Liminal

 

This week, I am sharing a few quotes from the author, Luis Alberto Urrea.  In an interview with Krista Tippett he said, “I think liminal space is where all writers go. Jane Hirshfield has some beautiful stuff about being in liminal space. That place of crossing, that place of pressure, of two things meeting — that’s a rich — that’s where the plankton wells up and the currents meet. And you can choose to see it in different ways. And either the border is a hideous, festering scar of oppression, horror, and violence, or it’s a fraternal space where two cultures meet and can exchange.”

 

The border exists not only between countries, but between people.  We can draw lines in the sand that separate us, that define and distinguish where I end and you begin.  On the one hand this is important to have distance, especially if the other person is hurting us.  But on the other hand, when we share 99 percent of the same DNA, we start to comprehend that our lines are often arbitrary.  This is the tension we feel within us, especially when the border is drawn within families or with friends.  In our soul, we want to draw a circle to include others, but sometimes people keep saying and doing things that break down relationships. 

 

Today, the last day of July, is a liminal space too.  We are about to cross over into a new month.  There might be the plankton of brokenness or pain from the past that washes up on the shore of August that you’d prefer to float out to sea never to be seen again.  There might be scars of border crossing in relationships that you wish would heal once and for all.  Or there might be a shared space where your life and light come and culminate together.  I invite you to hold this taught as you live through this final day of this month.  And may the wisdom of God guide and ground you each hour this day and in the dawning of August tomorrow.  May you have peace, love, joy, and a centering grace that infuses and inspires you.  Amen.

Soaked in the Sacred

 

Yesterday, I shared an insight from Luis Alberto Urrea.  There is wisdom he shares with students in his writing class. “I always tell the students that laughter is the virus that infects you with humanity. And if you sit with somebody and laugh — not at them, but laugh with them wholeheartedly — how in the world can you get up from that table and say, Pssh, those people. You can’t. And if you’ve laughed with them, you’re going to cry with them, too. That laughter is a very dangerous portal for humanity.”

 

I am reminded of the line from the hymn, Won’t You Let Me Be Your Servant, “When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.  I will share your joy and sorrow, till we’ve seen this journey though.” 

 

Who did you laugh with in July?  Note Urrea’s important distinction to laugh with rather than at?  This isn’t pulling someone or some group down to prop yourself up.  Too often this is the rhetoric of jeering and mocking and name calling that we hear all around us.  We are infected with a virus of anger that turns us toward hatred rather than humanity.  Urrea asks us to find another way.  This is the way of courage and conviction.  This is a way of Christ who did not mock the lame, he saw each person as a beloved of God.  This is the way of Christ who told Parables about stopping to tend for others, especially people who might be considered our enemies (The Good Samaritan).  This is the way of Christ who refused to refute or seek revenge when falsely accused by others.  And it is a lot easier to believe in or about Christ than live a Christ-shaped/soaked life.  We are quick to shout, “Amen” in church to such ideas of love and service, but out in the world, where others are watching and judging, we abandon such thoughts as fairy-tale-thinking. 

 

Today, I invite you to find your humanity through laughter, through sharing tears, through letting loose your light to connect to another’s light in ways that make a difference to you, others, and sends ripples out into the world.  Amen.

The United Nations of our language

 

Writer Luis Alberto Urrea points out to us that every day, from the tip of our tongues, we speak a borrowed language.  English borrowed, “coyote” from Spanish as well as words like: Florida, bronco, vanilla, chocolate and rodeo.  Urrea says, “English! It’s made up of all these untidy words. Have you noticed?  Native American (skunk), German (waltz), Danish (twerp), Latin (adolescent), Scottish (feckless)…” on and on.  It’s a glorious wreck (a good old Viking word, that). Glorious, I say, in all its shambling, mutable beauty.  People daily speak a quilt work of words, and continents and nations and tribes and even enemies dance all over your mouth when you speak.” 

