Psalm 118:14-29
Easter 2 - Year C
Give thanks for it clarifies the long-haul. A stance of gratitude encourages seeing all the little fiddly-bits so needed for dealing with a glacial shift in institutions, cultures, and self. [Note to self: given the speed of “glacial” retreat, it is no longer a descriptor for slow.]
Thanks connects us with the depths of creation from which a next-needed is called forth. In this case our old friend “steadfast love” is a definition of “Lord”. Lazy folks that we are we think that we have said “steadfast love” when we say “Lord”, but, of course, we haven’t. This universal all too quickly become “my God” and “steadfast love” turns into self-preservation at all costs and a position of privilege and prestige.
So, if this is a day of steadfast love, it is not a 24 hour day that is spoken of. This is a long-lasting experience that is longer than the “7-day” descriptor of creation. This day of steadfast love is seven times eternity long. This is a deep, deep thanks.
Again, this story cannot be confined to easy particulars or justified on the basis of how it has come to be known. But, if we daily open gates of kindness, we will find all the response we have looked for — participation in calling forth the new satisfies like nothing else. So, claim a shard of light and pry open a closed door with all the compassion you can muster. Such a moment will last and last.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/03/psalm-1181-2-19-29.html
Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150
Phrased in the singular but understood to be a communal psalm for the Feast of Tabernacles.
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The festival has a third name -- or the festival par excellence. Hence we add the description, "the time of our rejoicing," when we mention the festival in the 'Amidah and in the Qiddush. The rabbis said: "The Divine presence is not made manifest to man through melancholy . . . but rather joy" (B. Shab . 30b). In the Jewish tradition, happiness is requisite to entering into a conscious relationship with God (Kaplan, The Meaning Of God , p. 225).
This happiness is best expressed through gratitude to God. The Midrash says: "in the millennium all other sacrifices will be abolished, but not the thanksgiving offering; all other prayers will be abolished, but not the prayer of thanksgiving" (Wayiqra Rabbah 9:7). Thus gratitude and thankfulness have supreme value as the essence of religion.
from Guide to Jewish Religious Practice by Isaac Klein
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While religious praise can become mere emotionalism and miss the actions related to justice and peace here on earth, it is also an appropriate way of ending every moment - with Thanks.
We are called to give thanks in everything, even the provisional. Thanks must be given in seeming defeat as well as seeming victory. Thanks is a good thing to do on a weekend that pales in attendance to Easter. Thanks needs to be given in the context of the community, not simply the individual.
Rejoice. There is prophetic work to be done. Rejoice when such work is completed. Rejoice.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html
Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150
On the other side of the "gates of righteousness" is the giving of thanks.
Given that there are plural gates, a question arises about what is on this side of a gate. Presumably there are a variety of states/paths that lead to an open gate into righteousness.
One way of approaching is to know how seriously life must be taken on this side of the gate that it might be contrasted with the thanksgiving on the other side. Otherwise, what is the purpose of a gate but to separate dissimilar states of being?
Another way is to presume that like calls to like. If we don't begin with the joy of thanksgiving on this side of the gate we will never find it on the other side. And so an appropriate living pattern would be that of joy practiced and fulfilled now as well as later.
One way to practice this is to take the Kipling poem that follows and see each of the choices as a gate. How many gates to righteousness can you identify?
Another way is to substitute the word "praise" or "joy" in the "if" phrases (e.g., If you can keep your joy/praise when all about you ....). Here we can see how praise and joy are connected both inside and outside a righteous gate.
If... by Rudyard Kipling
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 wornout 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!
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praise is a this world endeavor
done with breath
done with spirit
done with creativity
done with music
done with volume
done with hospitality
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Steadfast love endures forever! How else could steadfastness be expressed than through time.
This quality that extends beyond our present moment is what fills our present moment with rejoicing and gladness.
A receiving and offering of blessing is strengthened each time we take from the storehouse of eternity and invest it in this day. This is a great enough investment that it can move us from our fear of not being saved (beloved) or not having as much success as is our due (cornerstone recognition). This movement opens gates of light to shine brightly enough for us to see an edge of tomorrow and to invest more strongly in today so we might clarify that which is coming.
If you were thinking about a free and full life today, connect it with forever and march forward.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/psalm-1181-2-19-29.html
Verse 17: I shall not die, but live and proclaim the works of Life.
To have come to this point requires an awareness of some rebirth experiences. This takes awhile for us - remember those adolescent years when we would just die (or hide away) over any number of fears or setbacks? Eventually we come around to see more than our immediate response to desires and events. In seeing more than our own Narcissistic needs we begin to put various parts of ourselves together and see a whole more than the sum of our parts.
To see more is a stance of "not dying".
From there it is but a small extension to hear the question, "If you are not going to die, what are you going to do?"
Well?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/04/psalm-11814-29.html