Keeping the Season

Lead Kindly Light
by John Henry Newman

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path,
Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith,
Home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.

--

Lead Kindly Light - setting by Dan Forrest

"L'interminable/The never ending/La interminable" by Elf-8, on Flickr

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-in New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

Be Still in Haste
by Wendell Berry

How quietly I
begin again

from this moment
looking at the
clock, I start over

so much time has
passed, and is equaled
by whatever
split-second is present

from this
moment this moment
is the first

"St. John the Baptist" by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr

Zechariah stops dead in the middle of his grand Benedictus [the song crying out, "Blessed be the God of Israel!"]...and instead starts singing to baby John. Picture him, the great priest and prophet, turning from his audience to his son, switching from oratory to lullaby, public to private. Picture him stroking his son's face and choking up as he sings these words to him....

That Luke recorded this song in detail can only mean that it was intended to be used, said, and sung to other babies. Not everybody can be Jesus. But anybody can be John. Anybody can point to Jesus, tell the world that the dawn is on its way, get a glimpse of God on the road, and yell, "Everybody! Look over there!"

--from All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas by Quinn G. Caldwell

"wilderness" by Martin Howard, on Flickr

Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’ ”

"Bird with snow" by mimmyg, on Flickr

White-eyes
by Mary Oliver

In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless -
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.

So, it's over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he's done all he can.

I don't know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
tucked in a white wing
while the clouds -

which he has summoned
from the north -
which he has taught,
to be mild, and silent -

thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent -
that has turned itself
into snow.

in Why I Wake Early

"Kri Kri, on the shores of Lake Chad" by European Commission DG ECHO, on Flickr

Mark 6:30–34, 53–56
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

--
Last night, we had the pleasure of welcoming Bayo and Mary Beth to worship, where they shared with us the current news and notes from their missionary work in Nigeria. They shared good news of successfully arranging transport of shipping container, which was filled with children's books for their school library and with medical supplies to help furnish their clinic. They introduced to us, via powerpoint, some of the children under care at their mission, and to some of the school children who are flourishing in their studies. Mary Beth beamed with pride over pictures of the teachers that she has been training. Bayo beamed with price over pictures of his six hundred chickens that are a self-sustaining means of food and income. We met many of the core staff of the Meshiah Foundation, which is the name for the whole operation that Bayo and Mary Beth have planted in Jos, Nigeria.

But they were perhaps most pleased and excited to show us pictures of their now-completed medical clinic, a project that was in its last stages of construction two years ago when they were here last. A fully-functional clinic, with a doctor and nurses, lab technicians, exam rooms, a couple of overnight beds, and even some space for labor and delivery, stretched out across three different wings.

It was while showing us picture of the clinic that Bayo, who was running the powerpoint, stood up and stole the microphone from Mary Beth. He wanted to remind us of how this clinic came to be.

The clinic came about because there was first a need. Mary Beth and Bayo didn't head to Nigeria at the start of their mission journey saying to themselves, "So the plan, of course, is to build a medical clinic, and once we do that, we'll see if anybody will use it." No, they lived and loved and taught and proclaimed God's word in Jos, Nigeria, and as they did so, they started seeing the deep ways that HIV was affecting families. There were sick people in need of healing. Spurred on by their compassion for the needs of these HIV families, and other sick and suffering individuals, they teamed up with member churches - and First Lutheran, in particular - to start building a medical clinic.

The need came first. The need showed up on their doorstep. The needs of the community interrupted and interjected and stomped all over whatever other plans the Oyebades might have been making for their ministry, and it was by following the need that God revealed his ongoing plan for their work, a plan that now involves looking for donations of medical equipment to fill another shipping container sometime in 2016.

I think that sometimes, the work that God most calls us - and blesses us - to do, is to take care of the needs that show up on our doorstep, even or especially when those needs are nothing that we've planned or prepared for.

At the start of our gospel today, the disciples return from their mission to the villages. Two weeks ago, we heard Jesus send them out to heal, proclaim, and cast out demons. Today, they return, thrilled by all that God empowered them to do. Hurray!

And Jesus, himself knowing the energy it takes to love and serve others, encourages them to rest, and whisks them away to a quiet place.

Except that he doesn't whisk them quite quickly enough, it seems. While they are slipping off via boat, the crowds figure out where they're going, and rush their on foot, arriving before them.

Surely, in the name of keeping good boundaries, in the name of avoiding burnout or compassion fatigue, Jesus could have sent the crowds away, postponed them until he and the disciples had rested and eaten and were refreshed for ministry.

But that isn't what Jesus does. As he gets out of the boat and sees these crowds, he has compassion on them. He doesn't ignore their needs. He teaches them, and, in the verses that the lectionary cuts from today's gospel, he feeds them, and then he and the disciples get back in the boat, cross to the other side, and heal the crowds that meet them on the opposite bank.

