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 28 (Mar 21): FEAR (Psalm 23).
SONG: Fear Is a Liar by Zach Williams
POEM: Evelyn Scott: Fear (excerpt): My soul leaps up at a sound. What is the question that I cannot answer, that must be answered?
QUOTE: Rudyard Kipling: Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears.
Reflections on water, wellsprings, and milestones such as upcoming graduation
In a season of drought, let’s focus on water stewarsdhip and appreciation. Let’s also consider its spiritual resonances, and take time to savor upcoming milestones such as graduations.
Songs about water:
- Something in the Water by Carrie Underwood (country/Christian)
- Hold Back the River by James Bay (pop ballad)
- Black Water by the Doobie Brothers (country)
- Water by Brad Paisley (country)
- Have You Ever Seen the Rain? by Creedance Clearwater Revival
- Dirty Water by the Standells (rock)
- Holy Water by We the Kingdom with Tasha Cobbs Leonard (Christian)
- Up On Cripple Creek by the Band (country/rock)
- Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel (folk rock)
- New World Water by Mos Def (eco-rap) **advisory: EXPLICIT lyrics/cursing**
- Come to the River by Housefires (Christian)
- Drink the Water by Jack Johnson (rock)
- Cold Water by Major Lazer (pop)
- I Am a River by Foo Fighters (rock)
- Yes, the River Knows by the Doors (rock)
Water — Wendell Berry
I was born in a drought year.
That summer my mother waited in the house,
enclosed in the sun and the dry ceaseless wind,
for the men to come back in the evenings,
bringing water from a distant spring.
Weins of leaves ran dry, roots shrank.
And all my life I have dreaded
the return of that year,
sure that it still is somewhere,
like a dead enemy’s soul.
Fear of dust in my mouth is always with me,
and I am the faithful husband of the rain,
I love the water of wells and springs
and the taste of roofs in the water of cisterns.
I am a dry man whose thirst is praise of clouds,
and whose mind is something of a cup.
My sweetness is to wake in the night
after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.
Blessing of the Well
— Jan Richardson
If you stand at the edge of this blessing
and call down into it,
you will hear your words return to you.
If you lean in and listen close,
you will hear this blessing
give the story of your life back to you.
Quiet your voice, quiet your judgment, quiet the way
you always tell your story to yourself.
Quiet all these and you will hear
the whole of it and the hollows of it:
the spaces in the telling,
the gaps where you hesitate to go.
Sit at the rim of this blessing.
Press your ear to its lip, its sides, its curves
that were carved out long ago
by those whose thirst drove them deep,
those who dug into the layers
with only their hands and hope.
Rest yourself beside this blessing
and you will begin to hear
the sound of water entering the gaps.
Still yourself and you will feel it
rising up within you, filling every hollow,
springing forth anew.
Life’s Milestones & Passages: Quotes
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. —Sun Tzu
That clock you hear is the sound of your own heart. Sink your teeth into this life, and don’t get let go. —Lin-Manuel Miranda
Remember this: You are awesome. I’m not suggesting you be boastful. No one likes that in men or women. But I am suggesting that believing in yourself is the first necessary step to coming even close to achieving your potential. —Sheryl Sandberg
It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up. —Babe Ruth
If I must give any of you advice it would be say yes. Say yes, and create your own destiny. — Maya Rudolph
The best remedy for those who are frightened, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be alone with the sky, nature, and God. For only then can you feel that everything is as it should be and that God wants people to be happy amid nature’s beauty and simplicity. —Anne Frank
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. —Michael Jordan
You can’t do it alone. Be open to collaboration. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you. Spend a lot of time with them and it will change your life. — Amy Poehler
Now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. —Neil Gaiman
Change takes courage. —Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Woman at the Well: Buddhist and Christian Stories (excerpts from reflection by Jyoti Sahi, Indian-Christian artist)
… I find myself often returning to … the story of Jesus conversing with a Samaritan woman at the well. I feel that this dialogue between a Jewish Rabbi and a woman who was considered by orthodox Jews as an outcaste, is similar to the dialogue between Ananda, one of the main disciples of the Buddha, and a Dalit woman who he asked to give him some water to drink. Finally the issue was concerning the line between purity and pollution, between water which should be for all, and which is essential for life on this planet earth, and the ritual distinctions which are made between individuals and communities. … The story is in that sense not only about the relation of Jesus or Ananda, with a particular woman, but about the basis for dialogue itself. I have felt that the story could be the beginning of a dialogue between the Christian tradition, and the essence of Indian spirituality. It is about a meeting which takes place beyond boundaries. … The same theme is also represented by a Buddhist monk artist in Sri Lanka who is … actually depicting not the Buddhist story, but his understanding, as a Buddhist, of the story of Jesus with the woman at the well. What struck me about this picture was that the woman is not alone, and it is not just a dialogue between the Guru and the disciple, but the woman is part of a whole community. In the Biblical story, the woman who comes to the well is alone with him, and it is only later that the disciples find Jesus talking to a woman, and that too a Samaritan, and feel shocked. And then it is later that this woman goes and tells her other Samaritan villagers about Jesus, and wonders if he is in fact a Prophet. In my own paintings on this theme, I suggested that the Woman was not only the human person, but was the water itself. Jesus in this dialogue is addressing, like Francis who talked to the birds, the whole of Creation.
