Psalms for Ukraine

 Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one;
clothe yourself with splendor and majesty.
In your majesty ride forth victoriously
in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness;
let your right hand display awesome deeds.
Let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king's enemies;
let the nations fall beneath your feet (Ps. 45:3-5)

*****

God is our refuge and our strength,

an ever-present help in distress.....

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

He lifts his voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see the works of the Lord,

the desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear,

he burns the shields with fire.

Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress (Ps. 46, sections).

St. Augustine wrote The City of God, contrasting the place where "the Most High dwells" to the kingdoms of this earth.  In his masterpiece, the City of God dwells in the midst of, and alongside of, Rome, representing all the kingdoms of this natural world.  Jesus said to Pilate, representing Rome, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my followers would fight to prevent my arrest...."(Jn. 18).  

The "kingdoms of this world" are characterized by the lust to dominate, in the words of Augustine, a characteristic of the natural man, the man without God.  Even in personal relationships, the lust to dominate, "my way or the highway," can be observed.  In America today, we see a clear divide between those whose power and philosophy seek to "cancel" those who disagree with their viewpoint, and those who acknowledge, "my kingdom is not of this world." 

Writing the first philosophy of history, Augustine exhibits evidence that from the beginning, the community of God's people has lived alongside the kingdoms of this world, and he traces the antagonism of these two kingdoms, going back as far as the fall of the angels, and looking forward to the last judgment and the eternal destination of good and evil.

From the beginning of his election, David encountered the opposition of Saul's "lust to dominate," to control, to come out on top.  He fled for his life into the desert, but his forced reliance on "the Most High" to preserve his life was just the training-field for what was yet to come, as David went on the defeat the Philistines and the surrounding nations in order to establish Jerusalem and the United Kingdom for the first time in history.  His psalms of victory and praise reflect his dependence not on his natural powers but on God's taking up the fight on his behalf.  

As we read the Psalms today, may they be our prayer for Ukraine, the latest victim of the lust to dominate so evident in the kingdoms of this world.

He Restores My Soul

 Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why do you sigh within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise Him for his saving help,
My Savior and my God (Ps. 42).

Every 3 to 4 years, I find myself drawn back to reading A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Philip Keller.  Mr. Keller is himself a shepherd, and his insights into Psalm 23 never fail to renew my amazement at this song of David.  Written from the viewpoint of the sheep, Psalm 23 is rich in imagery for God's care for us physically and spiritually.  Because we are so far removed from the culture of shepherds and sheep, we fail to grasp many of the implications of the 23rd Psalm.  For example, when we hear about "green pastures," we have no idea of the agonizing toil it requires on the part of the shepherd for his sheep to feed in green pastures.  Shepherding is usually done in an arid climate, where the soil is typically rocky and vegetation sparse, so the shepherd typically spends months preparing a grazing field for his flock before he ever leads them to it---removing stones and poisonous weeds, sowing and nurturing seed, and making sure there is enough water to grow lush fields.

One of the phrases that escapes us in terms of shepherding is "He restores my soul."  In Psalm 42, as in many other psalms, David speaks directly to his soul, which is "downcast" within him.  In other Psalms, David typically says, "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me praise His holy name!"  I don't know how many of us speak directly to our souls, especially when we are downcast and out of sorts.

In his reflection on the phrase, "He restores my soul," Philip Keller writes about sheep who are "downcast," a technical term for a sheep that has turned over on its back and cannot get up again by itself.  Lying on its back, its feet in the air, it flays away frantically struggling to stand up, without success.  If the owner does not arrive on the scene in a relatively short time, the sheep will die.  For one thing, predators are always on the alert for a cast-down sheep, easy prey for them.  Strangely, it is the largest, fattest, strongest, and healthiest sheep that are the most easily cast down.  They lie down in a comfortable spot in some little depression in the ground, roll over to stretch out and get comfortable, and suddenly the center of gravity shifts, and they cannot get up without help.

Keller says the shepherd goes out daily searching for cast sheep, especially if he sees buzzards circling overhead.  Leaving everything else, he anxiously begins counting the sheep; if one is missing, he leaves the 99 and goes in search of the one missing.  Finding the cast-down sheep, he lovingly embraces it, scolds it gently, and turns it over, lifting it to its feet while supporting it himself until the sheep begins to regain her balance and walk in her own strength once again.  When the shepherd must leave town for a few days, he appoints someone to keep an eye out daily for cast-down sheep.

