Saturday, October 28, 2017

Devotional Pts. for Week of Oct. 29

Oct. 29-Sunday-Ps.90 is an examination of time, in part. It reflects on God’s view of time and our own. It places hardship right at the divine doorstep.when does time go quickly and when does it seem to drag on and on for you? When can you take the long view?

Monday-Martin Buber-Rabbi Barukh’s grandson, Yehiel, was once playing hide-and-seek with another boy. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him. When he had waited for a long time, he came out of his hiding place, but the other was nowhere to be seen. Now Yehiel realized that his friend had not looked for him from the very beginning. This made him cry, and crying he ran to his grandfather and complained of his faithless friend. The tears brimmed in Rabbi Barukh’s eyes and he said: “God says the same thing: ‘I hide, but no one wants to seek me.’”

Tuesday-Michael Jinkins on music and the Green Frog Cafe-High-flying Greek terms like perichoresis have been drafted into Christian theology to describe the subtle interplay of divine being originating in the one person of the triune God and returned to another, first penetrating, then merging, blending without confusion, like streams of sparkling water or rivers of rich hot blood, giving life and love to all that is. But for me, it will always be the music that says it best without resorting to words... But I do wish you could have heard those old guys from the Green Frog Cafe who played us into the presence of the mystery of the world in a buddy's derelict shack on a very ordinary afternoon.

Wednesday-What he absolutely does not understand, however much he cudgels his brain, is why it is that while communication technologies continue to develop in a genuinely geometric progression, from improvement to improvement, proper, real communication, from me to you, from us to them, should still be this confusion crisscrossed with culs-de-sac, so deceiving with its illusory esplanades, and as devious in expression as in concealment José Saramago, The Double [205]
Thursday-Michael Jinkins-According to John McLeod Campbell, God is the ultimate loving parent whose heart's deepest will is for us to share God's own Spirit of love and life. Christ came to earth to empower the children of God to know and to live the love of God, showing us the way of life for which we were intended and sharing with us the Holy Spirit who would make that divine love possible in our own hearts. God does not suffer from a split personality, demanding the satisfaction of his furious anger with a sacrifice of blood to "make" God merciful. Rather, from the heart of the divine parent comes the eternal child of God who lived God's life of love among humanity and was slain by humanity in its fear, ignorance, pride and vanity. In the unjust death of Jesus, we look into the very heart of the triune God... Jesus of Nazareth we also see the life of a human being lived the way God wants us all to live. ..Jesus Christ is the love and life of God in human flesh.
Friday-Abba says to a seeker, 'Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.'
Saturday-Mother Teresa-Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. Be happy now, and if you show through your actions that you love others – including those who are poorer than you – you’ll give them happiness, too.

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