Rain (c) 2016 — Gail Doktor
Around me the earth
My little garden plot
My sweet spot of earth
The piece I own for now
Where seeds and hopes
Are sown
Oh, and everywhere else
The fields where our children play
The rivers in which we fish
The lakes in which we paddle and boat
The fresh wells on which we draw
Have been thirsty
And slow to refill
Parched
Deep and empty
Dry and dehydrated
Tapped out
Below any level of refreshing
And so
Unable to give back
When we turn the tap
Drop the bucket
Open the flow
Oh, we ask
For lots
Or a little more
Or just the essential quotient
That assures survival
Of green seedlings
And desperate beings
Seeking life
We hear a guarded maybe
A firm no
A resigned shrug
There isn’t anything to offer
When you ask
Until today
When water falls
Like an answer
Late in coming
Just enough to assure us
Some One is listening
Or there’s yet balance in creation
Sufficient to let loose
What we need
What our environment craves
What our homes require
What life itself must have
Or nothing else matters
As essential as breath: Water
In Praise of Water
— John O’Donohue
Let us bless the grace of water:
The imagination of the primeval ocean
Where the first forms of life stirred
And emerged to dress the vacant earth
With warm quilts of color.
The well whose liquid root worked
Through the long night of clay,
Trusting ahead of itself openings
That would yet yield to its yearning
Until at last it arises in the desire of light
To discover the pure quiver of itself
Flowing crystal clear and free
Through delighted emptiness.
The courage of a river to continue belief
In the slow fall of ground,
Always falling farther
Toward the unseen ocean.
The river does what words would love,
Keeping its appearance
By insisting on disappearance;
Its only life surrendered
To the event of pilgrimage,
Carrying the origin to the end,
Seldom pushing or straining,
Keeping itself to itself
Everywhere all along its flow,
All at one with its sinuous mind,
An utter rhythm, never awkward,
It continues to swirl
Through all unlikeness, With elegance:
A ceaseless traverse of presence
Soothing on each side
The stilled fields, Sounding out its journey,
Raising up a buried music
Where the silence of time
Becomes almost audible.
Tides stirred by the eros of the moon
Draw from that permanent restlessness
Perfect waves that languidly rise
And pleat in gradual forms of aquamarine
To offer every last tear of delight
At the altar of stillness inland.
And the rain in the night, driven
By the loneliness of the wind
To perforate the darkness,
As though some air pocket might open
To release the perfume of the lost day
And salvage some memory
From its forsaken turbulence
And drop its weight of longing
Into the earth, and anchor.
Let us bless the humility of water,
Always willing to take the shape
Of whatever otherness holds it,
The buoyancy of water
Stronger than the deadening,
Downward drag of gravity,
The innocence of water,
Flowing forth, without thought
Of what awaits it,
The refreshment of water,
Dissolving the crystals of thirst.
Water: voice of grief,
Cry of love, In the flowing tear.
Water: vehicle and idiom
Of all the inner voyaging
That keeps us alive.
Blessed be water,
Our first mother.
Like The Water — Wendell Berry
Like the water of a deep stream,
love is always too much.
We did not make it.