 

We are constantly mixing and mingling our words, our sentences are a United Nations conglomeration.  There is a great line of the hymn, O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, that goes, “What language shall I borrow to thank you dearest Friend?”  Every day we are bartering through languages that are lent to us.  And sometimes things get lost in translation from our lips to another ears, and vice versa. 

 

Are there words that cause your soul to stir with delight?  Words like, “Love” (derives from German) or “Ice Cream” or “Dogs” all cause a smile to dance across my face. 

 

What words warm your heart?

 

Now, reverse that question, what words are like nails on the chalkboard of your soul? 

 

Words like, “Hate”, words that dehumanize or marginalize and hurt and harm others are part of my list.

 

Today, consider the words that fall from the tip of your tongue.  Listen to what you are saying.  What is the lingering taste that is left in your month once the word leaps to ride the air currents to another’s ears.  Sometimes my words can taste sweet, other times sour.  Sometimes I want to pull my invisible words from the air and shove them back in my mouth from whence they came.  Words matter and make a difference.  Words create worlds.  Let the words of your mouth and the meditations of your heart (Psalm 19:14) today be in concert with our still sing and speaking God.  Amen.

Friday Prayer

 

God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction – Meister Eckhard

God of grace and God of glory, fill us this day with Your love to fuel and feed our lives.  Help us release the pain, knowing that life leaves an imprint on all of us.  Remind us that everyone is going through something.  When we cling to afflictions as a badge of honor on our faith scout sash, help us remember that Your love is not earned.  Help unclog our ears to hear the stories we are telling about ourselves and clear our eyes to see the patchwork remnant fabric of the past we are using to create the quilt of the narratives we are living.  Grant us wisdom that You are found not by doing more, trying harder, adding more to our lives, but by being.  You call “rest” holy.  You rest on the seventh day, making this a wide-open space.  Yet, in a world that is 24-7-365, we never unplug.  This weekend may we breathe and be, may we rest.  And may we rest in You.  When our mind starts to rummage and ruminate on that thing we did last week or a month ago, grant us courage to say, “God take this broken part of my life with Your shalom.”  And may I release the grip I have on that pain so that the pain might release its grip it has on me.  God of mystery, wide-open spaces, You are found in delight and affliction; in moments of rest and work; in time of prayerful play; let Your present be our guide in these hours this day.  Amen. 

Why Did I Do that Part 2

 

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Romans 7

 

Paul is clear that it isn’t just that we are a mystery to ourselves, it is that we can find ourselves doing that very thing we didn’t want to do.  Your life and mind can be like Wiley E. Coyote always chasing after the elusive Road Runner; constantly buying the next great item from the Acme Catalog that promises to be the antidote for what troubles us.  And more than that, we can act in ways that contradict our values.  Of course, that is not what we post to social media.  If we want to project a healthy life, we don’t post the video of us consuming the whole container of ice cream.  We don’t broadcast our implicit bias which caused us to miss a moment.  What are humans, O God, that You are mindful of us.  Is there something that you have done recently where the prevailing emotion is guilt or shame?  It is important to differentiate these two ~ guilt is that thought that I did something bad…shame is the persistent thought that I am something or someone bad.  The two together are a toxic cocktail that too many of us drink daily.  Guilt is never a great motivator for change.  Oh sure, in the short-term pointing out our foibles and where we fall short can produce some change.  But eventually we pour so much energy into trying to outrun our guilt that we get exhausted.  To be sure, the church has gone to the guilt well so many times that it has run dry for many people…and might be one of the reasons people no longer attend.  The message of the Gospels is God’s love is.  Period.  Full stop.  God doesn’t deny our boneheaded or broken moments.  God doesn’t love us despite our humanness or because of some strange accounting jujitsu of the cross.  God is love.  And love to be love is unconditional.  To be sure, others will offer the word “love” that comes with terms and conditions in tiny print that make the ones you agree to when you buy a phone or sign up for a gym membership look tame.  But love in its Gospel form doesn’t depend on the shiny halo we wear.  Hold this.  I believe God’s love for us is the force that can shape us to be exactly who God formed and fashioned us to be for such a time as this.  Amen.