So when David speaks to his soul, reminding himself to 'Put your hope in God," he knows whereof he speaks.  He knows that he cannot lift himself up by his own bootstraps, but that he is entirely dependent on the Good Shepherd, who said, "I myself will pasture (my sheep)."  When he is cast down in spirit, he waits for God's saving help, knowing the faithfulness of a shepherd who will not allow his flock to remain cast down and prey to their enemies.

Conversation Starters

 Everyone talks about the weather -- it's so hot; it's too cold; it's such a beautiful day!  The weather is for sure the one thing we all have in common, even perfect strangers.  It's the one topic we can surely connect on, no matter our background, faith, or political views.  I wonder how many deep friendships started with a comment about the weather.

Several years ago, we had some workmen at our house painting the carport.  I happened to be working in the yard at the time, and one of the workmen started talking to me about how hot it was at the time.  The first thing I knew, he was telling me that his mother's name was Gail, spelled differently from mine, where he was born, and so on.  We had great conversation and great connection while he was waiting for the boss to arrive to begin the job.  

So many people have trouble connecting with God in prayer because it is hard for us to find common ground with Divinity.  In talking about prayer, Bishop Barron once said, "What about all these novenas, rosaries, written prayers, etc.?  Well, prayers lead to prayer."  In other words, as we open the door to conversation with God, He enters and finds common ground with us -- and then the real conversation begins.  

In the Psalms, we find every human emotion -- peace, joy, anger, hostility, resentment, fear, anxiety.... I find them to be great "conversation starters" for prayer, no matter where I am in life.  In the midst of the desert, hiding out from Saul's army, David prayed, "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;/ my soul thirsts for you,/ my body longs for you,/ in a dry and weary land where there is no water....Those who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down into the depths of the earth.  They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals" (Psalm 63).

David was nothing if not expressive!  But in his desperation, in his thirst, in his joy, in his anger, his songs certainly open the door for our own conversations with God, even if they are complaints!  For those of us who do not even know where to begin talking to God, it is so easy to open the Psalms and find one we can relate to, such as Psalm 61:

Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.

 From the ends of the earth I call to you,

 I call as my heart grows faint;

Lead me to a rock that is higher than I. 

One thing I love about reading/praying the Psalms is that eventually they become part of me, and I instinctively begin to recite them when I need to express my joy, my fear, my desperation, my hope, etc. to God. They give me the words I need when I am almost inarticulate in addressing God -- and they eventually give me peace.  The fact that they were originally songs, set to music and sung in the Temple, makes them even more powerful.  How rich we would be if they became our songs too!

The Invasion of Grace - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon

The Invasion of Grace -- my prayer for you!

Written On My Heart

 In the Old Testament, when the High Priest went before the Lord in the Holy of Holies, he was instructed to wear an Ephod, a linen garment something like an apron, over his vestments.  Attached to the Ephod was a breastplate divided into 12 segments, each segment bearing a precious stone upon which was engraved the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel:  Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he will bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastplate of decision as a continuing memorial before the Lord (Exodus 28).

One of the very first changes I noticed in myself after my encounter with the Holy Spirit in 1977 was that I began to pray for other people -- much to my great surprise.  I had prayed almost all my life, but rarely for others, mostly for myself and my own concerns.  In fact, trying now to reconstruct my mindset at the time, I believe that I did not really think it made much difference whether I prayed for someone or not.  "O God, help me!" was probably about the best I could do when it came to prayer.

The morning I experienced some kind of anointing from above as a result of a young woman's prayer in the hospital, shortly before I was taken into surgery, I began to pray -- really pray -- for someone else, a complete stranger.  I was awake during the surgery -- but that's another story --- and lying on the table, I found myself praying for healing for a woman in Florida, someone I had never met.  She was having the same surgery I was having, but she had cancer.  A friend had mentioned her to me the previous week when she heard I was scheduled for this operation. And now, I'm praying for her?   In the middle of my own surgery, when I should have been scared and worried about myself?   Wait! What?  Who is this person who is now praying for someone I don't know?  This is something so new I don't quite know how to process it.

