Category Archives: Biblical Reflection

Seen and Unseen

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To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.

Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud. Psalm 123, NRSV

The tables were all set and the tray stands loaded with glasses of ice water. Our pre-ordered meals were on the long buffet table with our names above the rims to make it easier for us to find what we had chosen. My salad was pretty as well as tasty, and my water glass refilled whenever it was close to empty. Everything was set up to make lunch at the conference an enjoyable break between programs. The same was true of the coffee break beverages and snacks in the conference room, and of the afternoon dessert tray. It would be easy to assume that all these things just appeared from nowhere – a magical and instant answer to our wants and needs.

But meals and snacks don’t come from nowhere. Two women were hard a work setting up the rooms, putting out meals, refilling beverages, and cleaning up the plates and cups when we were done. They did their work quietly, blending into the background, easy to overlook.

Disregard can be proactive – the dismissive words, the look of contempt. That kind is easy to see and easy enough to avoid. Disregard can also passive – no words at all, eyes sliding past as if no one were there. It takes attention and effort to refrain from this. When we practice either form, we run the risk of burdening the hearts of others with a scorn that is poison to the soul.

Not exactly a good tip.

Gladly

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I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.

Jerusalem – built as a city that is bound firmly together.

To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord,

as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers.”

For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.

Psalm 122, A Song of Ascents. Of David

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

For most pilgrims, going to the house of the Lord, making the journey to Jerusalem, wasn’t an easy or casual thing. It involved lots of planning and a good amount of time and money (Perhaps, for the locals, it wasn’t quite as difficult – more like the issues locals have during peak tourist season.). I’m not sure glad would be how most were feeling. Determined, yes; expectant, perhaps; satisfied, or hoping for satisfaction, maybe. I could easily agree if the verse were along these lines: Once I got to the house of the Lord, I was glad I made the trip – an it-was-worth-it statement rather that a I’m-looking-forward-to-all-the-work-that’s-coming-as-well-as-the-end-result.

But then I think about times when I’ve traveled far to be with loved ones, devoting time and money for the chance to be together. Booking flights, renting cars, getting someone to take care of home and pets during my absence were things I did happily. The joy of being united with loved ones infused the necessary activities with its presence before it happened. Whatever needed to be done, I did gladly.

The same is true of the times I traveled to attend special services – weddings, baptisms, ordinations, even funerals. I was glad to do it because I could see where all the effort would bring me.

It makes me wonder if gladness just comes more easily when there’s a lot of work involved. Am I less able to be glad when it requires little effort? It’s counterintuitive, but just might be true.

Swept Off My Feet

I life my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time and forevermore.

Psalm 121, A Song of Ascents

Anyone who lives close by it knows: the water doesn’t have to be that deep, it just has to be moving quickly. An undertow at the beach, a slimy rock in the stream bed: add a misplaced foot and a moment of distraction and the dangerous power of water reveals itself. Only the ignorant and the arrogant doubt or disregard the possibility of being swept away by this elemental force. It’s happened to me a handful of times. In all cases but one, I was able to regain my footing quickly; in the one case, someone else pulled me to safety.

That feeling of losing my footing has happened to me a handful of times in the spiritual sense as well. When I thought I had it all figured out and was sure I could find my way through life easily; when death came for friends and relatives; when hatred revealed itself in words and actions; when confronted with the harmful aspect of my own inner life. It’s at such times that the big question arises: do I trust that God is the solid ground beneath my feet?

Do you?

Lost and Found

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. [Psalm 121:8, NRSV]

There were no streetlights near my home when I was in my teen years. On cloudy nights, or ones when there was no moon to light the way, darkness covered everything. One such night, I was walking back from a friend’s house after neighbors were in bed, lights off. About a third of the way home, before I made the turn and could see my house, my friend shut off her porch light. In that moment, a thousand yards from home, everything disappeared. After a moment or two of standing still, I continued on my way. Instead of seeing, I listened to the sound of my feet on the road; when the sound of my steps changed, I knew I had strayed off the road. I tapped my toes against the ground until I found pavement again, then kept on walking. Eventually, I rounded the corner and could see the porch light of my own home.

It’s this lost in the dark experience that I think of when I read this psalm. When I find myself in a dark place – in the existential, spiritual, emotional sense – I remember that night. Finding my way didn’t require sight, just enough trust to put one foot in front of the other until I rounded a corner and the light reappeared. My life is kept by God, coming in or going out; I may lose my way in the dark, but I’m never lost to God.

Whence?

