Week of July 8 devotions

July 8-Ps.48:9 “within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.” For all of the talk about worshipping god outside of worship, nothing collects our thoughts into prayer as surely as being in worship together. What is a service other than a meditation on unfailing love? What are the sacraments but demonstrations of god’s unfailing love? What does it say about us when we are so willing to skip meditating on that unfailing love together? Monday Ira Kent Groff wrote recently of learning to ask the right question, or even good ones. Sometimes our search for answers is deterred because we do not take the time to formulate good questions. It saddens me when I hear that churches inveigh against asking questions in their working through the faith. Do you have persistent questions on the faith? Do you think some of them need to be reworked or sharpened? Tuesday-I saw a cute movie recently, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a cultural clash movie of retired British folks and the old and new India. The young owner of the hotel decides that he can outsource the elder care, as “lots of countries don’t like their old people.” It demonstrates our need for community and for love and respect. One turn of phrase is going to stick with me, as one of the women comes into some money and she is “turning left.” she means that when she enters the airplane she will turn toward the first class cabin. Wednesday-Listened to an old version of Bridge Over Troubled Water and its religious links hit me harder than usual. It starts with images of trouble but moves toward “your time has come to shine/all your dreams are on their way.” As baby boomers grow older, some now read it as God guiding one from death into heaven. I read it as a version of What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Thursday-Much of my adult life, I’ve used the 1955 red Presbyterian Hymnbook, so I am still learning my way through the blue one, even as it is to be replaced within the next few years. I complained that we needed some healing songs in the old book, so I love the words from #380: “release in us those healing truths /Unconscious pride resists or shelves.” Perhaps one of the great gifts of salvation is that healing of the internal acids that gnaw away at us. Friday-Grudges damage the soul of the one who keeps them, more than keep, but keeps them alive and kicking. The longer a grudge is held, the more precious it seems to become. The longer a grudge is held, the more difficult it may be to forgive. What helps you to hold on to grudges/ What helps you to release them/ Is it always about a hurt, or is it more about the person who hurt you? Saturday-Bastille Day tells us a lot about the impact of repression. Its roots lie in seeing people as things, as objects, and not people of value and inestimable worth. It also points us toward the vile effects of revolution without controls. That makes the miracle of South Africa even more startling, that it could establish a truth and reconciliation group. Revenge is what wants to emerge after repression, but the Christina principles of Archbishop Tutu managed to channel those.