Though we drink till we burst,
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore to drink our fill,
and sleep, while it flows
through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning to its rich waters
thirsty.
We enter, willing to die,
into the commonwealth of its joy.
PASSAGES REVISITED: Graduation Thoughts
Commencement Address (1982) excerpts to women of Wellesley College — Maya Angelou
… Since you have worked this hard, since you have also been greatly blessed, since you are here, you have developed a marvelous level of courage, and the question then which you must ask yourself , I think, is will you really do the job which is to be done: Make this country more than it is today, more than what James Baldwin called “these yet to be United States”…
…It takes a phenomenal amount of courage. For around this world, your world, my world, there are conflicts, brutalities, humiliations, terrors, murders, around this world. You can almost take any Rand McNally map and close your eyes and just point, and you will find there are injustices, but in your country, particularly in your country, young women, you have, as the old folks say, your work cut out for you. For fascism is on the rise, and be assured of it, sexism, racism, ageism, every vulgarity against the human spirit is on the rise. And this is what you have inherited.
It is upon you to increase your virtue, the virtue of courage—it is upon you. You will be challenged mightily, and you will fall many times.
It is upon you to increase your virtue, the virtue of courage—it is upon you. You will be challenged mightily, and you will fall many times. But it is important to remember that it may be necessary to encounter defeat, I don’t know. But I do know that a diamond, one of the most precious elements in this planet, certainly one in many ways the hardest, is the result of extreme pressure, and time. Under less pressure, it’s crystal. Less pressure than that, its coal, less than that, its fossilized leaves are just plain dirt.
You must encounter, confront life. Life loves the liver of it, ladies. It is for you to increase your virtues. There is that in the human spirit which will not be gunned down even by death. There is no person here who is over one year old who hasn’t slept with fear, or pain or loss or grief, or terror, and yet we have all arisen, have made whatever absolutions we were able to, or chose to, dressed, and said to other human beings, “Good morning. How are you? Fine, thanks.”
Therein lies our chance toward nobleness—not nobility—but nobleness, the best of a human being is in that ability to overcome.
If — Rudyard Kipling (written to his son)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Reflections on trying things a new & different way plus thoughts on fishing: themes from John 21.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. – Soren Kierkegaard
Ironically … it is by the means of seemingly perfunctory daily rituals and routines that we enhance the personal relationships that nourish and sustain us. ― Kathleen Norris
Solving problems means listening. – Richard Branson
One thing becomes clearer as one gets older and one’s fishing experience increases, and that is the paramount importance of one’s fishing companions. — John Ashley Cooper
We don’t know who we are until we see what can we do. – Martha Grimes
Whatever you can do,
or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it.
— W. H. Murray
A Thirsty Fish (excerpt) — Rumi
I don’t get tired of you. Don’t grow weary
of being compassionate toward me!
All this thirst equipment
must surely be tired of me, the water jar, the water carrier.
I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough of what it’s thirsty for!
Show me the way to the ocean!
Break these half-measures, these small containers …
Songsabout difference:
- What a Difference You’ve Made in My Life by Ronnie Milsap (soft rock)
- It Makes No Difference Now by Ray Charles (soul / country western cover)
- The Difference Between Us by Tina Turner (rock)
- What Difference Does It Make by the Smiths (rock)
- Different by Michael Tyler (Christian)
- Different by Hayden Summerall (pop)
Some songs for challenging times:
- The Greatest by James Blunt (inspirational pop)
- Joy by For King & Country
- In Dangerous Times performed by local singer & minister Mary Edes
- I Feel Like Going On performed by local singer & minister Mary Edes:
Fish & Fishing Songs:
- Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) by Hillsong United (Christian)
- Big Fish by FFE (Gospel)
- I’ll Probably Be Out Fishing by Toby Keith (country):
- Fisherman’s Friend by Port Isaac Fisherman’s Friend (sea chanty / acapella)
- Big-Eyed Fish by Dave Mathews Band (ballad):
- Gone Fishin’ by Bing Crosby & Louie Armstrong (big band)
Questions to consider from John 21 (link: John 21:1-14)
- What is one thing that this pandemic has caused you to see or experience differently? What do you appreciate?
- What do you want to keep from this experience? What do you want to let go or be done with?
