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| Image by James Losey |
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A GREETING
O Lord, all my longing is known to you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
(Psalm 38:9)
A READING
My eyes are awake before each watch of the night,
that I may meditate on your promise.
(Psalm 119:148)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
If we hope for what we do not see,
we wait for it with patience.
(Romans 8:25)
A PRAYER
My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- "The Merton Prayer," by Thomas Merton
found on the website of Yale Divinity School
VERSE OF THE DAY
For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
says the Lord,
who has compassion on you.
(Isaiah 54:10)
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| Image by Gregoire Dubois |
In today’s brief reading, the Psalmist describes a conundrum many of us can relate to. In just the one verse, we hear the experience of being on high alert to whatever might be coming next, while also staying in the present and meditating on our trust in God. The verse invites us to wonder how can we be forward thinking while also staying in the present knowing that God guides us?
Yesterday we read how Jesus calms the storm, and we reflected on what it means to know God's love is with us, regardless of what happens. Today, we hear about meditating on a promise of God’s. What is this promise? It might be God's promise made many times in the Hebrew Bible to always accompany the faithful. It might be the promise that a messiah will come. In your own journey of faith, what does God’s promise mean to you?
Our music today features ensemble feuervogel, a German group of musicians whose music seeks to celebrate sound itself, by drawing from ancient music traditions and combining it with contemporary sounds like birdsong. “Vocal polyphony meets jazz and folklore,” says their website. These influences may be working behind the scenes, but what emerges is a harmonious sound.
Like the music of the ensemble, sometimes our lives of faith require a blending of past and present and future: we can hold on to what we have been told, keep watch for ways to live into our discipleship, and trust that God knows we are trying. The Merton Prayer offers us a way to surrender to that knowing, while committing to the journey of working out our own path.
How can we learn to hold both realities equally? How can we all cling to God’s promise, while staying awake to what is here and now?
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A STORY OF ENDURANCE
Over the past eight years, three young Norwegian men with a common interest in petroglyphs have discovered more than 600 Bronze Age rock carvings, along the southeastern coast of Norway. Driven only by passion, they often do their searching by night, when all three have finished work for the day, and when there is less surrounding distraction and less light refraction. This hobby activity, in which the three also have a chance to use their educated intuition, has helped to dramatically increase the evidence that scholars now have of Bronze Age petroglyphs in this part of Norway. The three men divide their work into three: one person sweeps snow or leaves away with a broom, one shines a flashlight and one inspects the carving. Working this way, the men have realized that perhaps the original carvers wanted the carvings to appear differently at different times of day. In the flickering light of a fire, they can appear even animated. “I think the images have to do with the awakening of people’s minds to time,” one of the explorers has said. The carvings range in subject and include ships and figures. The three found each other through their common geological interests, and did not know each other before this project. Now their names will be forever joined, as the spirited discoverers. Read a non-paywall article on their work.
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| Lars Ole Klavestad, Magnus Tangen and Tormod Fjeld hunting for Bronze Age rock carvings. (David Torch/NYT linked above) |
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LC† Awakened by the Spirit is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work.
Thank you and peace be with you!