To borrow a movie quote, “Holmes, you must widen your gaze.” (Sherlock Holmes, © 2009 Warner Bros. Ent. All) “Widen your gaze” is good advice for our culture right now so that we might see and experience one another as something other than a political, sexual, or religious identifier. For me, that means reviewing Red Letter Christians, Patheos, and other websites of those that label themselves “evangelical” who continue to redefine what “evangelical” means in the 21st century. That also means checking out the Baptist News Global at least once a week.
I am not evangelical, but like being liberal (progressive for those fearful of that other word), I don’t think either need be a derogative term. There is a richness in both adjectives that has been lost as we have figuratively and literally retreated to our gated communities in the online matrix and in the breathing matrix. When you die in the matrix you do die in real life. I found this article thanks to other liberals that I follow who pointed the way. Widen your gaze. A paragraph and a link.
We all are Omar Mateen
Miguel De La Torre | Baptist News Global | June 14, 2016
Reading our newspapers, watching our politicians and listening to our ministers we find evidence that proves we are more comfortable with a culture of hatred, a culture rooted in the survival of the fittest. Let those of us who claim to be disciples of agape stop talking about our current predicament, and instead commit to praxis that can bring us closer to a different reality.
Click here to read the entire article.
I create a devotion each week that I send to colleagues and peers. Create may not be the best word because much of the time I am borrowing from sources rather than writing my own words. I decided to publish the devotion on my blog each week from now until the end of the year. The devotion, like my meditation, has three movements: centering, ponder, and remember.
Centering
As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise God, my help and my God. My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me. By day the Lord commands steadfast love, and at night the Lord’s song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?” Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise the Lord, my help and my God.
(Psalm 42, NRSV)
Ponder
On knowing it can be done
Can you imagine how difficult the crossword puzzle would be if any given answer might be, “there is no such word”?
The reason puzzles work at all is that we know we should keep working on them until we figure them out. Giving up is not a valid strategy, because none-of-the-above is not a valid answer.
The same thing happened with the 4 minute mile. It was impossible, until it was done. Once Bannister ran his mile, the floodgates opened.
Knowing it was possible was the hard part.
And that’s how software leaps forward as well. Almost no one seriously attempts something, until someone figures out that with a lot of work, it can be done. Then the shortcuts begin to appear, and suddenly, it’s easy.
What’s possible?
As soon as we stop denying the possible, we’re able to focus our effort on making it happen.
Remember
May their memory be a blessing.
Exalted and hallowed be God’s great name
in the world which God created, according to plan.
May God’s majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime
and the life of all Israel, and all who dwell on earth — speedily, imminently,
Blessed be God’s great name to all eternity.
Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded
be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel, and all who dwell on earth.
May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us, and to all Israel, and all who dwell on earth.
To which we all say, Amen.
(I first offered this adaption of the Kaddish Prayer from Reformed Judaism [http://www.reformjudaism.org/practice/prayers-blessings/mourners-kaddish] at the memorial service of a friend and colleague. To not harm the intent of the prayer, I worked with a Reformed Judaism Rabbi prior to adding “all who dwell on earth.”)