I want us to consider, for a few moments, where we might find ourself in this gospel.

First, I think about all of those crowds. I wonder what it would be like if we felt as free as they did to admit our needs and to seek help for those needs. I wonder what it would be like for us if we trusted the power of Jesus enough to run directly to him with our burdens. I wonder what it would be like for us if we were so excited about the good news of Jesus that we literally ran to meet him with joy and eagerness.

And then I think about the disciples, tired from their work, who took Jesus at his word when offered them rest. I wonder what it would be like for us to let Christ be our rest. I wonder what it would be like for us to let Christ pull us off to a deserted place, away from our overflowing schedules and persistent news cycle.

And then I look at Jesus, and I also see the flip side of rest and rejuvination. Jesus tries to take a break, but the needs of the crowds follow him around. And he doesn’t use rest as an excuse not to help them. I wonder if we are as gracious with the needs that interrupt us. I wonder if we sometimes hold the cares of the world at arms’ length in the name of self-care or avoiding burnout.

Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber confesses,

I am really good at lying. And if I can go an extra step and make it look like I’m actually being good - if I can pawn off narcissism as a virtue, then I win. Like when I am just sick of [caring] about other people and want to be selfish so I call my two days of watching Netflix and getting mani-pedis ‘self-care.’ Or when I say I’m on ‘a cleanse’ so no one knows I’m really on a diet. The list goes on, and the last thing I want is for any light to be cast on the darkness that I’ve spent so much energy curating, protecting, enjoying. But it’s not a cleanse. It’s a diet. It’s not about my health, it’s about my vanity. (Pastrix, p. 71)

Oof. She speaks a hard truth.

Jesus challenges the disciples, and us, to be compassionate toward the needs that show up at the worst times, in the most inconvenient ways, those times when we most wish we could turn away, and take care of our own lives, when we feel like we have nothing left to give.

It's one thing to care for the needs of the world when we do it on our own terms. We plan service projects. We go on mission trips. We set scheduled hours for the food pantry and the free clinic and the community meal. LSI holds set office hours in the building. Joan is in the office at Community Action on a set schedule.

But what happens when the needs seek us out? Especially when we are feeling tired, or when we feel like we have already given our due? The discretionary fund request that shows up at my office door while I am working on a sermon. The food pantry client who shows up two minutes too late. The mission support and church budget needs that appear after we have already given our pledge for the week or month.

In our gospel, Jesus shows us a model of ministry that cares for the world on its terms, and not ours. A colleague of mine once remarked, "The distractions are the ministry," and there is some truth to that statement. Because doesn't it seem that the unscheduled needs and the spontaneous sharing of gifts and talents turn out to be the deepest moments of ministry and witness?

It is the needs that we don't plan for that challenge us to act on faith. It is the burdens that we don't have room for that challenge us to be more generous. It is the "distractions" to our regularly scheduled programming that humble us and remind us that our power to love and serve is not our own, but that of God working through us.

So what new ventures of compassion and care might God be calling us to do, if only we say “yes” to the distractions, to the interloping needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ?

For Bayo and Mary Beth, the needs of HIV-afflicted families showed up on their doorstep. From that need grew an incredible ministry of healing and generosity. Do we not trust that God can work just as powerfully through us, if only we allow the needs of the world to lead us?

Friends, week in and week out, we come to this place for rest. We hear the word of God, we linger over a holy meal, we recharge for the week ahead. It is here that we know Jesus as our rest and our respite. Today, we offer healing prayer during communion, and you are invited to be honest with your own needs and burdens, that you might hear a word of peace and healing.

But then know that even as you are refreshed, you are also sent back out at the end of worship, to live in love as Christ loved us. You are being sent out not just to seek out ways to serve and proclaim Christ, but also to open your hearts to the many and various needs that show up where we aren’t looking for them.

This week, may you find patience for the conversations that interrupt your schedule.

May you offer food or money to the hungry eyes that catch you at the most inconvenient moment.

May you lift up a heartfelt prayer precisely when you feel overwhelmed by the news of the day.

And may Christ, who is your rest, be also Christ your strength, to love and to serve with tenderness, as he as loved and served you.

"Aesculapius / Äskulap" by Harald Schmid, on Flickr

Numbers 21:4–9
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food." Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Ephesians 2:1–10
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

John 3:14–21
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
---

Every hero has a weakness. For Indiana Jones, archeologist and adventurer, his downfall is snakes. He can deal with bugs and with death threats, motorcycle chases and skeletons, gunfights and treachery. But not with snakes.

Unfortunately for him, we start with snakes today, out there in the wilderness with Moses and the Israelites. We are at year thirty-seven of their forty-year wanderings. Most of the old generation has died off. With the taste of milk and honey already starting to entice these wanderers, their dissatisfaction with the current situation grows and grows. "There is no food," they say, " and the food that God has provided is terrible." It's the joke that opens Woody Allen's Annie Hall: “Two women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says: ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such…small portions.’” There is no food…and the food is miserable.

