Psalm 43
Proper 26 (31) - Year A
Proper 7 (12) - Year C
Easter Vigil - Years A, B, C
Well, soul, why so down in the dumps?
Have you not noticed what is going on around you and within you? How oblivious can you be?
Oh, right. Yep, pretty bad out there and in here. And so it was a day ago and a millennium ago and three before that. In fact it probably will be tomorrow and a next whenever as well.
That sure cheers me up!
Facing that reality wasn’t intended to cheer you up, but to remind me that, none-the-less, hope really does abound.
Hope?
Yep. In fact it’s living within you right now and will be visible when you’re ready to recognize it.
OK. I’ll take your word for it. But, I’m still down in the dumps.
OK. I’m still with you.
OK.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Where is your G*D?
Let us offer a word of Thanks to our “enemy” who, in one way or another, raises this basic question. However it comes, we are blessed through a focus on an important question that we resist asking ourselves.
Here G*D is closely allied and associated with Hope and experienced through a steadfastness of a “love song” that touches deep places beyond any of our usual markers—beyond hope, beyond faith, beyond love. There is a yearning here that will not be satisfied with any of our usual measures—hope is not enough; faith is not enough; love is not enough.
This is a Jewish koan: “Where is your G*D?” No response is sufficient. Every response leads deeper. Some responses are more enlightening than others, but none are wide enough to hold for all time. This is instructive when we make an opportunity to sink deep within this question. This existential question balances an Edenic question from G*D, “Where are you?”
So we seek each other, we bump into each other, face-to-face and back-to-back, calling to each other, “Beloved, where are you? Come out and play.”
Finally, an openness to this question leads us toward becoming G*D, doing greater things. It resets our compass that has gotten confused with secondary priorities. Thankfully, if we have stopped asking the question of ourself, our favorite enemy raises it in ways we cannot avoid. It leads G*D toward us, doing humbler things. It reveals, within every everyday day, another facet of rainbows and empty tombs.
So, where is your G*D and what is keeping you from moving in that direction?
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Psalm 42 & 43
A place of refuge is a blessing. Finally breathing can slow, hearts can return to rhythm, adrenaline return to normal. Our fight or flight trap can be unsprung.
Can we remember glad tiding?
Can we anticipate thanks renewed?
Longing, thirsting, crying are night time activities. In the dark, creativity stirs. And it is evening. Come the dawn and noonday a new creation is formed. And it is good. In the cool of the day we reflect. Thank goodness we came as far as we did. There is still so far to go. And we are ready to wrestle a new day from the confusion of many a mile to go by a path less traveled.
A place of refuge to save us from ourselves, where our demons can depart, our enemies be resisted. Yes, a place of refuge is precious, too precious to remain long for there is life to be lived. So notice, even in the midst of running, that altar, right there, that you couldn’t see a moment ago. Was it always there? Probably not. For this moment it is. Our place of refuge was with us before we got there. Why are you cast down, disquieted? Oh, right! Well, anyway, remember . . . anticipate, all manner of things shall be well.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/06/psalms-42-43.html
Well, soul, why so down in the dumps?
Have you not noticed what is going on around you and within in you. How oblivious can you be?
Oh, right. Yep, pretty bad out there and in here. And so it was a day ago and a millennium ago and three before that. In fact it probably will be tomorrow and the next whenever as well.
That sure cheers me up!
Facing that reality wasn't intended to cheer you up, but to remind me that, none-the-less, hope really does abound.
Hope?
Yep. In fact it's living within you right now and will be visible when you're ready to recognize it.
OK. I'll take your word for it. But, I'm still down in the dumps.
OK. I'm still with you.
OK.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/november2002.html
Psalm 43 or Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
We experience desiccation. We experience water springing forth. Both are given. Our context is sometimes one and sometimes the other. Then we set about valuing one over the other, separating them from the mutual informing they can bring to each other.
Among our responses is hope in the midst of dry times and planting in the midst of fertile times.
We are certainly capable of working harder and harder to plant more and more when times are dry and then complain that our work didn't bear fruit. It shouldn't have been planted in the first place.
We are certainly capable of being so weakened or used to the dry that we fail to exert ourselves when the rains come. Hope has gotten us through and we keep hoping when it is time to put down our hope against hope and pick up a hoe.
As we travel the varieties of life, pay attention to which variety is present that we might be present to it.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/october2005.html
Psalm 43 or Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37
Joshua 3:7-17 or Micah 3:5-12
1 Thessalonians 2:9-13
Matthew 23:1-12
A place of honor requires stepping into a flood rush and standing still while the waters rush by, not yet calmed upstream. To bear the holy is both honorable and dangerous. When we try to disentangle these two to provide executive privilege, or any other kind of privilege, we have failed in our leadership.
To bear holiness, in ourselves and not just on our shoulders, requires entering all manner of metaphoric flood waters. We will stand in a flood that rejuvenates the land, building a part of a new delta with the few molecules of flesh and bone we have at our disposal. We will stand in a flood of prejudice, uncertainty, and fear that has rushed on for a longest time as a sign and witness it shall not always be so – though not yet seen, a cessation is on its way [and again a "nothing" has become a "something" :) ].
Still, it is time to stop by woods or flood and choose a path less traveled. It will make all the difference.
- - -
some prophets cry peace
to a raging river
a rising tide
as though desire
for continued comfort
were sufficient
being thus out of tune
with what is coming
for fear of losing
what little purchase
we have on the bronco back
of a living G*D
our cry of peace
echoes hollowly
within a hollow people
empty of hallowing
coming change
in present living
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
I say to G*D, “Why have you forsaken me?”
I say to my soul, “Why are you cast down?”
As with all “why” questions, there is no adequate singular response.
Continue the vigil past these questions. There are only a magical number 7 more to go. I suppose it is good to know that this is drawing to a close. As with any therapeutic intervention, this vigil may not come to anything before it is time to close. So, one more step. Why? Well, why not?
You’ve paid deeply to come this far. And yet is it always an option to not hold any longer, but fold. Blessings on your decision.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/psalm-42-and-psalm-43-vigil.html