One always has to be careful of what prays for.

Oh, Terror Frenzy

In London again, Sigh, Please

Fill my coffee mug.

The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in Him I put my hope. Lamentations 3:22–24

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for guiding us, your children, here on earth. We thank you that whatever happens to us, we can again and again find joy because you give us what is good even when times are evil and when we go through sorrow. We thank you that your goodness and your faithfulness penetrate everything, and that at last, at long last, they penetrate our hearts. Then we can know and be glad that your Spirit guides us. We can know we are never alone but can receive strength to help us in the struggle and toil of our life. Through your help everything becomes fruitful – good and evil, life and death, health and suffering. Everything must serve you through the working of your Spirit. Amen.

God, give us discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that instead we may live deep within our hearts. Grant us anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace. Bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen.

Pamela Voelkel is a hero of mine. Because while a heck of a lot of us complain and shake the newspaper headlines and roll our eyes in horrified embarrassment, she is on the phone, she is writing the letters, she is marching in the streets.  She is refusing to believe that nothing can be done, that the power lies so strongly locked in the dimly lit backrooms that we can only murmur over the latest meme, sigh, and then slide our sights down the happy hour list to the amber beers.

Anger is a good thing, rightly directed. Today as I pick up my cross and follow Him, may I remember that I follow Him who overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons in the Temple, He who looked around at the smug Pharisees with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and who restored health and wholeness on the Sabbath, and He who warned because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

And I am deeply grieved over the terror and destruction and death of six innocent people in London last night. But I also grieve that the car bombs that smacked Damascus, Kabul, Baghdad, and Bukavu and killed equally innocent bystanders this week were relegated to the back page of the Arizona Star, right next to the crossword puzzle and just above the ad for the warehouse clearance at Apollo flooring.

And so dear Lord, I confess that I often settle for easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships. Often. And as I drop my nets this year, and follow You, may I learn to live deep within my heart. Grant me the gift of anger.

Your hand will find out all Your enemies;
    your right hand will find out those who hate You.
You will make them as a blazing oven
    when You appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in His wrath,
    and fire will consume them.

Though they plan evil against You,
    though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
For You will put them to flight;
    You will aim at their faces with Your bows.

Be exalted, O Lord, in Your strength!
    We will sing and praise Your power.  Psalm 21: 8-13

Once again the chortle of the St. Francis fountain dribbles in the background

Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. Indeed, our heart rejoices in Him, for in His holy Name we put our trust. Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us, as we have put our trust in You. Psalm 33:20-22

I will sing of mercy and justice; to You, O LORD, will I sing praises. I will strive to follow a blameless course; oh, when will You come to me? I will walk with sincerity of heart within my house. Psalm 101:1-2

Back to Letters to Malcolm and Mr. Lewis… who seems to nail it once again, opening him up where the bookmark was left a few weeks back and yet a seemingly eternity: Anger–no peevish fit of temper, but just, generous, scalding indignation–passes (not necessarily at once) into embracing, exultant, re-welcoming love. That is how friends and lovers are truly reconciled. Hot wrath, hot love. Such anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it. The angers, not the measured remonstrances, of lovers are love’s renewal. Wrath and pardon are both, as applied to God, analogies; but they belong together to the same circle of analogy–the circle of life, and love, and deeply personal relationships. Al the liberalizing and “civilizing” analogies only lead us astray. Turn God’s wrath into more enlightened disapproval, and you turn His love into mere humanitarianism. The “consuming fire” and the “perfect beauty” both vanish. We have, instead, a judicious headmistress or a conscientious magistrate. It comes of being high-minded.

Things to think about.

Let Your lovingkindness, Oh LORD, be upon us, as we have put our trust in You.

Prompt: Write for one minute about poverty. Prompt: What makes you angry?

Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts.

There are all sorts of poverty and all sorts of anger. And these days I have been mulling over the Sermon on the Plains that took place after this conversation with the Pharisees, as Jesus explained what it meant to really follow Him. And somehow those who are poor and hungry and weeping are blessed, while those who ask, “When did we ever see you?” are cursed.

And I have seen some of the blessed ones. And poor means the rehydration room with my baby strapped down onto a piece of plywood with eleven other babies and the IV bottles that only drip irregularly and no one has any diapers and the only place to sit is leaning up against a 2 x 4 nailed into the bug-specked wall and it is okay that we have no food and drink because the water isn’t running in the hospital that day so there is a big mound of multi-shaded poop in the toilet and it is hot and humid and the bathroom door won’t shut all the way and one of the little boys dies during the night and even though his momma crawls up onto the board and weeps there is nothing we can do but sit there helplessly and stare with big round tired eyes.  And hungry means that we wake up in the morning and really every single thought for the whole long day is how to get one cup of white rice for each member of your family that day. And the lady from the government says that it would be good to have a matchbox-sized piece of meat once a week but that is only for rich people who live in the town up the hill. And sometimes my best friend Ramoncita said she wasn’t hungry but I knew that really it was because there wasn’t quite enough food to go around and three of her children died from vomiting and diarrhea, which really means they starved to death. And weeping is when our border collie Daisy ran out into Country Club Road and got hit by a car and the neighbor lady came out and covered the body and when Ali saw the sheet-covered body he wept and wept because when he lived in Iraq a sharpshooter killed his favorite uncle and his dead body lay in the street outside his front door for a week but Ali had to walk past the dead body every single day without looking and without crying because maybe if he showed that he knew him or cared the sharpshooter would shoot him too. So now a year later he wept for his uncle and his friend and his taxi cab driver whose arm was blown off and the principal of his school who wouldn’t give his address to the guys with the machine guns. And for his country, he wept.

And right now there are people marching around with signs with red, white and blue paint on them. Angry people shaking their fists at tired and poor and huddled children, the homeless and tempest-tossed yearning to breathe free. And I could get really angry too but that sure wouldn’t help anything, and anyways even when people were spitting on Jesus and calling him names He said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” and what I do know is what I can do and do it, and that is enough.