Grumbling becomes anger, and anger becomes rejection of the very God who had drawn them out of their slavery in the first place, and they beg to go back to Egypt because they think slavery is no big deal compared to hunger and weariness. And God, frustrated to high heaven with this ridiculousness, sends the same sort of plague on his own people as he had sent upon the Egyptians. Snakes. Snakes everywhere. Snakes that bite. Snakes that bite with venom. Snakes that kill. Terrifying. I think I'm with Indy on this one...

Hearing the cries of the people, Moses intercedes, and God relents, and tells Moses that he is to fashion a serpent out of bronze, and put it up on a cross-pole, and everyone is to look up at it, and in the lifting of their eyes will come their salvation.

For author and theologian Phyllis Tickle, this story of Moses and the bronze serpent is a formative story in her own faith development. She spends a number of pages in her memoir, The Shaping of a Life, retelling the story and reflecting on it. She points out that God's promise to Moses is that the people will be saved from death when they are bitten…but not that they won’t get bitten in the first place.

She reflects, "Those men and women and children who believed [Moses] and believed in Yahweh's message through him looked up at the pole with its burnished snake and not down at the desert vipers who were besieging them. They elected by a combined act of will and faith to look, not down where the agony was and where the snakes might still be pulled from their bodies and their children's bodies, but up where they might live. And, the story says, some eighteen months later those who had made that choice were those who entered by way of Jericho and its tumbling walls into the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey...."

If you're keeping track of the oddly circular logic in the story, the Israelites are being saved from death by the very image of the thing that is killing them. And at the same time, the Israelites are still navigating a world of snakes, but have in the cross before them a way to make it through the snakes alive.

In our sister story today in John 3, the image of the bronze snake on the cross pole is reimagined as the image of Christ being lifted up on the cross.

In John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, a pharisee, a teacher of the law, who comes to him by night, wondering what he needs to do to be saved. Jesus has been teaching many people, many crowds, healing people, doing signs and wonders, that people might see him and believe.

We’ve been spending a lot of time in Mark’s gospel recently, where Jesus keeps shushing people and telling them not to make a big fuss about the miraculous stuff he’s doing, because he wants people to see him first and foremost through the lens of the cross.

But in John’s gospel, it’s all about the signs. Signs and wonders are the way that people come to know who Jesus is and who he came from. In fact, the book is organized around seven signs of Jesus, beginning with his turning water to wine at Cana. John's gospel is all about “seeing-is-believing.”

When Jesus talks about people of light and people of darkness, and how they will be judged for their deeds, he is really lamenting that there are people in his midst who have seen him, have witnessed the signs and wonders, and who still choose not to believe him.

Jesus says to Nicodemus that those who refuse the light, those who see but do not believe, have brought judgement upon themselves, and their judgment is simply this: that they continue to do evil deeds in the dark, which is, as it turns out, exactly what they are too afraid to stop doing.

But to those who believed, to those who followed Jesus around in person, and saw, and saw some more, and chose to step into the light, these words in John's gospel are the assurance that their belief in Jesus isn't worthless, that there is something more that is promised them beyond the joy of following a pretty nifty savior around the world. For God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to bring eternal life. Yes, that's the heart of the matter. For all the signs and wonders and teachings, the bonus is that Jesus has all power to give life.

This is how John's gospel begins. "In the beginning was the Word," that is, Jesus. And "in him was life, and the life was the light of all people…The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it."

And how does Jesus bring this light to us? By being lifted up, just like a bronze serpent. Lifted up onto the cross. Lifted up from death to life on Easter morning. Lifted up from earth to heaven at his ascension.

Yes, at the end of a book of signs and wonders, John’s gospel will be about seeing Christ lifted up on the cross and believing, and it will also be about seeing Christ resurrected and believing, and then, for us, not seeing Christ in the flesh and yet coming to believe.

We live in a world that is full of light and shadows. There are blazing sunrises, but there are also starless midnights. There are good deeds done in the light and there are evil deeds done in the darkness. In ourselves, we know that we have bright sides and shadow sides. The conflict between good and evil, darkness and light, things of God and things not of God is a very real conflict.

We know that there are snakes that bite us as we wander the wilderness of this world, things that nip away at us and destroy our spirits, things that cause us fear and pain, things that sting us and poison us and take all life from us if we let them.

Phyllis Tickle says, “I…know for a hard, enduring fact that life is full of snakes; that they bite fiercely; that they will kill you if you look down and wrestle with them; and that, peculiarly enough, the very act of being wrestled with often is what gives them their potency. I had also learned that, just as the story teaches, looking up doesn't stop the pain immediately, but it does prevent death from it...."

