Week of Oct 6 devotional points

Sunday Oct 6- Ps 137 is a heartbreaking song of longing for home. Even when Jeremiah can tell them to bloom where they are planted, they are still exiles. Will they every feel at home again? When have you been homesick? when have you felt exiled? How did you learn to recover?

Monday-Wisdom requires discernment: not all facts are equally relevant, not all motivations are equally commendable, and not all potential outcomes are equally laudable. Wisdom is not for the faint of heart. --Galen Guengerich, "God Revised"

who is the wisest person you’ve known?

Tuesday-Jer. 29 speaks of a future and a hope from God who has plans for welfare of a desperate people. It is as if god says that a page is being turned, and hope and the future can beckon again instead of feeling like a dreaded, leaden weight dangling overhead or dogging every step. What elements of the future have the most hope for you? what do you look forward to?

Wednesday-It was in the brokenness of Europe and the bloody trenches of the front lines that Teilhard (de Chardin) woke up to communion with God through earth. During Easter week 1916 at the Battle of Dunkirk, It was as he cared for the wounded, it was as he felt the shock of the earth around him, bombs blasting craters out of trampled vineyards, that he came to see most clearly the sacredness of creation’s body. He saw that what we do to one another as nations and what we do to the earth as a human race is what we do to the Presence of Love. And with almost unbelievable tenderness, he addresses Christ and creation in one breath: “I love you, Lord Jesus,” he prays at Dunkirk. “You are as gentle as the human heart, as fiery as the forces of nature, as intimate as life itself. . . . I love you as a world, as this world which has captivated my heart.” (From Philip Newell on Facebook)

Thursday-I saw a touching movie recently, Unfinished Song. A group of senior people join a community chorus, and the music and the community brings them joy. As we age, we sometimes let go of things that brought or bring us joy, or at least enjoyment. Thomas Long has a wonderful book on the funeral, Accompany Them With Singing, What osng would you like played at your funeral?

Friday- "If indeed we love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and strength, we are going to have to stretch our hearts, open our minds, and strengthen our souls, whether our years are three score and ten or not yet twenty. God cannot lodge in a narrow mind. God cannot lodge in a small heart. To accommodate God, they must be palatial." (William Sloane Coffin) What circumstances have seemed to enlarge your perspective?

Saturday-We have a fairly regular ministerial reading group at our church. After our work, we conclude with worship in our chapel. One of our members found that the singer/songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter speaks to her quite deeply. Another friend found that her record, Ashes and Roses helped immensely through the struggle of grief. We just quoted her song, Elysium, at a recent minister’s meeting. What song speak to your heart in a special way?