Lent: Day 6

Did I mention that Cap is only forwarding 4 reading a week? Kind of a Lent Lite? Just in case you thought I was lazy.

Today's reading:

Genesis 9:8-17

 ⁸ Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: ⁹ “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you ¹⁰ and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. ¹¹ I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

 ¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

 ¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” 

When I went to summer camp, we learned a song sung to the tune of the theme song from "The Friendly Giant" with the words, When you see a rainbow, you know that God is love. 

I like that in the Bible, there is one concrete proof of Love mentioned and that it's one that is still useful today, in that tangible, "Yep I can see that" kind of way.  Right this second, I can't think of one other item we can use directly today as they did back when all this stuff was written. 

God is Love. God promised not to destroy all life. No matter what we did, from that day on, Destruction Of All By Flood was off the list.  At least there's that. 

To be honest, I feel a bit destroyed to night. But not all the way destroyed. This flood won't be my end. And God is Love.  That's the promise and I can think of a half-dozen days in the last 6 months that a rainbow has shown up and reminded me that the promise stands. I could use a rainbow tonight, or maybe just some clarity about how God being love could possibly make a difference - it's hard to see somedays, you know?

Oh boy. Nothing good here tonight.  Stupid Lent.

Lent: Day 2

Tonight I cheat.  CapChurch allowed me to write one of the responses and it was today's. It remains my prayer tonight, so I'll repost and trust that a prayer prayed twice is twice as heard.

Psalm 51

    For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.  ¹ Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.
² Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.
 ³ For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.
⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.
⁵ Surely I was sinful at birth,
   sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
⁶ Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
   you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
 ⁷ Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins
   and blot out all my iniquity.
 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
 ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   so that sinners will turn back to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
   you who are God my Savior,
   and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
¹⁵ Open my lips, Lord,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.

Reflection

But Lord, what about when I don't feel like I'm all that bad? When all I can see are the ones who are So Much Worse and the ones who are Doing Me Wrong? What if my darkest sin is that I don't truly believe myself sinful at all? What if I somehow forget that my broken - the broken that I find kind of innocuous, and frankly, a bit funny and cute - what if I forget that my broken is actually Really Broken and actually needs Real Forgiveness?  Actually needs Real Repentence?

Show me the truth.  The Whole Truth.  When all I see are how others fail, bring my eyes back to my own cracked heart. When all I hear are words that hurt and offend me, bring my ears back to my own sharp tongue.  When all I feel are others' arrows in my heart, remind me of the quiver of anger I carry on my own back and maybe help me put it down.

And then, maybe then can you remind me that all this broken yuck is the part that you came for? is the part that you redeem and turn into goodness? Can you remind me that indeed remembering my own deep cracks is the beginning of remembering your own deep love?  Please?

Lent: Ash Wednesday

CapChurch is offering a series of emails with Lenten readings and writings.  Part of my Lenten practice will be to make space to reflect on those and hear The Word Of The Lord. Join and add as you will, please.

Today's reading comes from Isaiah 58:1-12.

 

¹ “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
   Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
   and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
² For day after day they seek me out;
   they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
   and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
   and seem eager for God to come near them.
³ ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
   ‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
   and you have not noticed?’

   “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
   and exploit all your workers.
⁴ Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
   and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
   and expect your voice to be heard on high.
⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
   only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
   and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
   a day acceptable to the LORD?
 ⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
   and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
   and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
   and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
   and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
   and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
   you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
   “If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
   with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
   and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
   he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
   and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
   like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
   and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
   Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. 

On this first day of Lent, much conversation is had about what is to be given up. A few will add something instead.  All who notice Lent will at some point try to do something differently so that the waiting, the dread of the walk to the cross, the anticipation of the promise of New Life, so that all of that won't go un-noticed.

In Isaiah, God rails against crappy fasts, and I think so many of my fasts have been crappy, ending as is described here, in strife and quarreling and stiking others with my wicked fists.

This year as I try to think of a way to make space (again) for the Risen One to rise up in me, I yearn for a fast that looses the chains of injustice, that feeds the hungry and gives shelter, that does not turn away from my own flesh and blood. And so I think this will be my fast: a fast from deciding who deserves what I have to give. A fast from being the Knower of What Should Be Known. A fast from doing as I please.

I will give up some time in each of these 40 days to hear who needs what I have to give from the Knower of All That Is Known and to hear also what pleases him.

May it be so. Amen.

 

Love Keeps No Record

What a dumb standard.  Honestly. Was that Paul? What an asshole.

I love a lot of people and a lot of people I love do a lot of wrong and I would really relish the opportunity to tell them about it. A lot.  I am an excellent record keeper and it seems wrong that God would make me this way if God didn't want someone to keep track of all the wrong shit people do.  Particularly the wrong shit people do to me!

Now my beloved will tell you that despite Paul's suggestion, my love for my husband does include a record of his wrongs.  What he doesn't realize is how many wrongs I don't keep a record of, just letting them slide away all easy-like. 

This month that husband's mom is dying.  More dying than she was before, but probably a tiny bit less dying than she will be in a few weeks. But for sure, pretty dying.  And so all of us who love her are trying to love her now in ways that matter, which mostly looks like lingery visits in her hospital room and whatever version of empathy or sympathy we know.

Everyone is doing their best.  But since everyone is a novice at the whole Mom Is Dying gig, everyone is doing it wrong.

Now you may be wondering, how do I know they're doing it wrong?  Because (of course), they're not doing it like me. Obviously that's ludicrous - they can't all do it like me, because they have to do it like their own selves. But they should be doing it the way I think their own selves should be doing it. Because that would make me feel better. 

Were I a lesser person, there would be the possibility that I was doing it wrong and that my plans for how other people could avoid doing it wrong were in fact, also wrong.  But I am so not wrong that I actually make space for this and keep telling people how I may be wrong.  They seem to think I mean it though and take that as permission to carry on doing it their own way.

Their own Wrong Way.

Now in seriousness, there are some pretty big Wrong Things that have happened over the last several weeks, even one or two by me. But in the face of death, I find myself with a tiny bit more humility (hard though that may be to believe), and therefore a tiny bit more willing to stop keeping a record. But it's just so hard, you know? Really, really hard to not want to tuck away sticky notes so that later on I can say, "But then you did THIS wrong thing and it made THIS bad thing happen and YOU are responsible for EVERY bad thing that followed!!" 

But love doesn't do that.  Love says to let it all slide away.  To only tuck away people's best parts, to only remind them of the right and good and pure and true things they did and said, and in fact, to only remember those parts.

This is the part where Jesus has to show up and do a miracle because honest to Pete (never Paul, always Pete), this part sucks.