Why Did I Do that?!??

 

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Romans 7

 

Yesterday we had the “fun” homework assignment of thinking about our afflictions.  I know that blog post has probably gone viral by now with thousands of people, because it is everyone’s favorite topic…said no one ever in the history of the world.

 

Paul talks about afflictions producing endurance.  Well, at least sometimes, because other times the challenges and mountains of life cause us to reach for the remote control to binge watch the latest season of your show of choice.  We want to numb our afflictions not endure through them ~ not that we share this reality of our lives with others.

 

Paul says endurance produces character.  This is a reminder that the rituals and routines of life persist in our life.  How we live each day is how we live our life.  Our honest values are shown in how we show up.  And the more aware we are of this truth, the more we can be intentional and prayerful about moving about this bruised and broken world. 

 

This is why one of my top ten favorite verses is Romans 7.  I often don’t understand why I do or say what I do.  Often it is because I say something and I can hear the color commentary in my brain say, “Oh for the love of Pete!  Don’t say that!”  Insert door opening and my brain leaving.  Of course, the truth is that I don’t exactly know why I do what I do, that doesn’t stop me from deflecting or defending myself.  As Brain McLaren says, we prefer a confident lie to a convoluted, contradictory truth.  The truth is that we are all a messy recipe of contractions.  We say one thing to this group of people, because we don’t want to get unfriended or ghosted.  Then, we turn around and say something exactly opposite to another.  God forbid if the two groups ever encounter each other.  Eek! 

 

Is there something you have done this week that you don’t know why you did?  This doesn’t have to be major.  You laughed at a joke told at another’s expense.  You gossiped.  You participated in the parking lot meeting afterwards where you pulled someone down to prop yourself up.  Hold these human moments, not with shame or guilt, but because these moments can be your teacher.  God often moves through our mistakes more than our successes, or maybe I can see God’s redemptive work in my bumbles a bit better.  May you sense God’s shalom/wholeness/unconditional love in moments when you bonk your head with your hand thinking, “Wes, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into!”  Amen.

The Strangest Words on Boasting Ever

 

Therefore, since we are justified/healed/made whole by faith, we have peace/shalom with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  Romans 5

 

Wait, you think, we just heard this passage yesterday!  It is like the morning meditations are in summer re-run mode.  Yesterday we focused on the first part of this passage, today I want to focus on the second ~ namely that we boast in our afflictions. Note the word, “in”.  My grammar check wants to change the word to “about”, which is not what Paul says.  Paul says we boast in the midst or middle of our afflictions.

 

Wait…you think…what?

 

I don’t boast in my afflictions…I whine my way through them.  Okay, maybe, there is a part of me that boasts a bit when someone offers the strangest modern-day compliment of saying how busy I am.  There is a part of us that needs to be needed.  We like others to notice that we are working hard.  On the other hand, we can overschedule as a form of addiction to hurry and busyness.  Dallas Willard once said that to be spiritually healthy, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”  This doesn’t mean we join a monastery, but it does mean that our souls need a slower pace.  Evey new technology promises to make our life easier and give us more flexibility and free time, but rarely does.  My cell phone is a blessing, but it also means that I am always accessible.  I can write this morning anywhere and save the words to the cloud so I can always edit.  I can scroll social media anywhere, anytime, which means that mentally I can be anywhere at any time rather than right where I am.  We know that busyness has not only an external reward of being noticed by others, but also can release certain brain chemicals.  The questions for me are:

 

Are there afflictions that come from the way I am living my life?

Are there afflictions that come from the way I have formed God?  That is, I can act like God’s employee rather than God’s beloved child.

