Doomscrolling or hopequesting

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You’re not doomscrolling, you’re hopequesting. You need those tiny pieces of joy from seeing friends and strangers share their art, their good news, their wacky, unique selves. We need light to live. And we find it in each other.”

          Aaron Corwin

 

We thank You, our Creator, for all things bright and good:

The seedtime and the harvest, our life, our health, our food.

Accept the gifts we offer for all Your love imparts;

Accept what You most welcome: our humble, thankful hearts!

All good gifts around us are sent from heav’n above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all His love.

          Matthias Claudius

 

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It all depends on what you look for.

True

There is a lot out there that is dark and evil

There are liars in high places

And people who worship money rather than God

 

But we still live on a planet that was God’s first act of incarnation

We still get to see what God is like in Jesus

We still get to experience God all the time

God is around us, with us, and in us.

 

We carry the Sacred

It is woven into our being

We are Sacred children

 

 God is waiting to be found everywhere,

In the darkest corners of our lives,

In the thoughts that wake us in the night

In the brilliant final blast of a sunset

In a random act of kindness

In that rare Facebook post that celebrates kindness

 

 

We find what we seek.

If we look for evil, we find it every time

If we look for what is good, it comes sneaking out of the mundane

 

In the simplest, lightest moments

in the little graces along the way.

 

God is there, he's waiting

in quite obvious and visible places,

wanting to be found

 

When we look for evil, we descend into the house of fear

And live amidst fear and hate

In a place of violence

 

When we look for good, we ascend into

That place where love dwells

And we are permeated with love

 

Transformed

Part of the ongoing incarnation

Of Sacred

 

Then, what we see,

What we think,

Will bear the fruit of gratitude

And hope

 

And seeing the world differently

Through the eyes of grace

We begin, at last

To reflect the divine image

In how we live and breathe and have our being

 

So the question remains.

What do we choose to look for

This day?

 

 

A Macabre Intimacy

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As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.

― Henri J.M. Nouwen

 

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We are often woven together

in macabre intimacy

which drives us into a rigid world

of judgment

and condemnation

 

A world of “us” and “them,”

“win” or “lose,”

“right” or “wrong.”

 

O Sacred one,

you showed us how to live

what it means to be truly human,

how to reflect your image

through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

 

Jesus was not defined by what he had (not much)

the labels he carried (Rabbi)

his ethnicity or race

not even his gender

 

Jesus was defined by the way he loved

And by love alone

 

He did not worry about what people thought about him.

He merely lived out his calling to be

Light, Salt,

God with us

 

Jesus was not blind to the ills of the world

or the weaknesses of others

But he saw more

much more

 

When he looked at people,

he saw not only the failure, but the promise

not only the darkness but the light

not only the human container

(which is why adjectives were not important to him)

 

but also the sacred seed

 

He saw children of God

All beloved

It was not his goal to be “right” while they were wrong.

He simply wanted to be present,

and by his loving presence

transform and heal

and create newness

 

O God

Forgive us for our need to be right

Forgive us for those times when we get hung up on he adjectives

Black, white, male, female, conservative, liberal, American, Iranian

 

Help us to see the Sacred in others

So that the Spirit in us can greet the Spirit in them

Namaste

Shalom

Yo

Saol

 

Do not let us use the wrong things to define ourselves or others

Help us to be present

To be open

To honor and respect

To welcome

To be kind

 

And be

a reflection of your love

 

Giving up is not all bad

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For Lent this year, I’m just giving up.

          Source Unknown

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Lent is a slow walk with Jesus

Down dusty roads

Through small villages

 

Gathering around tables

Puzzling over parables

Challenged by terrifying teachings

And totally crazy parables that we barely understand

 

Watching the inexplicable

As the lame walk and the blind see

 

Where up is down and out is in

And dead

Is not

 

Stumbling toward Jerusalem

And ground-zero

Where violence, reconciliation

Despair, hope, oppression, and freedom

 

Will come together in a malign

Alchemy

And we will find ourselves on barren ground

At the foot of a cross

 

In these lengthening days

We are called to reflect

Confess, repent, and lament

 

To set aside distractions

And prepare our hearts for holy work.

