Sunday-Ps.107 starts the final book of the Psalms, so it is perhaps a counterpart ot Deuteronomy, a recapitulation of the Torah for a new day. Here it speaks of the continuing help of god when people cry out in trouble.consider writing it in the first person as you sought and received help over a lifetime.
Monday-This center isn't some thing. It is some one. The beloved son, Jesus Christ, is the glue, the cement, the coherence of the cosmos. For his sake alone God prevents the world from coming apart at the seams. And how do we dare believe that? Only because this cosmic Christ is at the same time the crucified-yet-risen one,
Tuesday-So many of our favorite hymns were born in the crucible of affliction. Take, for example, these beloved verses by the German teacher, musician and pastor Martin Rinkart (b. 1586). Rinkart's thirty-two-year pastorate coincided with the Thirty Years' War and the pestilence that devastated the walled city of Eilenberg. For much of his tenure Rinkart was the only pastor in the besieged city, sometimes conducting forty to fifty funerals a day. Even his wife was snatched away by the plague, and Pastor Rinkart himself fell ill but survived. The city fathers gave him little thanks for his service, and he died exhausted in 1649."And guide us when perplexed" in stanza two is perhaps the closest Rinkart comes to hinting at the chaos out of which this hymn emerged. Lawrence R. Wohlrabe
Wednesday-The most wondrous miracle here isn't that a gentle soul like Mary would sit still for Jesus in her living room--but that Jesus would sit still for Mary. We have in Jesus a God who graciously seeks us out, enters our space, pays deep attention to us--in order to speak his "I love you" to us again and again and again. Now that is hospitality!
Thursday-Luke 10:38-42 "Don't just sit there--do something!" This activist credo has currency nowadays, especially among the young. Service to others is both an outcome of faith and a pathway to faith. The history of interpretation of this text reveals that the two sisters have been viewed as exemplars of two spiritual paths: activity (Martha) and contemplation (Mary). Which does Jesus commend here? Does he praise Mary at Martha's expense? That's much too facile. After all, Jesus and his apostles depended on the kindness and service of others. Surely the reflective and the active modes of discipleship need each other. Indeed, they feed off each other. "Don't just do something--sit there" is what we sometimes "Mary-deficient" folks need to hear, so that we remember the why of our engaged, grounded service in Christ's name. Lawrence R. Wohlrabe
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Friday-The 7th day is like a palace in time with a kingdom for all, not a date but an atmosphere. - Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Saturday-Interdependence can also offer an ecological vision that integrates all aspects of creation in recognizing our mutuality and interdependence...All things are interconnected. There is nothing in existence that is separate, fixed, or isolated. Things only exist in relationship and connection with other things.”--- Christine Valters Paintner
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