Are there afflictions that I keep letting define me?  Remember God says to Adam and Eve, who told you that you were naked?  Who told you that you don’t measure up to some standard, and why does that voice get to live rent free in your mind?  Why do you keep returning to and resurrecting that hurt rather than the love of the person right in front of you?

 

Paul is on to something that our afflictions, or pain, do need to be processed so that we can let go of the power they have over our life, rather than passing them along to others.  I continue to invite you this week to listen to the stories you share with others.

 

Are you often the underdog in the story?

Are you always the hero?

Are you often the zero, the bumbling idiot? (this tends to be my story of choice)

Are you on the sideline, silently watching?

 

What story are you telling yourself and how are you facing the afflictions from that story?  What struggles come from the stories other people are telling you to live?  When do you accept another’s script for your life without question?  May these questions rummage around the cobweb corners of your soul this day help you hear afresh and anew the story of life that is shaping you and me and we in these days. 

Formed by what we Form

 

Therefore, since we are justified/healed/made whole by faith, we have peace/shalom with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  Romans 5

 

Paul, the writer of the letter to the Romans, never met a run on sentence he couldn’t improve with just a few more words!  I invite you to go back and re-read the two sentences above letting the syllables sing and sink into your soul.  Where do you need healing right now?  Could be physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, communally, or all the above.  How does your faith help in the process and is there any practices or rituals that are “supposed” to help because the church said so…but don’t seem to be?  What does the shalom/wholeness/peace of God feel like/sound like/taste like?  Maybe what filled you with shalom/wholeness/peace is the past doesn’t seem to be helping right now…then what!?!

 

The truth is we form the image of God in our mind and then are formed by that which we created.  The image of God in your heart is a collage of hymns, snippets of sermons, random quotes, and words your grandmother told you.  Pause, what is part of the collage of God in your imagination?  Truth is, if that portrait is made up of images of anger and fear and a smiting God…that is going to form us.  If the portrait is one of the Prodigal God who races out to greet both sons as beloved…that is going to form us.  If the portrait is one of God who is distant or disconnected or demanding…that image of the holy will form us too.  We form an image of God from the remnants and random pieces of faith we are handed by others.  When do we step back and prayerfully examine the painting of God in our mind?

 

Jesus said, you cannot put new wine in old wineskins.  Is there an image of God, you might need to let go to make space for the peace/shalom/love of God that makes us whole?  I encourage you to consider where and when and who is shaping your understanding of the sacred and prayerfully ask if that is how you encounter and experience God still today?  May this invitation awaken you to the Holy hovering in your life this day.  Amen. 

Blessing for Today

 

God of questions that set us in new directions and toward destinations we never considered. God of doubts that dance and open us to different insights and ideas.  God of delights that loves to inquire and inspect our one wild and precious life together, meet us this day we pray.  As summer wears on, as the humidity zaps our energy, as our souls daydream of refreshing breezes, meet us where we are.  Amid too much criticizing, both externally and internally, amid too much violence as our first, middle, and only response, amid a world that is dizzying and disorienting, God continue to ground us in Your centering presence.  Holy One, we wish that our story was more like a comic book where You would swoop in and save us.  We wish things would be better or we would be better or that others would change.  Our expectations and experiences are the exact place that we are afraid to stand and where we might just meet You.  In this uncomfortable, untidy, unusual place meets us with a sustaining strength we need today.  May we continue to find micro moments to encountering Your mystery again and again this day.  All this we pray in the name of the One who danced in a burning bush, sent a whale to swallow Jonah, and bravely faced the cross to show us love.  Amen. 

