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Deep Wells
O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (Psalm 63:1, NRSV)
My childhood home in rural Pennsylvania had a mountain spring as its sole water source when I was growing up. If summers ran dry, the spring ran low. If a mechanical problem arose, my dad trekked down the path to the springhouse to get water pumping again. Sometimes I held the flashlight.
Today that home draws its water from a well drilled deep into the mountain to reach an aquifer. A more reliable source, to be sure, but also more abstract. Very much out-of-sight, out-of-mind. No bubbling water to witness spurting up through the rocks. No sediment to clear from the water flow. No pump to check, tighten, replace. No need to get your hands wet with work before you’re able to drink deeply.
We’re more likely to notice our water sources when they demand attention: a broken pump, a seasonal drought, a cause for thirst, a muddy flood, a longed-for cleanse. “My soul thirsts to drink you in. My flesh faints for the relief of your cool shower.”
When our souls’ wellsprings cry out for a fountain of rejuvenation, there is little else that can occupy our focus beyond that thirst. In those moments, a deep well from which water cannot be drawn is a nightmare, a tease. To know that water is present but distant agonizes the soul. Any spring bubbling up amid rocks is a Godsend for immediate relief.
And vice versa: When the spring goes silent, when it barely offers a muddy patch as evidence, then a deep well is our resurrection. Then it is precisely the hidden source of water that returns us to life.
Prayer: God, be a mountain spring when I cannot fathom the hidden, and a deep well when I cannot splash in what is plain.
Cross-posted with the UCC Daily Devotional
Finding Home
O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right; who do not slander with their tongue, and stand by their oath. Those who do these things shall never be moved. – Psalm 15, excerpts (NRSV)
I made a mistake. A big one. A costly one. I knew it. Other people knew it, too.
To me, the error overshadowed, even negated, anything good and right I was doing. It undermined my confidence, and I was certain I had shown myself out the door of others’ confidence, too.
Those who are never to blame shall never be moved, the psalmist sings. But the rest of us shiver and shift when we err. The rest of us who are flaw-fully human feel the perilous tremble of relationships, of trustworthiness, of certainty when we sin. The rest of us notice – keenly – the vulnerability that accompanies our culpability.
Some of us react to our own errors and sins by clawing viciously at whatever thin shroud might protect us from judgment. Others of us cast ourselves out of community rather than risking blame—or worse, grace. Some build tents and towers of self-righteousness to reduce the quake of inadequacy.
Many of us do all of the above, at some point.
Given our propensity for being human, who can claim to dwell under the cover of blamelessness? Is there such a person, or are we all vagrants in this world?
Psalm 15 notwithstanding, Scripture testifies to a God whose wings invite all vagrants to take shelter. Still we go to war – within ourselves and between one another – over the right to dwell under a banner that says “Blameless,” to plant a flag of self-vindication, to shore up our place in the world’s good graces. Still we associate shelter with sufficiency. Dwelling with dignity. Home with merit.
And we neglect to remember that the tent is God’s.
Prayer: Cast me not away from your shelter, O God, and let me not believe I can cast out anyone else—myself included.
cross-posted with the UCC Daily Devotional
Good to Be Seen
Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders went up the mountain, and they saw the God of Israel. Under God’s feet there was something like a sapphire pavement, as clear and blue as the heavens. They beheld God, and they ate and drank. - Exodus 24:9-11...
Let There Be No Dew or Rain
David intoned this lamentation over Saul and his son Jonathan: “How the mighty have fallen! You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor bounteous fields! For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, anointed with oil no more.” - 2 Samuel...
Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” - 1 Corinthians 12:21 (NRSV) Actually, the eye can say to the hand, “I have no need of you.” The eye can discern texture without the hand, after all, and...
Playing
O Wisdom, how diverse are your works! In the great sea alone, there are countless creeping critters and all sizes of living things! Humans build ships to cross it, but you form Leviathan to play in it. - Psalm 104:24-26 (adapted) I’m sitting at the end of a long...
Miracles
In every dawn veiled by silent fog, before the sun scatters its mystery; In every dark crevice of earth's womb, before the seed breaks open to root; In every gasp of the unknown, before certainty cements itself: a miracle of wild possibility.
How Shall I Receive You?
As an ass, playing the role of jester? As the outlandish actor in the scene, cast to make the comfortable laugh and the disenchanted daydream? As a stone, the unseen understudy? As the patient watcher in the wings, ready to leap up and shout one line if only the leads...
A Jar of Oil
The widow of one of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and now creditors come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, “Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Nothing except a jar of oil.” (2 Kings 4:1-2,...
The Measure of Humanity
“The question, ‘What is man*?’ is one of the most important questions confronting any generation,” began Martin Luther King, Jr. “The whole political, social, and economic structure of a society is largely determined by its answer to this pressing question.” King was...
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, abridged)...
