Deuteronomy 10:12-22:
We are called to treat kindly the foreigner. In the past, the U.S. has done a lot of caring for strangers and have often given them chances to belong and contribute to our country. Please help us continue to welcome strangers, those we are privileged to help. Give us the right hearts, please.
Deuteronomy 3:21-29:
Like a lot of good workers, Moses didn’t want to quit. But he had finished what God had for him to do, and it was now time to give over the job to another, younger man. Our talents and usefulness are according to what God gives us. We leave to others what God has given them. We rejoice and are not jealous when another does what we are not called to do. We do our part and step aside.
Lately, I’ve been rethinking my feelings about the American Revolution. What if we had lost that war? Presumably, we would have remained a part of the British empire. We would have remained a part of the empire that began abolishing slavery in the early 1800’s. We didn’t abolish it until a horrible Civil War in the 1860’s. And nobody can say that slaves were freed in the sense of enjoying citizenship like white Americans did. Certainly not in my native Tennessee.
Heroes of the American Revolution like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and didn’t seem bothered by owning humans as possessions.
A few decades later in Britain, William Wilberforce and others fought to end the British slave trade, but we were no longer a part of the empire that would begin to end that trade.
Certainly, inflicting German troops on the colonies as the British did in the years leading up to the Revolution wasn’t the wisest move on the part of Britain. Mistakes, as they say, were made.
Nevertheless, I think my celebration of the next 4th of July will call for a different kind of reflection: Perhaps a bit of repentance might be a part of it.
“The good that emerges from a conflict of values cannot arise from the total condemnation or destruction of one set of values, but only from the building of a new value, sustained, like an arch, by the tension of the original two.,’
Dorothy L. Sayers; The Mind of the Maker
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach. If it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
Working for the U.S. government overseas, I’ve spent a lot of holidays away from home. I’m thankful not only for being home this year with family but also grateful that I’ve satisfied that wanderlust that I knew as an adolescent and young adult. I’m thankful for the good times I had with numerous friends in many countries, but I no longer feel a need for physically wandering and exploring.
Instead, I enjoy making sense of what i experienced and writing the thoughts for others—whether in essay form or in some kind of story. The desire to have purpose is still there, but in recounting and writing rather than in physical experience.
I’m blessed beyond measure and offer thanks what I’ve had and for the meaning I’m still making from what has happened and for the time to pass it on.
Mark 16
The old story is recorded: the women, who, unlike the men, had not deserted Jesus, were not through serving Him. They were going to risk being found at Jesus’ tomb, but they wanted to continue to care for Him, even it if it meant only caring for His body, so they thought.
Doring the best for Jesus, even when all seems in terrible shape, is sometimes hard to do, but we are called to that. His command, not our success, is what leads us.
Yesterday my husband and I walked down to the beach to check how our bay was handling all the water and debris flowing down from the mountains.
More debris than I’ve ever seen and a big log or two. Well, the drought of earlier in the year is obviously over with. Unfortunately, the end of it brought too much water, with flooding and houses washed away and other miseries. Concerns about overflow in streams in all the islands.
For me, at least, worries about climate change are no longer overblown.
Wonder if our stalwart New Years Day plungers will congregate this year for the annual dip into the bay.? They may be worried about more than just the cold.
Mark 12:28-34:
Love God with everything that we have is the first commandment. Loving God? Eternal awesome God? That I could be privileged and allowed to love Him? Who first loved me? And after I’ve soaked in His love, I then surely find it natural to love my neighbor, whom He had made and loves as He does me. Amen, Lord.
The beginning of the U.S. Constitution states several reasons for the establishment of the United States. One is “in order to form a more perfect union.” Others: “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . .”
Surely these are worthy causes. Yet, at the time of this writing, most black Americans were slaves, and only white men had the right to vote. Indeed, the most active Americans generally were fairly well-to-do white men.
Sometimes words are spoken or written that are so powerful that even the speakers of the words don’t realize their power or what they really mean if taken literally.
Mark 8:1-13: Jesus Feeds a Multitude
It isn’t whether we have enough for everybody; of course, we have enough when we share. God shares with us; then we share with others.
The Pharisees kept trying to trap Jesus. Here was God, in loving form, and they were concerned about a sign??
Perhaps I never would have developed my love of reading if my mother hadn’t needed a place to park me when she shopped downtown. When I was growing up, one went “downtown” to shop. We deprived people had no shopping centers then, only small neighborhood shops lining a few spots on the highway. For major shopping, “downtown” was it.
As soon as I learned to read (about seven, later than most children, I think; we had no preschool), I discovered that the stories I had imagined for fun (to find adventure, to live out stories my father told me about early Nashville history, etc.) could be found in this place called a library. From that moment on, boredom vanished from my life (except anywhere you weren’t allowed to read.) In short, I became a bookworm.
Fortunately, I also had school and church and two close friends to join with me in the school band, so I wasn’t deprived of a social life, but any time away from friends or prescribed duties, I usually lost myself in a book. TV was only beginning, and anyway, it was dull next to a good novel about fighting villains. And if I wanted to learn about something, the library was there to search.
Everywhere we have lived, I have found the closest library. I introduced my children to them, and they also became readers. I think the public library system, opening free books to everyone in the community is one of our greatest inventions of mankind.
Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.
Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.
Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion, may be one reason solitude is neglected.
If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.
But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.