Blessing for Doubt

 

This week we’ve held our expectations and experiences of the Eternal.  We’ve begun to assess some of the assumptions that are operating in our faith just beneath the surface.  Honestly, this can stir up the dust of doubt.  We can start to feel uneasy or queasy about this venture.  We might even want to turn around the bus of our beliefs from this journey because it seems safer back there ~ before you began to think about what your beliefs and experiences.  We may want to rewind before you let the light of Christ shine too bright on your human size, beautifully, less than perfect life.  Let us hear this encouraging reminder that doubt is not the opposite of faith, doubt is the ants in the pants of faith.  Doubt is the gift of life that is engaged and exploring and getting lost only to be found again and again and again to the delight of the Divine.  Here is one of my favorite blessings.

a blessing for the gift of doubt by Kate Bowler

Oh God, I long for understanding, but life is full of unanswered questions.
God, reveal to me what I need to know and for all the rest….show me how to live with so much uncertainty.

 

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself.. But I believe that the desire to please you, does in fact please you.…”
— Thomas Merton

 

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
— Voltaire

 

Blessed are we who come to You in the discomfort of our doubt, for we trust that our honest unknowing is a truer and better prayer than bootstrapping efforts at certainty.

 

Blessed are we, receiving the gift of doubt, for we trust that it is a doorway, freeing us to become that we could not otherwise have known.

 

Blessed are we, remembering that You God, hold all things together. You are the invisible scaffolding that supports us, the canopy of love that protects us in the present, the stable pillars, sunk deep into our past, and the Dove that flies confidently toward the future bearing for us the peace we could never have attained for ourselves.

 

Blessed are we, settling into the truth that there are things that we can’t know, settling into the humility that knows this one thing — that we are of the earth, and You are our God.

 

Notice this day what you do know and trust. thank God for it. And leave the rest.

Cleaning our theological closet

 

We are exploring the gaps we often have between our beliefs and experiences, the expectations we have about our faith.  Steve Cuss in his book, The Expectation Gap writes, “I am not some mystical faith guru.  There is no Yoda in me, I am an earth (human size) vessel.”  Part of what creates a gap between beliefs and experiences is our assumptions.  I can intellectually know that God loves me, but I can assume that God’s love is conditional on my next sermon or blog post or making people happy (which is next to impossible).  You have assumptions about God that when those ideas come into the light of day for the sake of your soul, there can be healing.  To be sure, we may not want to do this.  We don’t want to do this because we all have a bit of imposture syndrome.  We tend to believe that everyone else has a neat and tidy theology ~ even though we don’t!  If you look in my theological closet it is a mess of messages from my childhood that are still there like my safety patrol badge that I have for no good reason.  I have remnants of religion that were passed on from my grandmother and I can’t bear part with it, even though it doesn’t really go with my faith today.  I have leftovers from Sunday School that I are at once outgrown, but I don’t let go of them, no matter how many candles are on my birthday cake.  We are all a combination and conglomeration of past, present, and future that can feel a bit chaotic.  If we think cleaning a closet where we have shoved parts of our life is demanding, so too is cleaning out our theological understandings.  One way to do this is to think about what you heard about God as a child.  Was God angry or judgmental or always watching to make sure you colored inside the lines?  Was God absent, not talked about, seen as something only foolish people would talk about?  Was God loving and warm like your grandmother’s hugs as she served you piping hot from the oven chocolate chip cookies?  Was God distant and disconnected, a Being to be avoid and that you didn’t want to get God’s attention?  Was God an invisible Spirit to appease or please with your good behavior?  What messages did your 8-year-old self-learn about God?  And how might that still be part of the operating system in your faith?  The good news of great joy is that we don’t have to jettison or deny this part of ourselves, we can embrace God who was understood one-way years ago and is doing new things in our life right here and now.  May our expanding and elastic God continue to find ways to be within you in the gaps between what you believe and experience/encounter in these days.

