My
heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody.
Psalm 108:1
Yesterday Alan and I went to the Church of Christ
down the street. And the stained glass window was certainly a pretty humble version of
what I saw in my wanderings, but our worship songs were led by some pretty
stellar bluegrass fiddling and the summer offerings went towards helping some
poor Vietnamese villagers continue clearing their lands of unexploded ordnance leftover from
the war. And the short thoughtful sermon on Jesus sending out the twelve and
telling them if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to
you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a
testimony against them. But mostly, we prayed the Lord’s Prayer and spoke Peace
to one another and sang the doxology, And were one. And it was good to be
reminded that we are His disciples and that we are sent out to preach
repentance.
And I know that repent means to re-see.
One of the olde tyme songs was about needing to
sing and I was distracted by the idea of singing and my severe lack of it in my
heart. Which is indeed a grievous thing reflective of a general attitude of
critical analysis rather than childlike gratitude. And taking offense. And
Jesus was unable to do mighty works in Nazareth because of the critical
analysis attitude of his hometown.
And surely He must marvel at my unbelief as well.
So much goodness heaped high onto my plate and I spend my time sorting the
colors and sifting for additives or whatever. And pushing away from the table
too quickly to scrape and rinse and put the dirty utensils tidily into the
dishwasher rather than savoring the moment. It is pretty much the preset button
on my machine.
Of this I repent.
And at Pamela’s swearing in ceremony at Calvin
Coolidge’s birthplace, the one where she promised to bear arms on behalf of the
United States, I noticed the slightly overlong speeches and the fact that no
one seemed to be wearing a watch and managing time and really, did they think
that we wanted to lay a wreath on the tomb after lunch? Rather than noticing
the three-year-old boy in a slicked up navy suit and tie from Bhutan with his
father and very pregnant mother sitting right in front of us. And he kept
running back to his grandpa next to us and giving him a big hug. Or the very
animated Peruvian lady on the other side of Pamela who wanted to make sure that
everyone followed the rules exactly so that everything would go off perfectly.
But the one I really needed to notice was the first guy from Pakistan with the
funny hat who practically did a jig of joy across the stage. And then I needed
to notice the backstories of these nineteen people. And remember the over three
million refugees from Syria flooding Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan and the almost 1000 illegal immigrants who
landed in Italy after
threatening to throw babies into the
sea if their ship was turned back. And even my ancestors who made their way by
ship across that big ocean so many years ago. And no wonder Jon and Pamela were
a little teary-eyed.
Of this I repent.
O God, you
have taught me to keep all your commandments by loving You and my neighbor:
Grant me the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may be devoted to you with my
whole heart, and united to others with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our
Lord, who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
My heart is
firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody.
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