Sunday-Ps.130"Out of the depths I cry unto you," goes far deeper into life's sorrows than a bout with the blues or a depressed feeling. For many folks, the pit is so deep and dark that they can't climb out. Those feelings of deep sorrow, grief, or profound sadness will assail all of us at one time or another. Maybe that's why the author of this psalm doesn't ask for anything beyond God's attention. The writer doesn't know what to ask for, or how to imagine anything besides the present depths and darkness. That's a despair that can surround us and pull us down, and trap us in a "Slough of Despond" as described in Pilgrims Progress, a classic image of hopelessness. (Wendell Debner)
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Monday-If we don't find ways and time to ponder who God is and what God wants and works for, perhaps our God is too small. Maybe we have latched on to only one little word or event which now has become insufficient for understanding what God is about in our world. Perhaps we, too, need the light, so we can see and be seen and discover God's size. We might begin by reading aloud the four verses of this hymn, "God Whose Almighty Word." from Luther Seminary’s God Pause
Tuesday“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.”---Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Wednesday-I just noticed that the supreme court struck down more campaign finance regulations. The approach is based on the expression, “money talks.” when does money speak loudly in your relationships? when is it reduced to a whisper? Should money equal voice? should money be power? When does money acquire symbolic importance for you?
Thursday-”I cannot do this alone O God. Early in the morning I cry to you. Help me to pray. (Bonhoeffer) When do you feel most alone? Why do you think he has the phrase about early in the morning? Where do you need the most help in prayer?
Friday-”We have been created as embodied persons, claimed by the promise of baptism, and focused on the Spirit, who redeems us and guides us to all that is good and true. That's what it's like to be "in the Spirit" and have God dwell within us.” Wendell Debner form God Pause
Saturday-”Who should we accept, embrace, love? Everyone God does…”(From Prism) that is difficult in the real world instead of in airy abstraction, isn’t it? In some ways it is easier to love humanity than individual people.What groups of people do you find it easiest to exclude from the ambit of love? Why is that do you think? Whom t do you want to make sure is embraced within the orbit of love?
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