Don't need to shine your halo

 

Yesterday, we explored the power of micro habits as ways to occupy the space between what we believe about God and our experience of God.  In The Expectation Gap, Cuss says these micro habits help us stand in the messy middle between what we say about God and how we encounter God.  This is the space between the head and heart where too often we think we must choose one or the other, rather than find ways to bring both together, along with our soul.  Cuss writes, “I say I believe God loves me, but my deeper belief operates as if I am not worth loving”.  Our inner color commentary loves to criticize us, pointing out all our bumbles and stumbles.  Plus, Cuss says, our answer to this is, “more of the same and try harder”.  Too often, this is the church’s preaching and teaching.  Just pray, the pastor says in response to the problem.  Or just have faith, so we tend to think that faith a superhero like status where all our doubts vanish into thin air.  Never mind most of the people in scripture rarely measure up to such definitions or descriptions.   Abraham passes his wife, Sarah, off as his sister to save his own neck in Egypt.  Jonah runs away from God’s call.  Amos says, “I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me” (Amos 5:21), I am sure Amos was a great guy to invite to your backyard barbeque!  And don’t forget Peter denying Jesus three times, Judas betrays him, and the other disciples run away ~ with friends like that who needs enemies.  I don’t know where this notion of faithfulness being something we measure or can even observe, but not scripture!  Given this, perhaps we can take a deep breath and let go of the expectation that our halo must be shiny, and we always need to have just the right prayer and word to say.  Today, I encourage you to find ways to be open to God’s movement through the practice of micro habits.  One suggestion, turn off electronics, put away your smart phone, and try to taste your food as you eat one meal today.  Taste the goodness of the vegetable that grew in the soil and now that dirt is nurturing your soul.  Or find another way today you can remember that God’s love isn’t dependent on you levitating or meditating or even being fascinating.  You are loved for who you are ~ a beloved child of God.  Let that truth guide you this day and the rest of this week.  Amen.

In-between where we are and where we long to be

 

In his book, The Expectation Gap, Steve Cuss lays out three places where humans can feel disjointed, dissonate and disheartened.  They are:

 

1           We say we believe in the love of God, but don’t always feel that love.

2.                     We say we believe in the presence of God, but have moments of disconnection from the divine.

3.                    The disappointing self-assessment that we thought we’d be further along by now.

 

As you look at the list above, which do you gravitate toward?  I see parts of myself in all three.  There are moments that I don’t always feel the love of God.  Partially this is because of a false understanding that God’s love should (note that word) protect and provide; shelter and shield me from all alarms and harms.  In other words, if things are not all roses and chocolate rivers, God must not love me.  But you and I know that love is a vulnerable force.  I love my family more than words can express, but I can’t stop bad things from happening to them.  No matter how much I want to lock them in their rooms, surround them with bubble wrap so that they don’t get bruised by this broken world, that isn’t much of a life.  In some ways, the same is true of God’s presence.  If I equate God being for me and with me as me getting my way, then there are going to be moments when the sharp shattered shards of life cut at me.  If the evidence of God’s presence is only things/life going according to my plotting and planning, of course there will be a gap between what I believe and experience.  The more we explore these gaps, the more we shine a light on where our logic isn’t as rock solid as we think.  Of course, I won’t always get my way, to think otherwise is selfish and even narcissistic.  Of course, God is going to show up in ways that baffle and bewilder me because that is the story in scripture time and time again.  I can’t contain God like some organized sock drawer, God is God.  Finally, many of us have adopted an economic model of spirituality.  That our faith always needs to be growing, making improvements, getting more of the market share.  But faith is fickle and fragile, will take one step forward and five steps back.

 

Cuss suggests that one way we can stand in the gap between our believe about God and our experience of God is to cultivate micro habits of slowing down to savor God’s presence.  Micro habits are activities that take just a few moments to do but can leave a lasting, lingering impression on our heart.  For example, one micro habit of being open to God for me is petting my dogs.  First, they remind me of unconditional love.  Second, my dogs are always desiring a good belly rub.  As I feel their floppy ears and soft fur, I see their contentment, and I sense the connection, I stand in the gap between belief about God and experience of God.  Or a micro habit can be listening to music as an expression that sings to my soul, especially if it is discovering a new song.  Or holding my wife’s hands or texting my kids a funny meme.  These don’t require me to check into a monastery or spend hours on my knees in prayer, but for a few fleeting moments I feel God’s nearness in ways that renew my faith.  I pray your heart now is considering some micro habits you can both name and do this day and throughout this week.  Amen.  

