March 9-I was talking
with someone who sees guilt as a sign from God. It is when we do
something wrong. When we have not done something wrong, guilt is a
sign of trouble. Misplaced guilt is troublesome as it may blind us to
feeling guilty when we should. God is not about wanting us to feel
guilty but to be released from its weight, appropriate or
inappropriately felt.

Monday-Calvin
emphasized a ‘union with Christ.” The Holy Spirit so
unites us with the life of Christ that we participate in life with
Christ. Yes, he meant most clearly in Communion, but he would not
limit its reach only to the sacraments. He would have little patience
with our determination to feel closer to God, when we are already
engrafted into God’s own, Jesus Christ. Christ is the hinge for
the door of faith.

Tuesday-Recently, I saw
a 3 lb baby girl. I didn’t peer into her character, or her
future. I had no stereotype, no accomplishments to judge. I prayed
for a fragile life, straining to live and grow. Maybe God continues
to see us that way, from the ineffable heart of divinity. God sees us
as a beautiful, vulnerable creation at 3lbs or 250lbs, in newborn
clothes or XXL.

Wednesday-Ghosts can be
persistent. A couple argues and dredges up the past. A church keeps
looking to the glory days of a generation ago. A middle-aged person
cannot let go of being a 3 sport all star. They don’t fit in
haunted houses, nor should they haunt a life. As Paul said, “the
past is finished and gone. When the past haunts us, we require a
sense of forgiveness. That’s why, week after week, we declare
the cleansing pardon of God in worship.

Thursday-On those rare
times someone would tell the truth when asked how is it going, they
would reply, tired, or exhausted. The great spiritual writer Kathleen
Norris has written of a struggle with an old nemesis, acedia. . It’s
a sense of spiritual depression or desolation that saps the energies,
where we just throw up our hands and ask what’s the use? 2
remedies: prayer gives us spiritual energy, and the other is to look
outward to help someone else.

Friday-Christian Wiman
is editor of Poetry magazine, a believer, and a beautiful writer, no
surprise. “Silence is the language of faith. Action is the
translation.” Sometimes our faith is so deep that no words can
hope to grasp it. Sometimes faith may be lost in silence, as when we
are too timid to speak when we should. I think that silence is the
sense behind Jesus saying we should pray in secret, in that place
beyond words heard, but they will turn into words lived.

Saturday-When the news
is about the economic stimulus package, how about a Spiritual
Stimulus Package? The metaphor for a stimulus is the idea that one
may need to prime a pump, or a lawn mower engine to get it going, or
run a truck downhill and pop the clutch to start. Few of us full
capacity spiritual lives. I would leave it to the individual to
create such a package, but in our tradition, surely prayer and
Scripture devotion would lie at the heart of such an enterprise.