson thread—so lovely; your cheeks are like pomegranate halves. (Song of Songs 4:1-3) Sure, maybe...
Six Wings
With two they covered their faces; Interrogate the ways we watch the world, O Holy Magnificence, for too often we hide the eyes of our hearts from the blaze of your love as it is at work on earth as in heaven; too often we watch with cynicism, judgment, and...
Unknown
There are so many things to say, O Spirit -- delight and thanksgiving and frustration and rage and heartbreak and hope -- yet no words are adequate to express it all. Listen with us in the fullness of silence, we pray. For all that we know, for all that is unknown, we...