Prayer

 

God, You have been singing, painting, drawing, crafting, calling, dancing, and holding all creation from the beginning.  Your Artist way is an invitation to inspire and infuse our lives in these days.  But, honestly God, we don’t trust Your way all the time.  Afterall, how do you put poetry on a balance sheet to prove that things are trending up and to the right?  What will we say when people call out that membership is down and offerings are what we need?  How does the Psalm help us?  We wring our hands with worry about the church, our community, our country, and our own life.  Perhaps part of our worry, concern, consternation and challenge is whether Your resurrecting power will bring forth something new that looks anything like what we’ve always known and loved.  While we like some change; we prefer, O God, You not touch the things we like.  We want You to change those other things, those other people, not us God, because we are more awake and enlightened and aware.  We are further along, or that is the narrative we tell ourselves.  We sometimes act like we have finished the assignment and are waiting for the rest of the class to catch up.  Remind us of the great truth of all artists ~ no poem, prayer, sermon, painting, song, dance is ever “complete”. The art of life is always unfolding and unveiling new parts.  Our sermons and songs and lives react as we share with others ~ sometimes retract in response.  God, help us listen to the song You are singing in our lives this day.  Help our life flow on in endless song.  Help unclog our ears and awaken our imagination to Your still singing, painting, drawing, crafting, calling, dancing, and hold all creation truth that is today.  Amen.  

Pleading for Answers

 

One of the many reasons I love the Psalms is that sometimes the words give me a permission slip to say what I need to say.  For example, Psalm 4 says, Answer my prayer, O True God!  Wait, you think, I thought I was the only one who thought that!  And I didn’t know you could say the quiet part out loud!?!  We want prayers to be answered in the ways we requested.  We have a plan we’ve been plotting, and we could use God’s help to achieve our desire.  I invite you to read the whole Psalm prayer poem song with me now:

 

Answer my prayers, O True God, the righteous, who makes me right.
    I was hopelessly surrounded, and You rescued me.
Once again hear me; hide me in Your favor;
    bring victory in defeat and hope in hopelessness.

How long will you sons of Adam steal my dignity, reduce my glory to shame?
    Why pine for the fruitless and dream a delusion?

[pause]

 

Understand this: The Eternal One treats as special those like Him.
    The Eternal will answer my prayers and save me.

Think long; think hard. When you are angry, don’t let it carry you into sin.
    When night comes, in calm be silent.

[pause]

 

From this day forward, offer to God the right sacrifice from a heart made right by God.
    Entrust yourself to the Eternal.

Crowds of disheartened people ask, “Who can show us what is good?”
    Let Your brilliant face shine upon us, O Eternal One, that we may know the undeniable answer.
You have filled me with joy, and happiness has risen in my heart, great delight and unrivaled joy,
    even more than when bread abounds and wine flows freely.
Tonight I will sleep securely on a bed of peace
    because I trust You, You alone, O Eternal One, will keep me safe.

[pause]

 

What is stirring and singing within you as a response to the words above?  I love the image of sleeping securely on a bed of peace.  I don’t know about you, but 3 a.m. seems to be when all the foes and fears and frustrations of life decide to wake me up for a chat.  It is a time when my own defeats and dismays start rummage and roam around my brain demanding attention.  I am also fascinated by the notion that the call to live the good is an answer to prayer.  I think of Thomas Merton who said that the desire to please God does please God.  But sometimes my desire takes an exit ramp to look more polished and put together; sometimes I pray “thy will be done” but keep clinging to “my will” as good too.  I pray you will know peace, love, healing, health, joy, and goodness/shalom every hour this day.  May God who is our composer and conductor move through the words above with a sweet melody to your life this day.  Amen.

