Devotions Week of June 10

June 10-Ps. 138 is today’s selection for worship. In v. 3, God has “increased my strength of soul.” What constitutes strength of soul do you think? What spiritual attributes would it include? Surely it moves beyond the spiritual alone. How would strength of soul fit strength of character, or a sense of self? What would weakness of soul appear to be? Monday These words come from Kent Ira Groff, a pastor and spiritual writer. “People are literally dying of loneliness. We can do something now to name this demon that makes orphans out of bright beautiful people in lonely office parties, community events and congregations… look for the isolated person in a social gathering, leave the ninety-nine to find the one; do task-talk elsewhere. Treat the newcomer as if they were dying tomorrow and may need a word with you today.” Tuesday-Scott Russell Sanders writes wonderful essays. In Hunting for Hope, he writes: ‘beauty feeds us from the same source that created us. It reminds us of the shaping power that reaches through the flower stem and through our own hands…by giving us a taste of the kinship between our own small minds and the great Mind of the Cosmos, beauty reassures us that we are exactly and wonderfully made.” Wednesday-Rita Nakashima Brock has started a project for veterans called the Soul Repair Center. I love the name and its goals. It sickens me that we send people off to war so willingly and somehow worry about pennies when they come home and need services. War damages the whole person, and it can warp the very self of a soldier. I pray for every imaginable blessing for her project and the recent decision of the VA to provide a lot more treatment possibilities’ for our exhausted soldiers returning home when they don’t recognize themselves any longer. Thursday-I am scheduled to be on the road today. Summer is a time for travels. I love the phrase travelling mercies, recently made more popular by the writer Anne Lamott. What trips do you have for your “bucket list?” what were some of your best trips? What were moments of travelling mercies? What protections do you find yourself praying for? What elements of travelling do you require mercies for most assuredly? Friday-I’m doing a speech on a Supreme Court case that involved the Alton RR in the 1930s and connecting it to the health care case before the SCOTUS right now. It led me to thinking about healing in the New Testament. Sometimes the word emerges as therapy, to make well. Sometimes, it is the same word as save. In both cases, I am drawn to their wide ambit. They include physical healing of course, but they seem to point to us as totalities, mind, heart, body and soul together. Saturday-Our daughter’s wedding is scheduled for today. I am trying to write her a proper, formal letter. Already, I have flashed back to some of the letting go moments of parenthood, first babysitter, first day in pre-school, riding a bike. I wonder if god looks at us in a similar fashion. For liberty, Christ has set us free says Paul. That is the liberty of love, but at times, it can be a painful freedom. For the church isn’t baptism, not only a sacrament of rebirth, but the first of many times we say, ‘off you go into the world?”