Oct. 28 Devotions

October 28 Sunday-Ps 34 This time I was struck by the words-this poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord. I remember that Jackie Gleason had a character called the poor soul. Do you know a poor soul? When does your soul feel poor? How do you manage to climb out of that feeling? How have you helped another poor soul? Monday- In my October 3 Christian Century one can find a treasure trove of material, a reason I continue to subscribe to it. A regular columnist, Carol Zaleski, a professor at Smith, wrote an interesting piece of the search for extending our “lives” digitally. Already some plans are being drawn up to try to preserve the connections in the brain in the hope that our experience could then be encoded in a computer chip and we could exist as a mix of robot and human being. Star Trek had an episode where Spock’s brain was hooked ot a massive computer, and we may be facing such possibilities one day. All that being said, how do you imagine heaven and immortality? Tuesday-the same issue has an article on a young man who started serving soup and bread to the hungry once a week to get some folks in a bar. A woman said” every time I do soup, you’re bringing people together and creating community over something beautiful.” I don’t know how much “community” such a place serves, but it does create some common bonds of the people who bring soup and help to serve it. It does make me think how the basic Christian sacrament is sharing the bread of life and the cup of salvation around a table. Wednesday-I just went to a Presbytery training on racism that was most dispiriting, as it focused on blame. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has a new book on fighting intolerance born of fear. She speaks of developing a sympathetic imagination to help us try, really try to put ourselves in the place and situation of another. In so doing, we are not so quick to judge others. What differences tend to trigger your intolerance? where have you grown more tolerant over the years? Thursday-All Saints Day honors those in heaven. It started to commemorate Christian martyr and was celebrated in the Easter season, but in the West it took this date when a special chapel to martyrs was consecrated. I just received a note from a friend who has a hard time with her husband’s death falling so close to All Saints Day. this day may god honor your tears, your regrets, and your pain. may god give you comfort as you need it at this stage of your life. May we look forward to a grand family reunion one day with God. Friday-All Souls Day floated around but over the years was connected to this date. While all saints remembered the saints in heaven, this day marked those in purgatory. Obviously, Protestants abandoned this notion, but I do not have any problems with another day to recall the dead. Especially, we could use it to pray over our regrets and resentments that we still hold toward the deceased. Saturday-Garrett Keizer writes thoughtful pieces on a variety of topics, such as anger. Now he has a new book on noise. Silence is hard to come by in our noisy world. I also think we fear silence, so we cover the silence with a constant sonic background. where do you crave silence, and where do you find it?