- What in your life do you now consider to be abundant, that might once have felt scarce or limited?
- And what do you now wish you had in greater quantity or quality, that you didn’t appreciate before this time?
- What would you wish to give or offer, without limit, if you could?
- What simple rituals or habits create a pattern in your daily life?
- What gives you a sense of purpose?
- What are some comforting practices or routines that you have developed during the pandemic, or in the bigger picture, across the course of your life?
Trying a Different Approach; Attempting Something New
One country … one ideology, one system is not sufficient. It is helpful to have a variety of different approaches … We can then make a joint effort to solve the problems of the whole of humankind. — Dalai Lama
You will enrich your life immeasurably if you approach it with a sense of wonder and discovery, and always challenge yourself to try new things. – Nate Berkus
Do one thing every day that scares you. — Eleanor Roosevelt
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot
I hope that … you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re doing something. — Neil Gaiman
Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things. – Theodore Levitt
Try new things everyday. Don’t be afraid of failures. You will not lose anything. But your brain will be packed with experiences. — Akash Ryan Agarwal
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. — Neale Donald Walsch
I’m an entrepreneur at heart. I’m not afraid of starting up, starting over, or even failing for that matter, because the fact that I try new things in itself is a victory. — Lynn Collins
Without experimentation, a willingness to as and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund. – Anthony Bourdain
To live an art-filled life, one must be willing to try new things & accept that things change. – Lee Hammond
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. – Walt Disney
Life is worthwhile if you try. It doesn’t mean you can do everything, but there are a lot of things you can do, if you just try. – Jim Rohn
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? – Vincent van Gogh
I won’t know if I like it until I try it, will I? ― Cassandra Clare
How do you know, unless you open the door? ― Casey Rislov
Change How You Think About Problems
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein
Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines. – Robert H. Shuller
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. – James Baldwin
Every problem is a gift. Without them we wouldn’t grow. – Tony Robbins
It isn’t that they cannot find the solution. It is that they cannot see the problem. – G.K Chesterton
Problems are nothing but wake-up calls for creativity. – Gerhard Gschwandtner
Inside of every problem lies an opportunity. – Robert Kiposaki
There is no problem outside of you that is superior to the power within you. – Bob Proctor
You can increase your problem-solving skills by honing your question-asking ability. – Michael J. Gelb
On Fishing: Light-hearted and Deep-minded Observations
Fishing is a discipline in the equality of men – for all men are equal before fish. — Herbert Hoover.
Yes, Jesus poured himself out for others. But he also went to parties, had breakfasts on the beach, went into the desert by himself, and took time off from the crowds. — Joan Chittister
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. — Henry David Thoreau.
The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. — Vincent Van Gogh
… fishermen are the people with the most immediate vested interest in having a healthy sea. — Mark Kurlansky
The fish and I were both stunned and disbelieving to find ourselves connected by a line. — William Humphrey
In every species of fish … it is the ones that have got away that thrill me the most, the ones that keep fresh in my memory. — Ray Bergman
… drought affects everyone in the state, from farmers to fishermen, business owners to suburban residents, and everyone has a role to play in using precious water resources as wisely and efficiently as possible. — Frances Beinecke
What did Christ really do? He hung out with hard-drinking fishermen. — Iggy Pop
Fishermen own the fish they catch, but they do not own the ocean.— Etienne Schneider
There will be days when the fishing is better than one’s most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home. — Roderick Haig Brown
Fishing is not an escape from life, but often a deeper immersion into it. — Harry Middleton.
I go fishing not to find myself but to lose myself. — Joseph Monniger
Christianity began as a religion of the poor and dispossessed – farmers, fishermen, Bedouin shepherds. There’s a great lure to that kind of simplicity and rigor – the discipline, the call to action. — Camille Paglia
I only hope the fish will take half as much trouble for me as I’ve taken for them. — Rudyard Kipling.
Everyone should believe in something. I believe I’ll go fishing. — Henry David Thoreau.
If all politicians fished, instead of spoke publicly, we would be at peace with the world. — Will Rogers
The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of something that is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. — attributed to John Bucha
I don’t want to sit at the head table anymore. I want to go fishing. — George Bush.
