Day 31: Oh. Pull out your Bible or simply Google Psalm 46, and give it a read, imagining yourself as a parent desperate to get to a place where you and your child are safe. Where do you seek refuge, strength, loving power, compassion? Where can you go to know that the Lord of hosts is with you?
Hosts: where are we, and what are we doing in the name of our Lord?
Day 30: God is Family.
Who else then is family?
Mother who bore me.
Father who raised me.
Siblings who grew with me.
Family of family as well. Mine both by birth, and now by others' choice.
And by my own choice, and my bearing and birthing, too.
Husbands, past and present.
Sons, then and always.
Friends, closer than blood, dear as my own.
In sum, though, only the tiniest start. Family, equally, is my brother in the homeless shelter, the detention center, and the jail, and the one in the White House.
My sisters in the lap of luxury, the eye of approval, and in the depths of despair.
My children, held in loving arms and ripped away from them by someone who is also my family, MY family, too.
Beloved family, all.
Family God, show us how to love one another as you would have us do. -
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Day 27: God is image.
When I was growing up, there was a book on our shelves called Your God is Too Small. Although I never actually read it that I can remember, I thank my parents for that bold and visual challenge to think bigger and more creatively about God. That statement has always stayed with me and has been foundational in the forming of my image of God, my understanding of who and what is holy. Ultimately it has made me aware of and humbled by the limits of even my most expansive thinking. I've come to understand that if I am created in God's image, then that same profound and wondrous and astounding truth holds for everyone else – Every. One.
Last night I attended a Pulse remembrance service, two years after that tragic and senseless event. Several speakers talked about their commitment to living bravely into their wholeness in honor of those who didn't have a longer chance to do so.
I was reminded that the struggle to believe in one's wholeness, to be confident in one's precious and perfect creation in the image of God, is still too often made difficult by the limitations of culture's creativity and imagination. We are created in God's image, full stop – not the other way around. Fervent prayers for growth and insight all for whom God is too small, and truly, that is for us all. -
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