Psalm 49:1-12
Proper 13 (18) - Year C
Psalm 49:1-12 or Psalm 107:1-9, 43
So, how do we deal with the troubles of the world. Choices are before us. How do we interpret the events of our time, the experiences of our life.
Jim Taylor's comments today in his Soft Edges posting remind us that the issues of not fearing and giving thanks lie within us and beyond us - depending on the framework to which we bring them. What subtle difference are you making in the world by sharing your framework with others?
SUBTLE DIFFERENCES
What's the difference between Heaven and Hell? The difference is not that one is an lush oasis, the other a lake of fire. Those images come to us mostly from the Koran, the biblical book of Revelation, or Dante's Inferno.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam includes the famous description of paradise, "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me..."
These are, of course, all fanciful figures of speech. No one has ever gone there and come back to tell us about it. The only person documented to have returned from death told us nothing about life on the other side. The gospels record not one word from Jesus about his experiences beyond the tomb.
Rachel Naomi Remen offers a different kind of image, in My Grandfather's Blessing: "In Hell people are seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. But they have splints on their elbows and so they cannot reach their mouths with their spoons. They sit through eternity experiencing a terrible hunger in the midst of abundance. In Heaven people are also seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. They, too, have splints on their elbows and cannot reach their mouths. But, in Heaven, people use their spoons to feed one another."
Remen concludes, "Perhaps Hell is always of our own making. In the end, the difference between Heaven and Hell may only be that in Hell, people have forgotten how to bless one another."
It made we wonder how many other situations could be either Heaven or Hell, depending on very slight differences.
ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS
Every summer, at about this time, I rant about people who have no difficulty dragging cases of beer and bags of munchies down to the waterfront, but they're too exhausted to drag their empties back out.
So Hell might be a waterfront park, where every person left litter behind. Heaven might be the same park, where everyone cleaned up any trash lying around.
Or Hell might be Highway 97 on a Friday afternoon, where every driver took offence at every other driver's action. Hell would be full of horns honking, fingers flashing, and curses flying. Heaven could be the same stretch of highway, with everyone allowing other drivers into their lane, and cheerfully arriving five minutes late at their destination.
Or another possibility -- Hell could be a religious conference, where everyone was so convinced that they had the only way to Heaven that they shouted down all other viewpoints. In that case, Heaven would be a conference where people listened to each other's faith experiences with respect.
Intriguing images? Yes, but notice something -- nothing puts these ideal conditions, or these horrific conditions, some time in the indefinable future. They're all possible right here, right now.
John Milton, who shaped many of our visions of Hell in Paradise Lost, had Lucifer utter this insight:
"The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n..."*****************************************
Copyright (c) 2004 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html
Psalm 49:1-12 or Psalm 107:1-9, 43
Steadfast love endures.
This may mean that "a little dab will do you" - sort of like one of those funeral jewelry pieces where you can keep a bit of the cremains of a loved one close to you.
This may mean that you need to constantly enlarge your ability to receive more and more of this steadfast love because it just keeps coming and we can't give it away quickly enough. When we don't keep up with being as steadfast in loving others as G*D is steadfast in loving us that the only way it can be released is with our death.
I don't mean to lessen the lesson about real resources that need to be distributed, but part of the reason we feel we never have enough resources is because we haven't given away enough love.
- - -
mortals cannot abide in their pomp
so says the psalmist
pomp?
I ain't got no stinkin' pomp!
pomp?
sending an escort with myself?
pomp?
with more emphasis upon the escort than myself
pomp?
with my old beat-up hat?
pomp?
with my distain of all things fashionable?
pomp?
oh, that's my pomp
pomp?
nope, it won't abide
pomp?
nor will I covered in my pomp
pomp?
how 'bout you?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html