So rather than the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" being some kind of temporary emotional high, I began to discover that it was bringing amazing changes into my life, in very quiet and non-emotional ways, but rather in a kind of soft peace.  In the days and years to come, I discovered that praying for others would become a way of life.  Eventually, however, I began to sort of carry a burden of prayer because there were more and more people to pray for -- as if, ha ha, God's work depended on my prayers.  I still had much to learn about the ways of the Spirit!

But then God sent an angel to instruct me in His ways -- a woman who had a well-known ministry of prayer and intercession for others.  She told me that she too at first carried a burden of prayer, trying to remember all those who had asked for her prayers.  But in adoration one day, the Lord spoke to her, reminding her of the Ephod worn by the High Priest when he entered the presence of the Lord.  "When you come into My Presence," the Lord told her, "I read the names of all those written on your heart, just as the High Priest carried the names of Israel into my Presence."

After that conversation, I began to make ephods for myself in prayer -- index cards divided into 12 spaces.  I would write the names of those I was praying for, one in each space, and then I would place the index card into my current meditation or daily prayer book, where I would be sure to see it.  Later, as I was teaching Confirmation classes for so many years, I would write the names of my students on the cards and keep them in my planning notebook.  Rather than worrying about trying to pray for each person -- as if God would not act without my prayer -- I would just metaphorically hold up the card before Him, and let Him direct my prayer in that moment.  And then, my "work" became His Work instead!  Much better, I guarantee!  

Jesus said, "The work I do is not my own; it belongs to the One who sent me.  The Father who lives in me does His work through me."

Eventually I came to realize that Jesus Christ, the High Priest, entered into the Holiest of Holies, the Presence of His Father, after His resurrection, with our names written on the Ephod of His Own Heart. He said to Mary Magdalene, "Go and tell my brothers that I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn. 20).  Never had He spoken in such a way previously!  He carried us into the very Presence of God, and now His God was/is our God!

So if in some future date, you come across one of my books with an unusual bookmark divided into 12 squares, and if your own name is written in one of those squares, just know that I have carried you into the Presence of God and that the Father Himself has been at work on your behalf!

Watching God at Work

Zora Neal Hurston's most famous title is Their Eyes Are Watching God.  Now I have to admit that I've never read the book, but I've always loved the title.  Some people have signature perfumes, so that you always recognize the scent when they are around.  If I have any kind of "signature" at all, it's not a perfume, but a characteristic:  I have always loved, loved, I tell you, watching God at work -- in people, in situations, in Scripture, in my own life.  

Bishop Robert Barron calls it the "Theodrama," what God is all about --- yesterday, today, tomorrow.  In his words, most of us are caught up in the "ego-drama," what we are doing, what's happening to us, what we are going through.  But Mary and Elizabeth -- Mary went "with haste" to Elizabeth because she had found her place in the Theodrama -- in what God was doing.  And Elizabeth in her old age rejoiced because suddenly she too had been caught up in God's great plan of salvation.

I remember when I first started teaching at the Community College in New Orleans.  I was a part-time teacher without an office -- that's how new I was.  So I hung out in the faculty room where the teachers had lunch.  That became my office for a few hours a day, and I got to know the full-time faculty rather quickly.  One of the teachers was an avowed and aggressive atheist, who resented and attacked any of her students making a reference to God or to religion.  (She taught developmental reading, so conversation was a large part of her class.) 

 One day, she was on a rampage:  "Why do students think they have to defend God?" she asked me.  "God can take care of himself, can't He?"  I smiled and said, "I think you are right about that."  Upset that I had not argued with her, she stormed out.  One of the other teachers turned to me and said, "With your background, don't you get upset about Mary?"  My reply was, "I can't wait to see what God will do with Mary." 

 After a year as a part-time teacher, I realized that I needed to do a lot of research about teaching at the Community College, so I left the job for two years to pursue a Master's degree.  When I returned to the College (another God-at-work story), lo and behold, my newly-assigned office was directly across a very narrow hall (almost rather a path) from Mary's office.  The two of us would arrive each morning around 7:30 to prepare for 8:00 classes.  Gradually, Mary began to ask questions about God, about religion, about almost any and everything.  One of the other teachers in the office (we had cubicles without ceilings) started coming in early just to listen to our conversations across the hallway.