Just as the Israelites were saved from snakes by lifting up a snake, the same is true for us: the remedy for our human brokenness, for the brokenness and sin that bite and devour us and our world, is the lifting up of human brokenness in Jesus on the cross.

The God who delivered the Israelites from the Egyptians, who parted the Red Sea, who gave manna and quail in the wilderness and water from the rock, who worked through Moses and a bronze serpent to offer healing is the same God who delivers and saves us by the cross of Christ. God in Christ gives us the gift of being able to lift up our heads to see God's promises instead of being stuck watching the snakes swirl at our ankles. We affirm a God of salvation who is not apart from the pains of this world, but who offers us salvation even in the midst of it.

And so our faith always puts a choice before us: The choice to step into the light of salvation, or the choice to stay in the dark and do evil deeds that are their own condemnation. In the words of 1 Peter, "To you then who believe, [Christ] is precious; but for those who do not believe...they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Paul, in Ephesians, reminds us that we were created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. These works are a sign of our salvation; faith restores in us the ability to choose deeds of light over deeds of darkness.

Brothers and sisters, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to give us life when the world gives us snakebites. God did not send Jesus to the world to condemn us, but so that we might believe - that we might have proof! - that there is abundant, eternal life given to us as a gift of faith.

Lift up your eyes and see: there is light, even in shadows. There is salvation to be found. For Christ has been lifted up as a sign of life in the wilderness. And Christ says to each of us, “Walk on with me in this light, for we are about to cross over to the land of milk and honey. Do not be afraid. Lift up your eyes from the ground and live!”

"To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness - you shall love him."

-Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces

Comfort, Comfort Now My People
Music by Latifah Phillips and David Wilton
Lyrics by Johann Olearius, arr. Latifah Phillips and David Wilton

Comfort, comfort now my people Tell of his peace with no end
Comfort, comfort those in darkness Tell them that God's pardon waits for them

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Straight shall, straight shall be what's crooked Making all the rougher places plain
Let your, let your hearts be humble befitting our god's glory and his reign

Let the valleys rise to meet him the hills all will bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise
Let the valleys rise to greet him the hills bow down in praise

The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
The Glory of the Lord now on earth is shed In deserts far and near he will raise what's dead
His peace has been spoken His word is never broken The Kingdom of God is now here

Comfort, comfort now my people Comfort, comfort now my people

"Purple Pathway" by PMillera4, on Flickr

Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
"See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
'Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,'"

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

"bw-frost-leaf" by zoomyboy.com, on Flickr

Advent Calendar
by Rowan Williams

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

"winter grass," by Groenborg5, on Flickr

Advent Antiphons
by Sr. M. Charlita, I.H.M.

From Mary's sweet silence,
Come, Word mutely spoken!

Pledge of our real life,
Come, Bread yet unbroken!

Seed of the Golden Wheat,
In us be sown.

Fullness of true Light,
Through us be known.

Secret held tenderly,
Guarded with Love,

Cradled in purity,
Child of the Dove,

COME!

Yesterday was a beautiful coming together of images: the caring protection of Jesus the good shepherd, and celebrating mothers and those who provide mothering care. A perfect setting to hear again Bobby McFerrin's work "The 23rd Psalm (dedicated to my mother)," performed here by Cantus.



The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need,
She makes me lie down in green meadows,
Beside the still waters She will lead.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs,
She leads me in a path of good things,
And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk through a dark and dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me,
She has said She won't forsake me,
I'm in her hand.

She sets a table before me, in the presence of my foes,
She anoints my head with oil,
And my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me,
All the days of my life,
And I will live in her house,
Forever, forever and ever.

Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter,
And to the Holy of Holies,
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen.

“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

"desert acacias" by BATEMAN art, on Flickr

From the poet: As I reflected on Jesus’ three temptations in the wilderness, I was drawn more and more to think about the setting, not just the content of the temptations. When I think about the ‘wilderness’ today, even the desert, it’s likely to be in the context of a vacation trip to see beautiful scenery, not a place of desperate struggle with the spiritual forces of the Enemy. Where, then, is our wilderness in which we are tempted?

"Technology in the wilderness" by Meliroo on Flickr

Temptation in the Wired Wilderness
by Holly Ordway

Our Lord spent forty days and forty nights
Resisting Satan in the wilderness.
We picture barren rocks and sand; we might
Add in a scrubby tree or two. I guess
That’s where temptation ought to come, so we
Can see it from at least a mile away,
And be prepared, with Bibles, church retreats,
And exhortations to stand firm.

Instead it wounds with cuts too small to see,
In this our wired wilderness. We play
And work in deserts of the digital:
Abuzz with locust-noise of clicks and tweets
And filled with lonely crowds. Our enemy
Is faced and fought right here, or not at all.

from the God and Nature magazine