The Hebrew Hymnal

 

Today, we will sing number 3 in the Hebrew Hymnal.  I want you to notice that there are pauses below.  I encourage you to take a moment at each pause to breathe, be, and let the words you are encountering sink, settle, and sing to your soul.  Pay attention to what you have read and the emotions/thoughts/ideas/questions those words are provoking.  Join me in praying these words:

 

Eternal One, my adversaries are many, too many to count.
    Now they have taken a stand against me!
Right to my face they say,
    “God will not save you!”

[pause]

 

But You, Eternal One, wrap around me like an impenetrable shield.
    You give me glory and lift my eyes up to the heavens.
I lift my voice to You, Eternal One,
    and You answer me from Your sacred heights.

[pause]

 

I lie down at night and fall asleep.
    I awake in the morning—healthy, strong, vibrant—because the Eternal supports me.
No longer will I fear my tens of thousands of enemies
    who have surrounded me!

Rise up, O Eternal One!
    Rescue me, O God!
For You have dealt my enemies a strong blow to the jaw!
    You have shattered their teeth! Do so again.

Liberation truly comes from the Eternal.
    Let Your blessings shower down upon Your people.

[pause]

 

May these words be a balm to your soul, especially when you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.  May God wrap around you and join you in the chorus of your life.  And may God’s liberating love release you to be who you are crafted to be this day.  I pray God, who is our composer and conductor will move through the words above with a sweet melody today. Amen.

The Hebrew Hymnal

 

This week we are singing and being serenaded by the Psalms.  Lean in and slow read these words from Psalm 2:

 

You are wondering: What has provoked the nations to embrace anger and chaos?
    Why are the people making plans to pursue their own vacant and empty greatness?
Leaders of nations stand united;
    rulers put their heads together,
    plotting against the Eternal One and His Anointed King, trying to figure out
How they can throw off the gentle reign of God’s love,
    step out from under the restrictions of His claims to advance their own schemes.

At first, the Power of heaven laughs at their silliness.
    The Eternal mocks their ignorant selfishness.
But His laughter turns to rage, and He rebukes them.
    As God displays His righteous anger, they begin to know the meaning of fear. He says,
“I am the One who appointed My king who reigns from Zion, My mount of holiness.
    He is the one in charge.”

I am telling all of you the truth. I have heard the Eternal’s decree.
He said clearly to me, “You are My son.
    Today I have become your Father.
The nations shall be yours for the asking,
    and the entire earth will belong to you.
They are yours to crush with an iron scepter,
    yours to shatter like fragile, clay pots.”

So leaders, kings, and judges,
    be wise, and be warned.
There is only one God, the Eternal;
    worship Him with respect and awe;
    take delight in Him and tremble.
Bow down before God’s son.
    If you don’t, you will face His anger and retribution,
And you won’t stand a chance.
    For it doesn’t take long to kindle royal wrath,

But blessings await all who trust in Him.
    They will find God a gentle refuge.

 

I love how the Psalm starts off like the evening news, why do the nations embrace anger and chaos as the only way?  Why do so many around the world keep thinking war is the only way to peace?  I lament that the Psalms, which were written in the 5^th Century BC, can still be so true today.  The leaders today do plot against God gentle reign of love.  God continually shows us the way, but we have our own agendas that we are convinced are better.  And we don’t acknowledge the tension even as we keep lamenting that we are not arriving where we think we should.  This in turn leads to more anger and chaos; and the cycle repeats with dizzying predictability.  There is a raw honestly in the words above, because human actions do impact God, the Psalmist sings.  Our actions do impact God.  But God’s anger keeps calling humanity to live the image we are re-created in with the rising of the sun each morning.  I know this Psalm doesn’t exactly leave us feeling warm and fuzzy, but there is an heart-felted-ness for such a time as this.  Where do you find comfort in these words like a gentle refuge?  Where are the words above abrasive like sandpaper to your soul?  Both are true for me and both can be true in our life.  I pray God, who is our composer and conductor will move through the words above with a sweet melody today. Amen.