I was watching God at work -- the work was His, not mine.  Mary, raised by a brilliant atheist mother who thought people who believed in God were stupid, began to soften her stance toward God.  She began to ask more questions from a friend who went jogging with her on a regular basis.  Did she ever come to any kind of faith in God?  I don't know.  All I know was that I smiled to myself whenever I thought about God, yes, God, placing my office door-to-door with Mary's office.  That's all I had to know!

What follows today's entry is the third entry (2009) I ever wrote on this site.  It explains the title of the blog, the reason I started writing in the first place, and the reason I continue.  I just love watching God at work!!

 Last weekend, my sister introduced me to New Harmony, Indiana, a social experiment from the 1800's that has become a modern refuge of peace and beauty in today's world. While there, I stumbled across a poem posted near a lake behind the inn. The author was not named, probably because he/she wanted the poem to stand as a tribute to the Creator rather than to its creator:

Stranger

When no one listens
To the quiet trees,
When no one notices
The sun in the pool;

When no one feels
The first drop of rain,
Or sees the last star;

Or hails the first morning
Of a giant world
Where the peace begins
And rages end:

One bird sits still
Watching the work of God:
One turning leaf,
Two falling blossoms,
Ten circles upon the pond.

As we stood there reading and re-reading these stunning words, a giant blue heron with a wingspan of at least 10-12 feet glided across the lake and landed about 50 feet away from us. Slowly he turned to face the water and stood quietly watching the "ten circles upon the pond," the "turning leaves," and the "falling blossoms." The moment was electric. We wondered whether the bird had been somehow trained to arrive at the precise moment of visitors reading the poem, but finally decided that the moment was truly a gift.

I wished desperately to find notecards or at least a poster with the poem and a blue heron during my visit to New Harmony, but it seems no one has taken on that mission. Were I an artist, I would set up a kiosk somewhere in town to sell my inspiration. That being somewhat impractical, though, I have decided to begin this blog as a tribute to the unknown author and to the blue heron which brought the poem to life for me.

So much of my life seems to be like that moment: watching the work of God. It is my desire to share some of my observations with others that has led to this blog. My wish is that it will do for you what the blue heron and an unknown poet has done for me.

"I Will Be Your God"

 This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you (Luke 22:20)

What a statement to make to a group of 12 men who had grown up under what we now call the "OLD" Covenant!  To them, it was not an "old" covenant; it was THE Covenant that God had made with their ancestors, a covenant which they themselves renewed, and had been renewing all the days of their lives, at every Passover.  I will be your God, and you will be my people!

What a statement!  Had any other god in the history of the universe ever made such a statement, no matter how much blood had been shed, how many lives of innocent children had been sacrificed?  "I will be your God!"  What could that possibly mean?

The whole history of Israel, beginning with Abraham, was a graphic docu-drama illustrating what it meant that Yahweh would be "their God."  In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is reminding the people just before they cross the Jordan into Canaan, of their history:

Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other.  Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of?  Has any other people heard the voice of God (alternate translation: of a god) speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived?  Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

....Because He loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

Observe [these laws] carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? 

This covenant, initiated with Abraham and his descendants, sealed and ritualized and repeated year after year with each new generation following the first Passover, wherein God delivered them out of Egypt and brought them safely into the Promised Land ---- this covenant which made them "one family" with God Himself, the Divine Presence in their midst, -----this covenant, sealed with the blood of goats and lambs, and celebrated with a family meal where the Lamb was eaten, ---- this covenant, which the disciples thought they were entering into once again at THAT Passover Meal, ---- was taken up by Jesus, the Lamb of God, who said New Words in the midst of the Old Ritual:  This is My Body, given up for you!

And the cup, no longer the blood of goats and lambs, but now:  This cup is the NEW COVENANT in my blood, which will be shed for you.

Just as Moses gave them a New Law from the time they left Egypt to the time they entered the Promised Land, so Jesus gives them a New Law at the Last Supper:  A NEW LAW I give to you: Love one another as I have loved you!

"I will be your God, and you will be my people."  What does that mean?  What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?  This new covenant is sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ Himself:  "I will be your God!"  

If only we knew what is meant by covenant.  If only we knew!