Every Common Bush, Afire With God
In a world that is broken and hurting, full of uncertainty and suffering, God likewise appears to us. We, who have worthwhile jobs to do, paths to take, duties to tend to. Where are the burning bushes here and now? What are we being called to turn towards so that we might see, hear, and know the call of God?
The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning reminds us:
“Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries
. . . unaware.”
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The Lord Is my Light, my Light and Salvation
That’s why the psalms are so great. They are great because they are real. They cover every human emotion possible- from fear, lonliness, and even hate, to love, connection and exhuberant joy. They express a profound and deep, abiding relationship with God, not a “pie in the sky, everything is perfect” statement of belief, but an authentic relationship between the psalmist and God, a God who can handle questions, a God who can handle doubts, a God who can handle the deepest questions of human life.
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Go to Church or the Devil Will Get You
The Season of Lent refuses to allow our tempter to remain an outsider. Lenten penitence instead redirects us, engaging the harmful places in our lives and in our very souls; for surely that is where our greatest temptations and most severe demons lie. [5] In Lent, we are to become aware of the road we travel, reconsidering our landmarks, considering how truly far we are from home.
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Beloved Dust
If there are two things I hope we would all remember this Lent it’s that first, we are incredibly beloved dust that is destined from birth for temporary death and eternal life, and that today’s remembrance of the impermanence of our earthly life is what paradoxically can liberate us from the fear of permanent death. And second, that our dusty lives are not lived alone. We are all connected by a web of divine love and common toil, and the purpose of our repentance and spiritual discipline this season is to shed bonds of injustice and strengthen the bonds of love.
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Anticipating Lent
When Jesus took his closest disciples up on the mountain to pray, they weren’t trying to escape reality, they were seeking to see reality at its deepest level. They were getting in touch with the Source of life itself. That is, I imagine, what the 7 Ukranians, kneeling in the town square were trying to do, connecting with the source of the “peace that passes all understanding” as the world as they knew it was falling apart. Jesus left a hurting world and he went back to a hurting world to bring healing. The Ukranians prayed with shelling going on in the distance and they went back to their homes to a long day and night of more shelling. We can go to the mountaintop anytime, even when we are in the bowels of hell.
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Love Your Enemies
In this way, forgiveness is not passive. It is not unexamined. It is not a mind at rest or emotions perfectly in check. It may very well be accompanied by lamentation, righteous anger, and calls for change. There are enemies out there. And these enemies have the power to hurt us and do us harm. Sometimes, these enemies would even call us friends, or, in Joseph’s case, family. And yet, we are called to forgive, because we are called to love. And if we, like Joseph, have the courage to say, “Come closer,” we may very well glimpse not only our own faces in our enemies but the very face of God.
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