New every morning.

Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. Psalm 90:14

 Do not be conformed to the thinking of this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

Christians need one another. God's Word – the good news of forgiveness, reconciliation, and new creation in Jesus Christ – does not spring naturally from the human heart or intellect. It can only be communicated through the witness in word and deed of faithful believers listening attentively to one another, actively helping one another, and bearing one another. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, through such practical yet essential ministry, Christians are able to become proclaimers of God’s Word for and to one another. In a multiplicity of ways, the ministry or service Christians offer is that of ―meeting one another as bringers of the message of salvation. Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Well, even after all of last night’s Blood Red Super Eclipse hoopla, it is still there. Silently still. A full moon low over the western horizon greeting the new day of pinky golden wisps in the east. A new day. Every day. And sometimes the night whispers dark sad thoughts to me, and I wake up unrefreshed and weary, weighted down by the cares of the day before it even begins.

And Sunday was a beautiful reminder of the unexpected. Because He is like that. I woke up raspy throated and sneezy and tired before I even started up Sentential Peak as usual. And I managed to talk myself out of the weekly discipline, and turned around after only a mile, convinced of its hopelessness and settled on a quick vuelta around Reid Park.

But at the corner I bumped into one of those bicycle clumps. Twenty people hunched over their road bikes that cost more than their cars and their feet neatly clipped into their pedals. And I asked if I could join, and they asked if I were a safe rider, and I didn’t know how to answer that, so I asked where we were going. To Sahuaro National Park East. Like a 44-mile loop. And btw this is a training group for El Tour of Tucson with no dropping.

Sort of like those Yogi Berra quotes. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

And I did it.

And how beautiful those rolling hills are in the bright morning light.

Reverend Susan talked about courage yesterday too. And opening different doors.

And maybe this new day thing is a reminder that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus. To be reminded what a fresh start is like because we need it every single morning as we head out into the world of people proclaiming the good news of forgiveness and reconciliation.

To a proclaimer of God’s Word because it is written all over who I am. In word and deed.

And last night the Monday night group talked about loving my brother. As in if you say you love God and do not love your brother, you lie.

God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator. Now the other person, in the freedom with which he was created, becomes the occasion of joy, whereas before he was only a nuisance and an affliction. God does not will that I should fashion the other person according to the image that seems good to me, that is, in my own image; rather in his very freedom from me God made this person in His image. I can never know beforehand how God's image should appear in others. That image always manifests a completely new and unique form that comes solely from God's free and sovereign creation. To me the sight may seem strange, even ungodly. But God creates every man in the likeness of His Son, the Crucified. After all, even that image certainly looked strange and ungodly to me before I grasped it. Bonheoffer, Life Together

And a helpful thing is that each and every one of my kiddos has stitched across his or her chest in bright colors, “Image of God.”

May He give me eyes to see.

Awake my heart. And smile in the teeth of spears and daggers.

Sing to the LORD and bless his Name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations and His wonders among all peoples. Psalm 96:2–3

This makes it clear that intercession is also a daily service we owe to God and our brother. He who denies his neighbour the service of praying for him denies him the service of a Christian. It is clear, furthermore, that intercession is not general and vague but very concrete: a matter of definite persons and definite difficulties and therefore of definite petitions. 

But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God. Dietrich Bonheoffer, Life Together

Man, the other ladies in my Monday night Bible study have some crazy-hard stories to share because Bonheoffer is all about intercessory prayer and definite persons and definite petitions in Life Together. Well, not all about it, but it is a manifestation of God With Us. And one of my community, a nurse who walks alongside single teenage moms talked about her group’s use of Strength-based therapy.

And I started thinking about my inquiry-based research project yesterday on seventh grade subjects the last period of a ten-hour day in a third-floor classroom with no air conditioning. And because there was a huge connection because what we are doing in math with exponents and multiplying with decimals and in science calculating accurate measurements and the visit from TEP during the previous class, I created a theoretically brilliant-like-a CFL-bulb DO NOW warm-up that was greeted with anything but engagement. And I almost slipped into the berating tone of a slightly offended pretty weary teacher, but rather I extrapolated the mild enthusiasm of two Rwandan students into a broader congratulatory almost-nonsensical pep talk of scholars tackling tough-to-figure-out multistep word problems. And slowly the eyeballs focused, the chitchat drifted over to the task-at-hand and I didn’t have to keep muttering, “Ladies and gentlemen, three, two, one, contact” over the rumble. And the kid who flapped his arm in my face and bounced up and down in his seat during my explanation and modeling moment, and when I at last called on him he asked, “Miss, where did you get those ugly shoes?” I was able to smile.

And the point of all this is that proclaiming good news is a lot more effective than pointing-the-finger condemnation. And this morning I met with Mike Birrer in the Little Chapel of All Nations to pray for downtown. And I was pretty dripping wet from IM Day in the pool, but he had a nice cup of hot tea ready, and we prayed through Psalm 57.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge.

And

I cry out to God Most High,
    to God who fulfills His purpose for me

And

God will send out His steadfast love and His faithfulness!

And, just for me and my day and the day of Kathy the nurse at a huge urban high school filled with fist fights and Type 2 diabetes and asking for band-aids for scraped knees when what they really have is scraped hearts and Cathy as she stands at the apartment door of teens with big fat back-stories who are seventeen-weeks pregnant and still doing mosh pits and maybe a little weed:

My soul is in the midst of lions;
    I lie down amid fiery beasts—
the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows,
    whose tongues are sharp swords.

And may I who plead for mercy from a steadfast God, offer mercy.

And I think of Andres in Maldonado, Spain. And how he says his ministry is listening. And he invites pilgrims up the big stair steps overlooking the cathedral for a cup of coffee and listens to their story.

And today, may I listen with the ears of God that I may speak the Word of God.

Sing to the LORD and bless His Name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations and His wonders among all peoples.