 

But there are wars and rumors of wars

There are missiles flying and

Children dying

Leaders lying

 

We hear psychopaths invoking Armageddon,

And see Immigrants beaten

Abusers shielded from accountability

Innocence destroyed

Justice denied

 

And we are distracted.

Our best intentions crumble as we doomscroll

And sink further and further into the darkness

 

Losing sight of Jesus as his reality fades

Watching the light disappear into the dark

No longer reflective but anxious

Stuck in lament

 

Unable to take one more step

Toward the garden

Muttering under our breath

 

I give up

 

Which may be the point of Lent

Reaching that place where we sit

And wait

Open and vulnerable

Scared perhaps

 

Until, amazingly

We discover that the darkness cannot

Overcome the light

 

When we once again find ourselves walking

with the One who shows up in those places of

greatest failure and greatest need

 

And says, “Do you love me?

That is all I ask, that you love me.

 

Because I love you and will never abandon you

And implores us

Feed my sheep

 

I am here for you, be there

For others

 

Because that is what this is all about

When we get to the end of the journey, what will matter

 

Is that we have allowed ourselves to be loved

And that we have passed that love along

 

Being love

Loving

 

Everything

Depends on this

Everything

 

Here before we know it

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People sometimes ask me when I became a Christian, and that’s a hard question to answer because I am pretty sure that by the time I asked Jesus into my heart, he’d already been living there for a while.

          Rachel Held Evans

 

“If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you

          John 14:15-17

 

Jesus asks, "Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?".

          Luke 6:46

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Hey God

Are you out there?

Somewhere?  Anywhere?

Do you sit in heaven (if there is such a place)

And watch with horror as we make a mess of things?

 

And what are you like, anyway?

Are you aloof and on a throne

Ready to judge the quick and the dead?

 

Every Sunday we pray

Come, O Creator God, and be with us

Come to this special place we have made for you

Beautiful with its stained glass and its peaceful elegance

 

Hey Yahweh

Hey Jesus…

 

Perhaps we have missed the point

What is in a name?

Everything.

 

You gave us a name

I am

Or rather, Whatever I am I will be

 

Yes, you are

You incarnated

You expressed yourself and told us who (and what) you are

 

You are

In the mountains we love, the air we breathe

In the rippling roaring springs

In the cry of the eagle

In every living creature

Even us

 

You gave us a name

And you gave us a person

Jesus

 

And in that name, you told us everything

You said, “I save.”

I rescue, redeem, recreate

 

You are the one who comes into the midst of

The world you have made and

The mess we have made

 

You come while leaders lie and steal

When power is abused

And innocents are killed

And the planet is assaulted in the name of greed

 

You gave us one we call Emmanuel

God with us

One who taught us who you are

You are love

 

But wait, there’s more.

You have told us, promised us

That you are also in us

 

You are pneuma hagion

You are holy, sacred wind

 

It has been said that one cannot catch the wind

But this wind is in us

Restless and powerful

Unsettling

 

It roars through our souls

And it too

Is you

 

You live in us, O Creator

You live in us, O savior

You make ourselves at home in our

Vulnerability

 

And you have one desire.

That we let the wind be wind

That we let your moving, rushing, roaring presence

Make us

Another incarnation

 

But Lord, we stifle the Spirit

We quench your holy fire

We check and constrain the wind

 

We say Lord, Lord

And then live for power or money

We say God is love

And then hate

 

We proudly say your name

We claim your presence and favor

But we deny your presence

 

No one would know you are in residence

By the way we talk, think,

And live

 

Don’t give up on us, Lord

Your very name suggests you won’t

But in your name, missiles rain down on children

Killing and maiming

 

In your name lies are spoken

Laws are broken

Injustice is perpetrated

 

In the actions of Presidents,

And Secretaries of War, and Majority leaders

Your presence is denied

Your name violated

 

Me too

Us too

We, too, sometimes fail to do what you say

 

But still, you stay

You are

You are in us to save

You are in us to heal and empower

 

Lord, when we are in the midst of strife and division

When everything seems to be disintegrating

Lord, when we feel so alone

And cry out for your presence

 

Remind us that you are already here.

