Week 2 - Day 4 Saturday Romans 8 18:25

 Saturday, September 24, 2022

Destiny of Glory

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us. For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have first fruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that sees for itself is not hope. For who hopes for what one sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait with endurance.

The gift of reflection and insight does not easily come this morning. Little noises distract me. The cat talking about her need to be outside. Lori luxuriously sipping coffee. Even the clacking of the keyboard as I type all ripples the little mill pond of calm I so appreciate in the morning. I don't know why today is different but it is sometimes that way. As an alcoholic, even one years into recovery, restlessness, irritability, and discontentment loom up like a sudden tidal wave rushing in toward the shore of my being. Why? The sky is clear but for some clouds in the east. Earlier, there was color in the dawn for the first time in what seems like eons. Morning is morning as morning should be. I should look forward to the promises of the day. The Grizzly game. Good company. Time with Father Michael. Perfect weather and yet there is a sense of mourning, of desolation and disconsolation. I don't like it, I don't want it, it does me no good but I have to work through it, preferably without causing harm to myself and to those who matter most. She who matters most.

I find the reading opaque. I always have because beyond the first sentence, there does not seem to be one single clear and cogent point. What Paul is sharing is undoubtedly insightful and important, but I struggle immensely. So today, even at a low point, I will take off my shoes

and wade into the chaos.

The first sentence which declares the suffering of the present time is nothing compared to what is coming is the offer of hope, of consolation. Paul suffered greatly, even unimaginably, from the physical and mental torture and abuse. Of that there is abundant proof so as I sit here with my big little woes, I feel somewhat chastened but not really relieved. The feeders are empty this morning and the little finches peck vainly for what crumbs remain. I will refill the feeders and renew the hope of my little birds. 

Still, I am reminded that I have been in this place of demoralization countless times in the past, although less frequently since I renewed my devotion to study and prayer, and if I am patient and seek to find bits of gratitude, I will recover. This moment is nothing in the greater plan of God, it is just another moment of suffering that I must give to God so that it might have a purpose and not just be another moment of disruption. 

Verse 22 finds new meaning. All creation, and that includes me, is groaning in labor pains as we are being born into the completion of a full union between the created with the creator. I am not alone. We all suffer the pains and pangs during the wait. To look at someone in deep misery and pain and to think that I am not as bad off as them does not offer me comfort. A comparison of suffering between one person and another is pointless. It minimizes the truth that suffering is suffering and that without purpose for the suffering there is no hope of acceptance of the suffering as being something to strengthen us, give us endurance, and point us toward the hope of the redemption of our bodies. 

As I come to the end of the prayer point, I can't point to a sudden lifting of the weight of my mood or to a sudden awareness of a brilliant beam of thought that chases away the darkness, and I am instantly brought into a state of gladness. It does not work that way even though I have tried over and over again to secure that result. 

What I pray for as consolation in this hour of desolation is that hope will seep back into the dark hole I am dwelling in and motivate me to grasp little bits of gratitude where I can find them and shed this horsehair shirt I put on in my sleep last night. I wonder if forgotten dark dreams set the stage for a play written by the dark one as I woke this morning. Indeed, most assuredly that is the case.

Lord, be with me as I seek your peace even as I wince from the noise of dishes being clattered around in the kitchen. 

Week 2 - Day 3 Friday Genesis 2 1:9

Friday, September 23, 2022

7:58 AM

This is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the LORD God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the ground, but a stream* was welling up out of the earth and watering all the surface of the ground—then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

God formed the man out of dust… 

This reading calls me closer to the Celtic understanding of the origin of humans, we were fashioned out of clay, which is, of course, nothing more than dust moistened enough to be formed. God blew air into the nostrils of the man and man came to life. What happened next? By Celtic tradition, the clay figures danced and became living beings.

As this second creation story continued, God created all living things and brought them to the man to name. This shines a brilliant light of illumination on a particularly important, critical, in fact, the concept of what it means to name something, it makes the first difference between knowing
and unknowing. It is a basic of human emotion and being that we fear what we do not know. We can't accurately predict if something is dangerous or safe, if it is poisonous or nurturing if we don't know what it is. When we gain enough to name something, we begin to know it, to fathom purpose and intent and, finally, the ability to accept, reject, protect or destroy what we have named. The last step is once we name something, we can control it, tame it, use it and have dominion over it.

