Psalm 27:1, 4-9

Epiphany 3 - Year A

In the midst of a roller-coaster that is life—

Up—confidence in G*D
Down—evildoers assail
Up—I’ll still be confident
Down—days of trouble
Up—praise
Down—abandoned
Up—taken in
Down—violence
Up—courage

—are you a glass half-full (bottom-half awaiting more or top-half anticipating a fall) or are you a glass half-empty (bottom-half, all that’s left from being of service, or top-half, covering emptiness)?

If called, will you go hesitantly or enthusiastically? In the midst of disagreement are you a hands-on bridge-builder or hands-off they-deserve-each-other trumpeter?

Is our one desire to live in G*D’s house or skin? This would take forgetting a number of other things we know about G*D. We are likely to still have a sense of uncertainty while inside G*D’s place. G*D seems to have arguments with G*D and to repent G*D’s own actions and experience. Why wouldn’t we, who are filled with G*D DNA, find ourselves likewise divided wherever we find ourselves?

As we live in the midst of divisions where it is all too easy to claim our good as very good and the bad of our adversary as very bad, remembering we live in a tension with ourselves as well as with others will help us along the way.

Is it true that my good isn’t good enough yet because it hasn’t adequately taken your good into account?

 

As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience

 

 

In the midst of the roller-coaster that is life —

Up - confidence in God
Down - evildoers assail
Up - I'll still be confident
Down - days of trouble
Up - praise
Down - abandoned
Up - taken in
Down - violence
Up - courage

are you a glass half-full (bottom-half awaiting more or top-half anticipating a fall) are a glass half-empty (bottom-half, what's left from being of service, or top-half, covering emptiness)?

If called will you go hesitantly or enthusiastically? In the midst of disagreement are you a hands-on bridgebuilder or hands-off proclaimer that they deserve each other?

It really isn't so amazing that there is still a sense of uncertainty while inside G*D's place. G*D seems to have arguments with G*D with G*D repenting G*D's own actions and experience. Why wouldn't we, who are filled with G*D DNA, find ourselves divided.

All that talk of oneness sometimes has us denying our differences rather than hearing it as a goal of finding a better way between two ways found to be so good by their own adherents and so not good by those in another camp.

Is it true that my good isn't good enough yet because it hasn't adequately taken your good into account?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html

 

 

Psalm 27:1, 4-9
Isaiah 9:1-4
1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Matthew 4:12-23

Great affirmations are tested by great questions.

The Lord is my light . . . seek his face/light. What is this distance between having and seeking that finds us living most of our lives between?

Go into all the world, baptizing . . . Christ did not send me to baptize. Here a distance between community and individual sets up another omnipresent environment where we adapt and are evolved.

Light has dawned . . . repent. Repent . . . good news. Given time and space and matter and energy it seems we cannot escape these outcomes that circle through our lives. A dawning light reveals a present darkness and recognizing the possibility of changing direction brings comfort enough to test our current orientation.

An Epiphany star reminds us of the found and lost and found again process of growing spirits to find a next immanence or incarnation of G*D illumined by the ordinary. Stars of any sort in our lives are a joy to behold and a source of yearning when lost in storm clouds.

Where are you, your friends/family, spiritual fellowship with a star this day?

__ It is in sight.
__ It has recently dimmed.
__ It peeks and hides.
__ It has been a long time gone.
__ It is a non-issue

= = = = = = =

a great light shines
great enough for us to rejoice for a moment
blinding us to flickery light twinks so small
they can be discarded with nary a squint

upper lights glare until
lower lights are lost
so enamored of mercy received
we lose track of mercy extended

it seems the brighter the beam the deeper the sin seen
pray also for a faint of gleam that does not scare us
with such darkness as would swallow us whole
rejoice forever in a nearing humble light

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html

 

 

Where shall I stay today? What will be my jumping off from place? From where do I begin a next leap of faith?

These orienting questions enlarge the imagery of "living in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." Without them such a house will become all too static an environment -- no breathing -- only exhalation -- or -- only inhalation -- only a harp-playing heaven.

How's a lazy, self-congratulatory ("everything I do is good and very good") G*D going to get information and challenge without the dissatisfaction and yearning of such as yourself/myself/ourselves with only a backside to view. And so we do our acrobatic leaps of faith to entice and court another glance and we both are fed.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

 

 

What does it mean to live in the "house" or "rebuilt tent" of G*D?

Here are some responses of the Psalmist to that question:

Are these characteristics of the congregation you are with?

What mechanisms do you use to experience, see and act on, a heart full of courage? Hopefully they include at least one from column A, another from column B, and yet a third option from column C. That is, that you are not limited to religious responses, even if asking a question to which religion is all too quick to respond.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/01/psalm-271-4-9.html

 

 

Ahh, the desire of beauty and learning. These are worthy seekings.

For now, though, remember your Purloined Letter? What might it be to be hidden in a day of trouble (today)? How is one hidden both under a tent and at a high remove? How does one not be noticed while singing their head off? Perhaps we need to ask the Shadow who knew how to work in the face of the evil that “lurks in the hearts of men” through learning an East Asian technique to cloud the minds of others while going his own way.

Here we are, trying to find a hidden face of G*D while hiding our face in the presence of trouble. Something here needs to shift.

In troublesome times we are not helped by escaping our realities via a deus ex machina but in seeing G*D’s face in the face of our difficulty. To face our difficulty is to step aside from a sense of forsakenness to claim a participation in transforming life. The laboratory or school of beauty is not cosmetology, but a deeper inquiry into what lies beneath our current dis-ease and beyond our divisions. In this we will find our orientation changing from “my salvation” to “our salvation”.

This beauty of inquiry is our life-line to not becoming an enemy or holding on to an enemy, but to join and transpose/modulate an ancient melody to a new song. “Modulation is the essential part of the art. Without it there is little music, for a piece derives its true beauty not from the large number of fixed modes which it embraces but rather from the subtle fabric of its modulation.”—Charles-Henri Blainville (1767)

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/01/psalm-271-4-9.html