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I life my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?

My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.

He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 121, NRSV

[Note: In the King James translation, the first verse was changed from a question to a statement – a beautiful statement of faith, but not what was written in Psalm 121. This is part of an ongoing series. For more information, click A Song of Ascents above.]

Where do I look for help when I’m in trouble? Whence cometh my help, to put more of a King James spin on it. Whom do I trust with my very life, in all circumstances? It’s a critical question, and the answer is always a statement of faith, even when God’s presence has sustained me through past difficulties. I will trust in God when I need help, just as I trust in God when things are going well.

Once I give my answer in this psalm, I find myself in good company. All of a sudden, there’s another voice, assuring me of God’s faithfulness. Someone else is with me in all of this, someone else is telling me that God will keep my life: I won’t be alone through any of it. I’m not the only one who cries for help, and mine isn’t the only life held by God. My neighbor in faith is with me, and we are both beloved children of the one who created and sustains this universe.

God, self, and neighbor in this mysterious and holy creation. Bound together in all circumstances. Not a one of us alone.

Marvelous.

Putting it in Words

[Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, June 24]

When we speak deep truths, something irrevocable occurs. We can’t unsay them, even if we speak them aloud to no one but ourselves. An I love you spoken and heard can transform the world well beyond the sayer and hearer. An I love you left unsaid may be deeply felt, but there’s a certain something it only gains in the saying. It may not be necessary, but it is vitally important.

The same is true for words of grief. To pick up the phone and tell someone that a beloved parent/friend/husband/wife has died is to make it real in a way it wasn’t beforehand. The words don’t change the loss, but they change it from an external reality to the heart’s own truth.

For Whose Benefit?

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.” Matthew 18:21-22

For most of my life, I assumed that the reason Jesus told Peter to forgive another was for the benefit of the other person. It seemed like a lot to require of anyone, and it still does.

The older I get, the more inclined I am to see how forgiveness benefits the forgiver as much or more than the one forgiven. To be released from that acid gnawing away at body and spirit that corrodes the very heart of my being until I forgive is a grace bordering on the miraculous.

Is releasing another from a burden of guilt, of restoring another’s inner peace, too high a price for the reprieve from my own suffering?

[Daily Peace: Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2015; photos by Marek Minch and Elena Alyukova-Sergeeva. For more on this series, click Daily Meds above.]

With age…

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[Author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail; excerpt from Daily Peace; Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2015]

What is unforgivable? It’s an important question that arises whenever harm comes into our lives. And an even more critical question: who cannot be forgiven?

The older I get, the more I am convinced of this: when I assign someone to the land of the unforgivable and unforgiven, I end up living there, too. Only by the grace of God can either one of us find release.

What is Required?

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“What is your vocation? To be a good person.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 11.5

The Stoics believed, above all else, that our job on this earth is to be a good human being. It is a basic duty, yet we are experts at coming up with excuses for avoiding it.

Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2016, p. 165

One of my family’s core beliefs: you weren’t put on this earth to be miserable. Most often, it came out when one of us had been dealing with a difficult situation or person over a long enough period of time to warrant some kind of change – this affirmation that none of us was meant to live a miserable life.

On occasion, it was used in the other sense – none of us was meant to be the cause of suffering and misery for others. This wasn’t because the lives of others were of lesser value, but because there were other ways of saying the same thing that were more frequently said: treat others as you want to be treated; if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all; how would you like it if…; you were put here to be a gift to the world.

You would think it goes without saying that all of us have a responsibility to be good to others and to be good to ourselves, that such a thing is too obvious to miss, but it isn’t true. What’s left unsaid is easily forgotten or ignored – and the world is the lesser for that omission.

Say it in whatever person’s words work for you – Marcus Aurelius, Gandhi, Malala Yousafzai, or Mother Teresa. Or go with the classic:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good; what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8, NRSV

Incoming

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The wisps of cloud dipping down mark its edge. There’s a soft rustling and a faint brush of moist air. It’s rare in this part of the world – a visible wall of rain moving down the mountain toward me.

These few words and this image are the best way I can offer an experience of it, but it isn’t something easy to recognize from a photo or description. They might help you recognize what they indicate sometime in the future, or bring to mind an experience you’ve already had of rain coming in. They may draw you in to the experience, past or yet to be.

Sometimes, I think that’s what scripture is – humanity’s best attempt to share an experience of God in word and image. If you’ve already had the experience, they will draw you back into it. If your experience is yet to come, they’ll guarantee you know it when it arrives…