This is why God refused to allow the first humans to give him a name. He could not allow us to begin the inexorable process of naming, knowing and controlling until his plan for us was fully revealed to us when we heard the WORD spoken by his son. We know enough now to understand we will never fully know God in a way that might give us dominion. It is a relief to lay down the burden of being driven to know, name and have dominion over God, who is and always will be a mystery to us. 

Week 2 - Day 2 Thursday Psalm 104 vs 19

 You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun that knows the hour of its setting.

This is the first day of fall. Yesterday marked the halfway point of the journey of the sun from the longest to the shortest day on Winter Solstice. The day dawns in grayness, a quarter inch of rain has fallen so far today and its cool wetness announces the heat of summer has passed and we can longer expect to see growth in the green and colorful things around us but, rather, a drying preparation for winter. Green will give way to brown and tan but also to the spectacular shades of yellow, orange and red. Walking in the aspens and tamaracks in the hills and down the maple tree-lined streets by the university will give us a palette of colors so intense we are always surprised by what we see. 

Psalm 104 is an extended, beautiful psalm of praise of God for the spectacular world we have been gifted. Verse 19 is just one of 35 but it offers some insight to note on this time of the threshold of summer to winter. Today, like most of the world, we measure our days based on the calendar of the sun. Seasons are marked by the passage of the earth around the sun. Summer solstice and winter solstice are the longest and shortest days and the Equinox mark the halfway points of the movement toward the longest and shortest days.  We celebrate the threshold of an old year from to a new one on a day just after the winter solstice when it is possible to conclusively understand the journey from short to long has begun. 

Jews, however, operate under a different calendar that recognizes both the sun and moon as being integrated into measuring and marking the passage of days from one month to the next, from season to season and from the end of one year to the beginning of the next. The calendar of months, however, is based upon a lunar cycle rather than a solunar 12 months in each year model. Today is September 22, 2022 with the year being arbitrarily assigned to what was thought to be the year of the birth of Jesus. Ironically, they got the calculation wrong so the year should be 2027 or 2028. 

Today, however, the Hebrew calendar is 26 Elul 5782 with a starting point in the year 3761 BC which is the commonly accepted date of the creation of the earth. The Jewish new year, Rosh HaShanah falls on the day of the first new moon following the fall equinox. This year that day begins at sunset on 9/25. 

As I review what I have written so far, there does not seem to be much in the way of scriptural reflection. I went down a factual history rabbit hole. That is going to happen to me from time to time because I can be totally amazed at how different peoples observe the passage of time. The point of all this, however, is to embrace the awareness is we live in a created world that operates according to a schedule God established that relies upon the sun which rules the day and the moon which shines the night. The coming and going of the days are marked by the coming and going of the moon and we can take awe in that measurement even if we operate under a different way of measuring in which we watch the moon but measure by the light day. 

Today, the harvest full moon is behind us and on 9/25 we will have a new moon. November 23 will be the date of the first new moon after the mid-way point between fall and winter which will be the formal date of Samhain, the Celtic New Year. For today, however, all of these facts are interesting but what is important beyond all discussion is being mindful of who created the earth out of chaos and set the stars and moon in motion. What is more important of all is the understanding that I was also created from chaos. We all were and our creation is continuing just as the calendar we use to mark our days continues. Wonder is what feels my soul this morning. No wonder as the word for pondering but wonder as in awe. Wonder-filled, awe-filled is the creation that we are in and that is for us. 

Week 2 - Day 1 Wednesday Psalm 8

For the leader; “upon the gittith." A psalm of David.

LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth! I will sing of your majesty above the heavens with the mouths of babes and infants. You have established a bulwark against your foes, to silence enemy and avenger. When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place— What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, put all things at his feet:  All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!

Today it has been a struggle to focus on prayer. Too many interruptions, too little focus. I settle in to listen to Ceol Sona to help me settle into a prayerful space. I prefer silence but I prefer contemplative music to the sounds of life and people around me. It is not yet warm enough to work outside so here I will sit and gaze out my window to the world space that is mine to inhabit. 

