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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
Witnesses to Love
13,000. That’s how many Palestinian children have been killed in Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Hamas, as estimated by UNICEF this spring.
1,195,070. That’s how many deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the CDC as of mid-July.
1 in 5. That’s how many children live in food-insecure circumstances in this country, based on the USDA’s 2022 numbers.
5,000. That’s how many people were hungry on the mountainside where they had come to watch Jesus heal the sick. 5,000. That’s how many hungry people Philip felt overwhelmed by when Jesus oh-so-casually asked him, “Where’s the nearest market to buy food for these folks?” 5,000. That’s how many people Philip was multiplying by the cost of food when he replied, “You don’t pay me enough to buy bread for all these people!” (John 6:5-7, loosely translated)
“What can I possibly do?” wondered Philip. The need is so great, the numbers are so massive, the resources are so limited. The anxious guilt of inadequacy is so real. Many of us feel it when we’re listening to the latest unprecedented news or reading about all the horrors that are entirely precedented: another hospital bombed in Gaza, another Black woman fatally shot by police, another hurricane devastating a town, another wildfire devouring homes. “What can I possibly do?”
I’m not sure which is more overwhelming these days: the unprecedented or the precedented. I don’t know whether the harm caused by unfamiliar events or familiar events is quantifiably worse. I don’t think it makes a difference: harm is harm, devastation is devastation.
And a significant impact of devastation is isolation. Caught up in pain or loss or stress or shame, we retreat into ourselves: reserving our emotional energy and mental bandwidth to deal with … everything … and sequestering ourselves against further harm. Even when devastation stems from that spiral of inadequacy—when we are not the object of harm but instead a witness to harm—the inward pull can be strong.
When we witness harm and the question panicking our spirit is, “What can I do?” … When the only answer we have is, “Nothing I do can possibly be enough!” and inadequacy threatens to drown us … The way out is to witness love in action: Here is a boy with lunch that he’s willing to share.
The way out is to show up for someone else. To pass the basket of loaves and fish.
The way out is to be awed by love’s abundant breadth and depth. To pick up the leftovers.
No matter how daunting the need. No matter how limited the resources. No matter how many others. When we are overwhelmed by the harms we witness, it is essential that we give witness to love. One person at a time. One action at a time.
And because love’s fullness surpasses our understanding, the act of showing up in love can be the beginning of a miracle.
Empty
"Do not hold on," you said, and so we empty our expectations of their aspirations for control. Hallelujah! "Go and tell," you said, and so we release life's miracles from the duty of explanation. Hallelujah! "Wait and see," you said, and so we accept the work of...
Nicodemus
Dear One: I loved you in secret, so I must grieve you in secret. Every revelation from you is now a salve for my grief, and I bless the holy breath that gave birth to my spirit. I once sought you in shadows, now I bury you in the shadows with aloe and myrrh and linen—...
In the Garden
How often I've thought it would come to this: a battle, a stand-off with swords, a line in the sand between powers; me against you my ally turned into my foe because you were never an ally I trusted; uncertainty mutated into self-doubt projected into...
Ashes to Ashes
Love me until the end, O Christ, until the ashes of this body match the dust of these feet, and together they fold into the holiness of earth's soil. Love me until the end, O Christ, until every word is finished and every argument laid to rest in the shallow grave of...
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We have shown ourselves to be fools, O Teacher. Celebrating the Robin Hood come to challenge the prince, we failed to recognize the outcast Sovereign before us. Cheering the jester's parade in all its mockery of power, we ignored its earnest portrayal of the realm of...
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Failure
Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God. - 2 Corinthians 3:4-5 (NRSV) Competent. Is that a high bar or a low one? For all the competence that...
Sustained Attention
A dinner was held for Jesus in Bethany, the home of Lazarus. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with Jesus. Mary took a pound of costly perfume—its fragrance filling the whole house—and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, then wiped his feet with her hair....
Judgment
This is the Lord our God, whose judgments are in all the earth. God is always mindful of the holy promise, of the word that God commanded, for a thousand generations. - Psalm 105:7-8 (NRSV adapted) It can be hard to exorcise harmful theology from our psyches. Bad...