Maybe this busy, hard wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our natures, is as important to inner growth as is food to our physical bodies.
We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” (Gerard Manley Hopkins; “God’s Grandeur”)
We’ve had rain this year, and the trees have responded. Now they’re shedding their summer bounty, leaves floating down slowly, taking their time. I know spring has its glories, but I love autumn. Autumn goes with leaf raking time and the discovery of good books in the library. More people, some from summer trips, fill the pews on Sunday morning in our church.
We go for a walk and spot a deer and her fawns in the nearby woods.
Afternoons, and we meander to our small downtown and meet teenagers checking out where to grab a snack after school.
I know that after winter rains, I will welcome spring every bit it as much as I now welcome fall’s quietness after summer’s activities. But for now, I love autumn best.
In my novel, A Sense of Mission, the orphaned Kaitlin, just entering adolescence, explains why she has a hard time trusting the good times in her life. Influenced by the tragedy of her parents’ deaths, she says it’s “like some—monster—some weird creature from Lord of the Rings or something. Standing at this door that’s cracked half open. He’s staring at me while I’m feasting at a banquet.” She’s always scared they’ll disappear, as some of her good times did when her parents were killed.
Nothing is wrong with enjoying an occasional banquet. Jesus enjoyed banquets, even as he journeyed toward the cross.
Nevertheless, if we have experienced a true banquet, with people we love and enjoy being with, we may understand how powerful is the system that opposes the kinds of banquets Jesus talked about—those for the poor and hungry and imprisoned.
Ultimately, it isn’t about consumer spending or making America great or how many toys we can accumulate before we die. It’s about seeking to do good, even understanding that good may be overwhelmed at times.
Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.
Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.
Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion may be one reason solitude is neglected.
If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.
But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.
Maybe this busy, hard-wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our personalities, is as important to inner growth as food is to our physical bodies.
We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.
How Many of Us Can Stand Solitude?
Listening to a seminar on the founding of the country, I’m reminded of how few people inhabited the early United States, including native Americans. Even Europe and other continents included tracts of empty land.
Still, solitude may not have been easy to find. Long hours of labor, larger families crowded into smaller houses, neighborly needs—perhaps earlier folk strived for solitude as much as we do.
Solitude is a conscious decision to remove oneself from noise and chatter and simply to think, or to read slowly and reflect. Solitude should not be confused with loneliness, though the confusion, may be one reason solitude is neglected.
If solitude today is harder to find, it’s not only because population has increased significantly. I live in a semi-rural area where it’s still possible to walk away from my community into wooded areas. Driving my car for a short time, I can find trails where I can walk for an hour or two and not meet another person.
But we now have phones and carry them with us wherever we go. Some of us wake up and immediately check those phones. We get the news, good and bad, but mostly bad, before we’ve had breakfast.
Maybe this busy, hard wired way of life will change our brains, and we will no longer need solitude. I tend to doubt that. I suspect solitude, to varying degrees according to our natures, is as important to inner growth as is food to our physical bodies.
We are not merely flesh and bones. We also require spiritual feeding and sometimes must search for it.
An interviewer for The Sun asked the writer, Jack Miles: “By signing up for an organized faith, am I not rejecting other religious truths?”
Miles answered, “Well, any choice limits us. You can’t practice religion in general; you have to practice one religion. You can’t marry all women or all men; you have to marry one person. OK, you might be a bigamist, but there are limits. And where there are limits, there are choices.”
We choose between imperfect candidates in an election, but we have to finally vote. Not to vote is to scorn the precious right to collectively choose our leaders.
We choose a faith for the sake of meaning and purpose and direction in our lives. We choose between admittedly imperfect and incomplete choices, for none of us has perfect knowledge, but even choosing to be an atheist is a faith choice.
To choose is not, or should not, be the denigration of what is not chosen. The fact that we are fallible human beings means we honor the different choices of others.
But we have need of spiritual choices so as not to waste our precious lives in aimlessness.
Try growing up in the early post-World War II culture of Middle Tennessee, then add early adulthood in a rapidly changing deep South college followed by several early marriage years lived between rural Tennessee and big city Chicago. After that, stir in several years of a U.S. Foreign Service career in the Middle East and Washington, D.C. Then add a move to a Pacific Northwest island community. How’s that for a life of change?
Well, if the one constant in your life is the compulsion to write fiction (mostly) to capture the ideas that keep bubbling up through all this, you do have plenty of material.
None of this has led to a particularly successful writing career. I’ve not written a best-seller or anything near it, despite abundant material.
I don’t think, though, that, even if I had tried, I would have been able not to write. Gardeners garden, teachers teach, writers write.
I am so grateful that no matter how successful I may or may not be, I had and have people in my life who cared and care about me and the world around us. It really is, of course, about the caring. If we are cared for and learn to care about the people in our lives, even extending that care to desperate people as we are given opportunity, then we are successful in what counts.
1. Tell them you are so glad they called because now you have someone to share your sorrow at the death of Creepy, your beloved pet tarantula, which you will then begin to detail.
2. Use them to let off steam about whichever political party has recently upset you.
3. Share your ancestry—how proud you are of your something great grandfather who served as a cook in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
4. Tell them about your recently discovered interest in lobotomy. (Don’t know what that is? Make something up.)
5. Ask them if they have ever talked to a being from outer space like you recently did. Begin sharing your experience.