Isaiah 9:1-4
Epiphany 3 - Year A
While it sounds as if there is a moment in which gloom gives way to joy, darkness to light, and contempt is shattered in one fell blow, there is, for those who have eyes to see, a slower process that has been building to such moments of recognition that once we were one way and now we are another.
True believers have a difficult time with this. Those who honor the questions life keeps posing to the most obtuse and recalcitrant find they are always on the cusp of great change—they are change surfers.
As you continue a process of finding a new home because life has changed, or new acquaintances, or new tasks, may you find your quotient of joy also rising. There is nothing carved in stone that won’t be transformed. As in Hawthorne’s The Great Stone Face, even an old man of the mountain moves from hillside to human face.
This is new birth, birth from above, birth from below—new birth. This is faith, hope, and love all rolled together—a joy of change. Revel in it while you can and help those around you to enjoy their own letting go.
In terms of relatively local news, ice jams are causing floods on rivers. As the National Weather Service notes in their own special way of capitalized reports, ICE JAMS ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO PREDICT. THEREFORE...IT IS UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME HOW HIGH THE RIVER WILL RISE AT ANY ONE LOCATION.
Even if difficult to predict, ice does jam and unjam; life does gloom and joy; time does darken and lighten; people accept slavery and demand freedom. Current reality is—deal with it. A different reality is already underway—be ready for it.
True believers have a difficult time with this. Those who honor the questions life keeps posing to the most obtuse and recalcitrant find they are always on the cusp of great change—they are change surfers.
As you continue a process of finding a new home because life has changed, or new acquaintances, or new tasks, may you find your quotient of joy also rising. There is nothing carved in stone that won’t be transformed. As in Hawthorne’s The Great Stone Face, even an old man of the mountain moves from hillside to human face.
This is new birth, birth from above, birth from below—new birth. This is faith, hope, and love all rolled together—a joy of change. Revel in it while you can and help those around you to enjoy their own letting go.
In terms of relatively local news, ice jams are causing floods on rivers. As the National Weather Service notes in their own special way of capitalized reports, ICE JAMS ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO PREDICT. THEREFORE...IT IS UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME HOW HIGH THE RIVER WILL RISE AT ANY ONE LOCATION.
Even if difficult to predict, ice does jam and unjam; life does gloom and joy; time does darken and lighten; people accept slavery and demand freedom. Current reality is—deal with it. A different reality is already underway—be ready for it.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
From a PBS program on the holocaust last night we hear this advice to the young:
Try not to be a perpetrator
Try not to be a bystander
Try not to be a victim
This is a great light that allows us no gloom in the midst of anguishing situations. How are you doing?
There is no political or economic party or theory that will get us out of our humanness and what it is we can do to one another. There are still genocides going on in the world around us. Some are in one country or another, against one people or another, and some are global (think of the children who starved to death today). In USofA politics it is an incipient genocide on the poor that we must deal with. How in this setting is it possible to not be a perpetrator and keep a standard of living we have become addicted to? How are we anything but bystanders as pro forma confirmation hearings and sneaking of nasty things into must-pass legislation go on and on? How can we keep what goes around from coming around so that all become victims, not just currently identified victims?
May you receive the light you need to not perpetrate evil by standing by as victims multiply.
May you be light to those so caught to lead them from death to life.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 4-9
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
While it sounds as if there is a moment in which gloom gives way to joy, darkness to light, and contempt is shattered in one fell blow, there is, for those who have the eyes to see, a slower process that has been building to such times of recognition that once we were one way and now we are another.
True believers have a difficult time with this, but those who honor the questions life keep posing to the most obtuse and recalcitrant find they are always on the cusp of great change – change surfers.
As you continue the process of finding a new home because life has changed, or new acquaintances, or new tasks, may you find your quotient of joy also rising. There is nothing carved in stone that won't erode. Even an old man of the mountain moves from hillside to human face.
This is new birth, birth from above, birth from below – new birth. This is faith, hope, and love all rolled together – the joy of change. Revel in it while you can and help those around you to enjoy their own letting go.
In terms of relatively local news, ice jams are causing floods on rivers. As the National Weather Service notes in their own special way of capitalized reports, ICE JAMS ARE VERY DIFFICULT TO PREDICT. THEREFORE...IT IS UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME HOW HIGH THE RIVER WILL RISE AT ANY ONE LOCATION.
Even if difficult to predict, ice does jam and unjam, life does gloom and joy, time does darken and lighten, people accept slavery and demand freedom. Current reality is, deal with it. A different reality is already underway, be ready for it.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
It is good to hear about "no gloom". Even as nations and regions are brought back to life, we hear, in the midst of their circumstance, a new call beyond themselves. This passage speaks of a joyful harvest, which could be imaged as putting together all the various fruits of the sea and land and air in a net.
What this passage is waiting for is our response to participate in bringing this picture of the future into the present. We may not be able to harvest the future in all its fullness, but we can do our part in our present part.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/01/isaiah-91-4.html
There is a word of hope, someday, of no gloom for the anguished. At such a time a light will shine. There will be great gloating as though dividing the spoils of a stolen treasure. When captivity is released all bets and rules are off.
That is one way to read this text of the day.
What might be a teaching of good news, in captivity and out? Does a curing/healing of every disease include the disease of revenge and recompense?
Imagine if the transition from anguish to rejoicing were not a sharp one, but simply a gradual increase of “light”. This either gloom or brightness pairing is one way to try to arrive at consciousness. To know different states is to be able to reflect on them and make decisions about a next step; what direction to head in.
If we don’t lose track of our “light”, even in a dark night of self or soul, we remain open for learning that doesn’t have to overcompensate for the darkness of a previous stage of life. With a growing light we are able to reflect on how far we have come, the reality of our present (including its limits), and that intriguing path over there that beckons us to a new vantage point.
Imagine: there is no gloom now for those who begin to learn and proclaim and learn some more.