As the saying goes, "never let a good crisis go to waste". So during this unique time of sabbath/social distancing/sheltering in place, I'm working on establishing a new spiritual discipline. One that has been nudging at my soul for some time and now I feel I have no excuses to continue ignoring it.
It's about the Psalms. I've had an arms length relationship with them for a long time, mostly because I viewed them as poetry and that's just not my thing. I love reading the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures, and it was literally life changing for me to read the Old Testament as a canon in seminary. But I tend to skip lightly, very lightly, through the Psalms. Picking up on a familiar verse here or there that might appear in the Call to Worship as part of the RCL.
But after reading and leading a Women's Retreat meditation on "Denial Is My Spiritual Practice: (And Other Failures of Faith) by Rachel G. Hackenberg &Martha Spong" (an AWESOME book by the way), I decided to it was time to commit to actually nurturing a more helpful spiritual practice. And given this time of global pandemic, economic collapse and varying degrees of competency in leadership, the Book of Psalms called to me.
Praying the Psalms - Reflection on Psalm 1
We have a choice - choose wisely.
But we need to be patient because God's time is not our time. Also we need to stand firm in our convictions and not get distracted by the wicked, the fear mongers. We must combat their actions, but have faith that God will handle their Judgement and Punishment. It's not only counterproductive for me to wish evil on my enemies, it makes me more like them!
Note - the psalmist talks about the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. It's not about people, it's about behaviors, actions and intent. I need to stay focused on answering God's call to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with my Creator. And trust that God will handle the rest.
This will lead to happiness and less stress for me - maybe because it gives me a sense of purpose? Perhaps not happiness but peace. Is that really what we should seek after all? Freedom from worry and anxiety - is that what happiness truly is?
Dear God,
May it be so.
Amen
Your reflections are thoughtful and interesting to read, Gloria. I have a problem, though, with one thing you said here, "have faith that God will handle their Judgement and Punishment". That just isn't a part of my faithbook. That's not my understanding of God. Thanks for letting me comment and I will continue reading. Ce
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment Candace. I tend to think about judgement and punishment in relationship with God to the way I think about it as a parent. To me, judgement is assessment - what happened and what role did each party play. And punishment is natural consequences. It's not so much inflicted upon someone as it is the reaction to the action that occurred. So I tend to view judgement as objective and believe that actions have consequences, so where my faith comes in is believing that by God's grace, we don't always get what we deserve (thank goodness). Anyway, what I was trying to say in my reflection was that I don't need to worry about wishing bad things to happen to "bad people" because that's not my job. God/the Universe will handle that, freeing me to keep my eyes on doing justice, etc as my priority and worrying less about making sure that folks "get what's coming to them".
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