Lenten Reflection Day 43 (April 5): JUSTICE (Isaiah 42:1-9).
SONG: IJM Ghana: Spirit Song: https://youtu.be/civgUOommC8
POEM: Rudyard Kipling: Justice (excerpt): Before we loose the word / That bids new worlds to birth, Needs must we loosen first the sword / Of Justice upon earth; Or else all else is vain / Since life on earth began, And the spent world sinks back again / Hopeless of God and Man.
QUOTE: Elie Wiesel: There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Lenten Reflection Day 42 (April 4): SPIRIT (Isaiah 42:1-9).
SONG: Beyonce from Disney’s Lion King: Spirit Song: https://youtu.be/civgUOommC8
POEM: Wendell Berry: A Spiritual Journey: And the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home.
QUOTE: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre: I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal — as we are!
Lenten Reflection Day 41 (April 3): UPHOLD (Isaiah 42:1-9).
ONG: The Wynans: Uphold Me: https://youtu.be/xkHfGzAcD6E
POEM: Rebecca Hazelton: Vow (excerpt): … When they looked at their options / it seemed there weren’t really that many / after all. They swore to uphold the bonds / and the principles …
QUOTE: Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl: People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things. You don’t necessarily even have to be afraid of punishment after death; purgatory, hell, and heaven are things that a lot of people can’t accept, but still a religion, it doesn’t matter which, keeps a person on the right path. It isn’t the fear of God but the upholding of one’s own honor and conscience. How noble and good everyone could be if, every evening before falling asleep, they were to recall to their minds the events of the while day and consider exactly what has been good and bad. Then, without realizing it you try to improve yourself at the start of each new day; of course, you achieve quite a lot in the course of time. Anyone can do this, it costs nothing and is certainly very helpful. Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that: “A quiet conscience makes one strong!”
Lenten Reflection Day 40 (April 2): CHOSEN (Isaiah 42:1-9).
SONG: Rytikal: Chosen: https://youtu.be/thNWIM5Oe6w
POEM: Uche Nduka: Untitled [When Shall Your Wounds] (excerpt): … daily your kingdom squeaks / and leaps to the starlight / it wants all of you / you of all and the music … you are the one the music / has chosen and whom strings call / twilight moans behind you / all you are you are all
QUOTE: Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Lenten Reflection Day 39 (April 1): DELIVERANCE (Psalm 40:5-10).
SONG: Eric Weissberg & Steve Mandell: Dueling Banjos (Deliverance 1972): https://youtu.be/p8t8uqEf6_A
POEM: Linda Hogan: The History of Red (excerpt): … A wildness / swam inside our mothers, desire through closed eyes, a new child / wearing the red, wet mask of birth, delivered into this land / already wounded, stolen and burned / beyond reckoning.
QUOTE: JRR Tolkien: Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat…giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.