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.

the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with each other in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:2-3

Basically my excuse for glancing through the newspaper every morning before my quiet reflective time is that I am bringing these events into my meditations and prayers.  So today, as I am flipping throughs stories about refugee camps full of Syrians, drug tests for middle school athletes, concealed gun permits on the University of Colorado and 140 million dollar salaries for CEOs of nonprofit organizations, I read about Ralph Reed. 

“God’s right-hand man,” plans to unleash a sophisticated, microtargeted get-out-the-evangelical-vote operation that he believes could nudge open a margin of victory if Mr. Romney can keep the race close. In the coming weeks, he says, each of those 17.1 million registered voters in 15 key states will receive three phone calls and at least three pieces of mail. Seven million of them will get e-mail and text messages. Two million will be visited by one of more than 5,000 volunteers. Over 25 million voter guides will be distributed in 117,000 churches. He admits what seems an audacious prediction: that record numbers of socially conservative evangelical Protestants will turn out for the first presidential election in history without a Protestant on the Republican ticket. “God,” he said with a laugh, “has a sense of humor.” That may be, but Mr. Reed has a plan. And he has the money to back it up: an estimated $10 million to $12 million from contributors across the Republican spectrum, according to a partial list of donors and people with direct knowledge of his operation.

His two big focal points is the President’s health care overall which requires all insurance companies, even religious ones, to provide free contraceptives and outlawing gay marriage.  

And beyond the fact that it breaks my heart that not only all the money and the power in our political systems says that these are the two top issues that binds the hearts of followers of Christ, even more so it is frightfully humbling to identify myself publicly as a follower of Jesus Christ when this is the crowd in which I make my pilgrimage.

And cannot this money be spent on low-income prenatal counseling or after-school tutoring or providing a few more Child Protection Services workers or people who process papers at Veteran's Affairs or mosquito netting in the Sudan or even billions and billions of little red Bibles in five different languages.  But rather “God’s Right-hand man” is called to bother people at dinner time and provide a few more cents to the folks at the United States Post Office, which isn’t entirely a bad thing.

I cannot even begin to wrap my brain around how my fellow filled-with-the-Holy-Spirit others see this as following Jesus, someone who assiduously avoided politics as being “horses and chariots” in whom man puts his trust, but even more clearly spoke against aligning oneself with wealth and power.  Not even to begin to find a place for his clearly delineated How Then Shall We Live Sermon on the Mount.  Now I can argue logic and consistency and organize long lines of Scriptures triple referenced with my brothers.  All day long, and probably long into the night as well.  

But rather, I am told to bear with each other in love, striving for unity through the bond of peace.  

But what about them, I sputter, what about the logs and trunks and branches poking out of their eyes?

What is that to you?  

Maybe it’s time for a long walk in the desert.    

And as I examine my own right hand, starting to crumple and twist a bit with arthritis and nicely bespeckled with too-much-sun spots, I can raise it.  I can stand up, raise my hand and join Ananias and say, “Here I am, LORD.”  Completely humble and gentle, but with a fire in my belly.  Here I am, LORD.

Holy Spirit, help my heart to be soft and malleable and full of courage. Help me to

remember who I really am. Help me to overflow with genuine love, and act out of that

love, rather than just adding “one more thing.” Fill me with yourself.