His name is awesome throughout all of the earth. From the expanse of the Burren of Ireland to the top of Mt. McKinley, to the depths of the Grand Canyon, to the vastness of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Not just in those places but also in soaring forests of the rain of the Olympic Peninsula, the sweeping north prairies. His awesomeness reaches from the sky to the tips of the Bitterroot and Pintler mountains down the mountain sides into creeks and into the Big Hole River, from there on to the Jefferson, from there downstream to the Three Forks where the Missouri begins and then to where it joins with the Mississippi to mysteriously and ponderously flows past New Orleans to the Gulf. His awesome is not just in nature but there are also towering skyscrapers in New York, the immensity of Los Angeles,

the charm of Bar Harbor and the deep history of Boston. These are just some of the places where my eyes have seen the awesome. There are more, more than I can imagine any more than I can fathom the expansiveness of space.

I marvel and cherish the memory of all that I have seen, touched, smelled, heard, felt and experienced. More than I deserve but for the tender mercy of a loving creator. There is all of that to be mindful of but what holds my faze and attention this afternoon is just one towering Cottonwood tree out of the many that surround me. As yet there is no color showing but dryness in the rustling of the leaves in the gentle breeze blowing. There leaves more numerous than I could being to imagine, countless branches both living and dead. Earlier squirrels stopped raiding my feeder long enough to chase each through the branches back and forth and up and down leaving huge limbs bouncing and swaying from them landing on them at high speed. 

Meister Eckhart said that if we could genuinely imagine all there was to know about a tree, we do not need God, we would be God because only God can take in everything contained in just one tree. I will appreciate what I can grasp but not contemplate further.  To do so would be to enter into mystery not from a sense of awe and wonder but from an intention to possess what cannot be held in the human mind. We are so gifted to be so loved and given so much. Gratitude seeps in and floods around me. We are nothing but yet are elevated to be in his image. How wonderful. How unknowable. How awesome. 

Week 1 - Day 7 Tuesday Psalm 139 PT. 4 Verses 15

 My bones are not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth.

This passage was not my first choice today. When I took a moment to prepare for the hour of prayer this morning, I was first moved to consider the invitation to probe, to search for errant ways so he could help me re-direct my course. When I sat down now to reflect, I found myself reconsidering what calls to me. This is not a surprise. I tend to overthink everything and this tendency has complicated life and irritated people for decades now.

What bubbled up as the referencing fashioned in the depths of the earth. I previously assumed the depths of the earth really pointed to the mother's womb rather than a literal reference to the earth. I have recently been focused on a study of Celtic Christian Spirituality and the close connection, integration, in fact of humankind into the earth so to be made in secret in the depths of the earth takes on a new dimension. 

The most influential author I have ever encountered is the late poet, author, spiritualist, theologian, native Irish speaker and priest John O'Donohue. The offer of the book "Anam Cara",  meaning soul friend, in 2009 allowed me to immerse myself in a revolutionary way of looking at humanity and the world. I never understood that spirituality existed before humans were created or was present with us at the time of creation. The Holy Spirit did not come along later after the saving mission of Christ. It was there when God created the earth. It was there as revelation come to view. It was there in the stories of Abraham, Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus and then the disciples. 

O'Donohue reminds us we were created out of clay, fashioned from the elements of the earth but our spirits and our bodies came together. Seeing ourselves as creatures of clay allows us to use words like fluency, geography and landscape to view our existence and journey. As figures of clay, we dance to the melody of the spirit. Existence is not mundane or intended to be dull and boring. 

The Psalm allows for all of that flow through the course of our life from what existed before our knowledge, what we know today and what will be revealed as we flow downstream to where we arrive where all three streams meet and become one. 

We were created in secret. No, I was created in secret, as were we all. He knows me, he knows us. With creation, he set us free to merge into all creation without ever losing a sense of who we are. His children. I am his created child dwelling as I am today in his creation. 

Wow. That blows my mind. 

