Verse of the day
And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
– Hebrews 10:24-25
Voice of the day
Working for social change, to me, means to make visible in time and place that which has already been accomplished in principle by God Himself. This makes it possible to struggle for a better world not out of frustration, resentment, anger or self-righteousness but out of care, love, forgiveness and gratitude.
– Henri Nouwen
Prayer of the day
God who acts under the mantle of care, may your presence be revealed through our conviction to love and serve the world.
I began reading Daniel Berrigan’s commentary on Isaiah this past week. My hope is that I will find spiritual sustenance for the long hall in the fight for true freedom and democracy. Hopefully Fr Berrigan will also give me inspiration as I find ways to be a counter-cultural witness in the midst of the mess that is this country and government.
It is personal for me. This corrupt regime has attacked the state I was born in (California), the country that was my late Mom’s home and native land (Canada), and now the state (Minnesota) where my parents raised me! Minnesota was where my Mom became a US citizen by giving up her own lifelong Canadian citizenship, and where I went to seminary and served as a pastor for three years before going into full-time ministry with the Air Force. It was in Minneapolis, during my second year of seminary, where I first raised my right hand and swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic as a Chaplain Candidate, Second Lieutenant.
The illegal, immoral, unethical, and frankly un-constitutional actions of ICE, CBP, and DHS along with the other abominable actions by the so-called Department of “War” have been absolutely devastating. When you protest this administration in Mobile, Alabama as we have, you quickly realize that you are in a distinct minority. Either through the silence of complicity or the loud voice of support for this administration, it can really feel like you are all alone. With all of that in mind, I hope and pray that you, dear reader, will find inspiration for the living of these days and making a difference in ways large and small.
Over against those who would separate the pastoral from the prophetic, I offer here an exercise in pastoral prophecy. Isaiah and his school would have us read aright the signs of the times and, in the light thus gained, would urge us to render judgment on the times. The prophetic-pastoral concern permeates the book of Isaiah with moral clear-sightedness and courage under the threat of disaster…. (Isaiah: Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, p. 1)
From Isaiah’s time to ours and in every year in between, there has been war—a continuum of war with the swagger and braggadocio of the powers of death, declaring themselves the molders of human fate, the giver of all good. In their wake is a procession of of slaves and loot—and the dead…. (p. 2)
Isaiah lived in a time of whetted swords and rusted plowshares, of immense violence and social conflict and neglect of the poor. Then the oracle came to him—swords into plowshares! What does Isaiah have to say to us? (p. 4)
Isaiah and Daniel Berrigan have a lot to offer us if we will take the time to truly listen and learn. In the words of Thomas Merton who was a mentor to Fr Berrigan, Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us. (Thoughts in Solitude, p. 114) May we always be disturbed by violence and may we never lose our voice!
“I often ask for a word as I take my daily walks. I listen for what the trees and pigeons might have to offer me.”
—Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year
What word of guidance or inspiration do you hear when you explore nature?
Verse of the day
Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits sin.
– James 4:17
Voice of the day
Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?
– Claire Keegan, “Small Things Like These” (2021)
Prayer of the day
Awaken our hearts to our neighbors’ needs that we have yet to find courage to help tackle.
Verse of the day
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.
– Isaiah 49:16
Voice of the day
The hand of God creates; it does not conceal.
– Umberto Eco, “The Name of the Rose” (1980)
Prayer of the day
God who sees all and never forgets what is brought forth, continue to bring your people toward the fullness of your creation.
Receptivity and confrontation are the two inseparable sides of Christian witness. They have to remain in careful balance. Receptivity without confrontation leads to a bland neutrality that serves nobody. Confrontation without receptivity leads to an oppressive aggression, which hurts everybody. This balance between receptivity and confrontation is found at different points, depending upon our individual position in life. But in every life situation, we not only have to receive, but also to confront. — Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
As a reaction to a very aggressive, manipulative, and often degrading type of evangelization, we sometimes have become hesitant to make our own religious convictions known, thereby losing our sense of witness. Although at times it seems better to deepen our own commitments than to evangelize others, it belongs to the core of Christian spirituality to reach out to the other with good news, and to speak without embarrassment about what we “have heard and … seen with our own eyes…. Watched and touched with our hands”(1 John 1:1). — Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Verse of the day
Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
– Colossians 3:14
Voice of the day
The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love – whether we call it friendship or family or romance – is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.
– James Baldwin
Prayer of the day
Loving God, when we are unable to see our worth in this world, allow us to borrow the belief in each other’s goodness until we can.
“The [prophet’s] concern was not some future savior, but more immediate. They saw the disconnect between what the Covenant called for (fidelity to God and justice for all, especially the poor) and what the people were doing. . . One might more rightly see the prophets as social activists in their day.”
—John Valters Paintner, Watershed Moments in the Hebrew & Christian Scriptures: An Online, Self-Study Retreat
What current social situations trouble you, and what strength can the prophets offer you?
In our world in which so many religious convictions, ideologies and lifestyles come into increasing contact with each other, it is more important than ever to realize that it belongs to the essence of a Christian spirituality to receive our fellow human beings into our world without imposing our religious viewpoint, ideology or way of doing things on them as a condition for love, friendship, and care. — Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Pastor Michael Moore's Blog 