Blog
Another Creed
We believe in one God: the Source, the Holy, the Mystery.
We believe in one among us, Jesus Christ: Word of God, Illumination of Light, and Rock of our foundation. For our healing, he came from heaven and was born to Mary: Blessed Labor from Blessed Labor, Living Love from Living Blood.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, of one being with the Beginning: Breath from Heaven, Flame from Fire, Revelation from Truth.
We give thanks for the gifts of creation: abundance from the Abundant, earth from Heaven, respite gifted by Delight.
We pray over humanity: beautiful life from Life, fragile dust from Star, blessed mystery from Wonder. We pray especially over your Church: body of the Incarnate, servant of the Servant, ongoing confession of Love.
And we look for the life of Love and its unending resurrection, now and always.
Known
O Lord, you have searched me and known me. … It was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
– Psalm 139:1, 13-14a (NRSV)
We are formed and reformed continuously, shaped by countless factors:
The circumstances into which we are born and the circumstances we strive to control as our life course. The bodies our souls inhabit and the changing health of our bodies. The people who raise us, the friends who sway us. The food we eat, the air we breathe. The tasks we undertake, the awe we cultivate. Every day, our inward parts are formed and reformed—physically, spiritually, psychologically.
My inward being today is not what my inward being will be tomorrow. As intimately as I might know another person today (or as intensively as I’ve judged another person today), tomorrow they will be formed anew. They will have new cells, new information, new influences, new relationships. Their inward being will have gained and shed and found and lost.
That anyone would claim to know us, or that we might claim to know our own selves, is both wonderful and arrogant. Subsequently, it’s a miracle to forge bonds with people who know us well and who enjoy knowing our formed and reformed selves each day. It’s a gift to know ourselves anew each day, whether on our own or with someone like a therapist or through healthy relationships that help us know ourselves better, that encourage us to love ourselves more fully. It’s a blessing, too, to remember that those who are content in knowing only our faults are ill-informed as soon as tomorrow dawns.
Who can know us completely—or even a little?
There is One who knows our inward being as it was before we encountered a world of influences. There is One who is present with us in the very nanosecond of our cells forming, of our wisdom reforming, of our selves renewing. There is One who knows all that is wonderful, all that is fearful, and all that is love within us—in the very moment of creation.
Prayer: For the ways you know me, O Creator, as I am now and as I will be tomorrow—thank you.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional
Praying as Jesus Taught
Thirty sparrows clamor around the bird feeder while a squirrel plots its route to the same, and I wonder if this is faithfulness: to know what is needed and to crave it solely. Give us this day our daily bread, for you will give what is good, O God. Now let us be...
Complicated Gifts
We thought it was a gift, the basket of summer fruit: strawberries red as a rose, peaches wet as the dew, watermelons sweet as your love. But no, God. The basket was a judgment of all we have taken for granted and all we have coveted for ourselves. We boast in what we...
Drunken Confession
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite. “O Lord my God, in you I take refuge. If I have plundered my foe without cause, then let the enemy pursue and overtake me.” - Psalm 7 excerpts (NRSV) Shiggaion: a drunken reel, a wildly...
If Only
if only, my god, the river of healing left its banks to come heal us where we stand with our feet stuck in the mud if only, my god, the letter of peace penned itself to the angry mobs and violent landlords who worship cruelty if only, my god, the silver coins and gold...
Of Gods and Kings
King Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of Yahweh. He built altars for all the host of heaven and served them. He made his son pass through fire. He practiced soothsaying and dealt with wizards. He set a carved image of Asherah in the house of Yahweh, provoking...
I Swear to God
Now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. Abraham said to the oldest servant of his house, “Put your hand under my thigh and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will get a wife for my son Isaac.” - Genesis 24:1-4 abbreviated...
Just for Us
Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” – Acts 11:1-3...
Eastertide Psalm: Peace
O people, blessed are you who come in the name of the One who was and will be. In death, in life, in renewal the Promise says to the mourner: "Peace be with you even when the wounds seem to suggest peace is not possible." O people, blessed are you who come in the name...
Noisy
Praise God with trumpet sound, with lute and harp! Praise God with tambourine and dance, with strings and pipe! Praise God with clanging cymbals; praise God with loud clashing cymbals! - Psalm 150:3-5 (NRSV, adapted for inclusive language) I grew up in a quiet...