Week 1 - Day 6 - Sunday Psalm 139 11-12

If I say, “Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light” Darkness is not dark for you, and night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one. 

Two days of summer left until fall begins. Comes now the dawn but it is already just after 7:00 AM. The sky is clear, again but the temperature is down to forty-three. It is wet on the deck and grass from the light rain we had last night. The air smells clean. Fall marks the halfway point of the length of the day yielding to the length of the night. My mood today is peaceful, reflective and tinged with gratitude. I see a bright day full of good things coming but sometimes even good things mount up to cause me to feel stress and fatigue. 

At a point in my late thirties, I began to sink into the darkness of depression following the loss of two children and the death of my much-loved father-in-law. I have written pages and pages about the beginning, progression and remission of my depression and how it tore at the corners of my life to where there was little left in the middle to recognize. How it happened and why it happened don't seem to be important questions to answer this morning. Not now as the brightening day paints over the shadows with color. 

Still, verses 11 and 12 strike me despite having read past them multiple times this week. I can testify to the truth of the psalmist's lyrics. I was in the dark and felt compelled to remain in darkness. I went into the darkness alone but I did not stay there because God followed me there and reminded me of his presence through pen points of light that burst past the shuttered and closed windows and doors. Eventually, I sought the comfort of the light, to feel its brightness against my closed eyes and its warmth on my face. Day by day, I opened more windows and then the day came when I stepped out into the light and walked away from the dark cabin of despair. 

I have returned to the cabin from time to time and looked through the doorway into the darkest corners. The security of the darkness attracted and tempted me enough that I stepped through the threshold inside but I never moved out of the sunlight into the beckoning shadows. I know there will be times in the future when I will find myself standing at the door of the cabin looking in. I pray to remember that there is nowhere to hide inside.  God will follow me inside.

As I pray further, I embrace the understanding I was never alone in the darkness. God was already there. He was with me at all times waiting for me to respond to his love and to find purpose and joy in living by his plan. 

I might never think I have learned and come to understand all, but I cannot achieve that end. None of us can. God is in the darkness and in the light. All that matters is to remember we are his no matter where we go. The companion meditation on Isaiah 47 1 rises to be my closing prayer. I do not choose fear today, I have been redeemed, he has called me by name and I am his. Amen

Week 1 - Day 5 - Sunday - Psalm 139 pt. 2

You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know.

I praise you because I am wonderfully made…

Really? Can that be true or is that something that does not relate to me? The psalmist is wonderfully made, or so he says, but maybe I should not be too quick to assume I can share in the claim. Except there is this. In the first creation story of Genesis, God, at the end of each of the first five days looked at his work for the day and proclaimed, "it was good." On the sixth day after he created humanity, he said, "It was VERY good." Not just good but very good. His work that day was even better than what he had accomplished before, at least from his perspective.  

Why? I can't say I have ever read anything from more accomplished theologians to answer the question, perhaps because there is no real question there. Still, I want to be able to look in the creation narrative for the sixth day where we find, in verse 27: 

God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

If God made us in his own image, then logic states we must be made to be wonderful. He is, after all, beyond all description so if he made us, he made us wonderfully. I find assurance I can share in the prayer of the psalmist be he a king or a lowly shepherd that we are wonderfully made. 

Another thought, Jesus prayed the Psalms during the course of human life and now we pray the psalms with him in the liturgy of the hours or whenever we pray the Psalms. He could say nothing else because he was wonderfully made and so we can share in the same wonder. 

So there is my rationale for being to believe I am wonderfully made, as are we all. Whether I believe it or can genuinely live it is another. I fear that taking the notion seriously might cause havoc since ego is a grave issue for me. I pretend one thing and act that one thing but in my inner being, I am not wonderful. I have done all less than stellar things not just in the past but maybe today. While we may be wonderfully made, what we make of our gift is another. 

I am turning away from this prayer to take up another, a new psalm of my own. I praise the creation around me, the birds, trees, grass, the fish in the nearby water but most of all, the wonder of the people who pass by to walk along the river with dogs, each other, or even by themselves. We are wonderfully made because we were made to be part of something bigger than us which is wonderful. God, help me to live in wonder today.