The best fisherman I know try not to make the same mistakes over and over again; instead they strive to make new and interesting mistakes and to remember what they learned from them. — John Gierach
I have fished through fishless days that I remember happily without regret. — Roderick Haig Brown
The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad. — attributed to A.K. Best
Having a Sense of Purpose: Ordinary Tasks, Small Habits & Rituals as Sacred Moments
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did? ― St Mother Teresa of Calcutta
It’s not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters. ― Rick Warren
… God’s attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us–loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is “renewed in the morning” or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, “our inner nature is being renewed everyday”. Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minuitae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God. ― Kathleen Norris
Excerpt from an essay by Rumi —There is one thing in this world which you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there is nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It is as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don’t do it, it’s as though a knife of the finest tempering were nailed into a wall to hang things on. For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don’t, you will be like the one who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You will be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly ignoring your dignity and your purpose.
If you want to know if you are, in fact, loving yourself at all, ask yourself if you have ever cultivated something you like to do—like crocheting or gardening or painting or golfing or music. Ever. And if you haven’t, why haven’t you? Listen carefully to the answer. It is the key to being a whole person; it is the key to a whole other life. — Sr Joan Chittister
Reflections on matriarchs and mothers
We are born of love; Love is our mother.
— Rumi
To My Mother (excerpt) — Edgar Allan Poe
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts …
What’s Going On? (song excerpt)—
Alfred W Cleveland / Marvin P Gaye / Renaldo Benson
link to music video Mother, mother
There’s too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, eheh …
For only love can conquer hate
You know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some lovin’ here today, oh oh oh … Mother, mother, everybody thinks we’re wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
… Oh, you know we’ve got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today, Oh oh oh
- Mother Goose: link to information.
- Divine Feminine: article in HuffingtonPost by Joan Chittister
Of Mothers & Matriarchs
Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children. — William Makepeace Thackeray
The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the world passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. ― Anita Diamant
… give them to all the people who helped mother our children. … I don’t want something special. I want something beautifully plain. Like everything else, it can fill me only if it is ordinary and available to all. — Anne Lamott
Our images of God, then, must be inclusive because God is not mother, no, but God is not father either. God is neither male nor female. God is pure spirit, pure being, pure life — both of them. Male and female, in us all. — Joan Chittister
We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name. — Maya Angelou
Motherhood: All love begins and ends there. — Robert Browning
Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love. — Stevie Wonder
The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A mother’s happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories. – Honore de Balzac
I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life. — Abraham Lincoln
Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face. — George Eliot
For when a child is born the mother also is born again.— Gilbert Parker
With what price we pay for the glory of motherhood. — Isadora Duncan
My dear Mama, you are definitely the hen who hatched a famous duck. — Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful? — Mahatma Gandhi
God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. — Rudyard Kipling
Mother and Child — Louise Glück
We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.
Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.
We dream; we don’t remember.
Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.
And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.
And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.
This is why you were born: to silence me.
Cells of my mother and father, it is your turn
to be pivotal, to be the masterpiece.
I improvised; I never remembered.
Now it’s your turn to be driven;
you’re the one who demands to know:
Why do I suffer? Why am I ignorant?
Cells in a great darkness. Some machine made us;
it is your turn to address it, to go back asking
what am I for? What am I for?
God as Creator: Source Code of Grace (excerpt from longer sermon)— Nadia Bolz-Weber
In the beginning, all there was, was God. So in order to bring the world into being, God had to kind of scoot over. So God chose to take up less space—you know, to make room. So before God spoke the world into being, God scooted over. God wanted to share. Like the kind-faced woman on the subway who takes her handbag onto her lap so that there’s room for you to sit next to her. She didn’t have to do it, but that’s just who she is . . . the kind-faced subway lady’s nature is that she makes room for others.
Then God had an absolute explosion of creativity and made animals. Amoebas. Chickens. Crickets. Bees. Orangutans.
Then God said, “Let us create humans in our own image and likeness.” Let us. So, God the community, God the family, God the friend group, God the opposite of isolation, said, “Let us create humanity in our image and likeness. Let there be us and them in one being.”
So God created every one of us in the male and female image of God. Then God gave us God’s own image —something so holy that it could never be harmed, and never be taken away. A never-aloneness. An origin and destination. A source code of grace.