 

In Silent Agony

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Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world

          Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel

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The world screams

The not-so-silent cry of a plundered planet

The wild rants of the rich and powerful

Shrouding silent screams of loneliness and fear

The soft sobbing of the abused, cowering

The whispered fear of children, wondering if today a shooter will come

The anguished pleas of the immigrant being kidnapped by ICE

The revelations of sexually abused young women, heard but not believed

The desperate and angry words of the person caught in poverty and injustice

 

We hear them

The suffering ones

But we do not hear the silent agony of the soul

That deep rending pain

That can only be hinted at

Dropped into the world half-formed 

 

Sometimes we are left speechless

We watch as evil people lie and manipulate

Belittle and bully

We hear fear disguised as patriotism

and prejudice portrayed as justice

We are overwhelmed by the hunger, the empty eyes,

Stunned by the bodies filling the doorways, sidewalks and underpasses

Because there is no room in the inn

 

But we cannot be silent

We must speak with

We must speak for

 

We must join our voices with others

And we must be the voice when all others are silent

We must respond to the silent agony

 

Hearing the words in the silence

Hearing the pain hidden in the hate-filled rants

The loneliness caught in the throat

The hopelessness unuttered

 

We must be a voice

Saying “This stops here”

“That is not the truth”

“There is hope”

“You are forgiven”

“You are loved”

 

Prophets all

We are called to proclaim God

To proclaim love

We are called to speak truth

 

And we are called to change the world

To claim and reclaim

To restore and transform

 

The arc of history may bend toward justice

Toward equity

Toward love

 

But only if we help bend it

You can't go back

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All freedom journeys require an open mind—a mind that is not conditioned by past knowledge and experience, but open to possibility. Questioning opens the doors of our imagination, enabling us to consider alternatives to the status quo. Unless one is capable of imagining another possible reality, one cannot free oneself from bondage.…

 

The compulsion to repeat the past is apparent in the biblical myth of the Exodus. When Moses led the Israelites to freedom, they often yearned to return to Egypt. Though they were miraculously provided for throughout their forty years of wandering in the desert, the Israelites were often nostalgic for the “good old (bad) days” in Egypt:.. “ They missed the predictability and sense of control they felt in Egypt—where everything was known. Though in actuality they were oppressed and enslaved by the Egyptians, the Israelites looked back on their time in Egypt with nostalgia because they could not bear the uncertainty they faced as a free people.

          Estelle Frankel

 

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

          Paul

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We seem to love the prisons we have created for ourselves

Even the tombs we have dug ourselves.

 

We prefer confinement to freedom

Safety to possibility

 

We do not trust the One who sets us free

But instead turn again and again to what enslaves us

The God (s) of our own making

 

Our God (s) are “that about which we are ultimately concerned” (Tillich)

We need only look at the systems we created

Economic, social, and political

To understand which ruler we have chosen.

 

The center of our worship is no longer the church or cathedral

We bow down in front of the corporate monument

We prostrate ourselves before gilded palaces and magnificent ballrooms

And whose image glares down at us

From the façade?

 

We may believe in God

But what gods shape our lives and determine our priorities

 

We are called by One who would set us free

Into uncertainty

We are called to let go of so much

The myth of exceptionalism

 

Or belief that progress is inevitable

The delusion that we can have it all

 

An ever-expanding economy

Universal prosperity

Healthy bodies

A healthy planet

 

We are called forward by a God who wants to lead us

To a new heaven and a new earth

 

But we are slaves

That is who we are

Slaves to an illusory past (that never really existed)

Slaves to the way of domination

Where might makes right a peace comes through coercion

 

Slaves to a belief that life is all about

Winners and losers

And that the one who dies with the most cryptocurrency

Wins

 

Our slavery is revealed

In the abuse of immigrants

The destruction of the planet

The worship of America, the global bully, yay!

The avoidance of uncomfortable truths  

The retreats (thanks, Team USA) into misogyny

The acceptance of the unacceptable, our protection of abusers

 

The wilderness is scary

Leaving slavery is harder than we believed

 

But somewhere out there

In a future we can’t understand

Somewhere out there

Amidst the rocks and thorns

And an infinite horizon

 

There are streams of living water

and the freedom

to live as children of God

to be loved

and to love