Daily Devotion - April 10
I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara
GOOD FRIDAY
Today was a hard day in our household. We've been beaten by school and spent the day quite underwater. I posted something personal on Facebook for the first time in two years, just expressing how hard it was. I received lovely messages of support and commiseration in response. Because, oh yeah, we belong to each other.
Life is hard, for all of us, right now, for a dozen different reasons. And our struggles and reasons are bumping up against other people's struggles and reasons, and it's all a bit much sometimes.
Sometimes it's all a bit much.
Also, we are doing our best, most of us, most of the time.
So God bless us all.
Today is a special day in our faith. Good Friday. And I'm extra emotional about it because we won't be together singing, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" a cappella in the haunting darkness of the sanctuary, and quietly leaving to try to stay silent in the car all the way home.
Our rituals are all messed up this year. But, thanks be to God, the power and message of this day transcends all our patterns and rituals.
I am grateful for our online gathering this evening. However it happens, I am grateful for the stillness that it ushers in. I am grateful for a community with whom to retell this deep and ancient story of an improbable truth: that God comes in, that Jesus takes all our suffering, all our death, into the heart of God.
There is nothing God has not suffered: hopes that crumble, plans that are lost, fear that rises up and comes out in tears of anguish and dread, betrayal and loss, lungs that can't get air, goodbyes unsaid and departures too soon, all we wish could be and can't, all we wish we could do but won't. It's all held in God and swallowed in love on this day.
There is a place in our faith for hopelessness. A place for all despair. These things belong in the story of God. They are integral to it. Today is the day for all that.
That is how this most awful of days is Good Friday.
A blessing for this day:
Still
For Good Friday
This day
let all stand still
in silence,
in sorrow.
Sun and moon
be still.
Earth
be still.
Still
the waters.
Still
the wind.
Let the ground
gape in stunned
lamentation.
Let it weep
as it receives
what it thinks
it will not
give up.
Let it groan
as it gathers
the One
who was thought
forever stilled.
Time
be still.
Watch
and wait.
Still.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
CONNECTING RITUAL:
- Kara
GOOD FRIDAY
Today was a hard day in our household. We've been beaten by school and spent the day quite underwater. I posted something personal on Facebook for the first time in two years, just expressing how hard it was. I received lovely messages of support and commiseration in response. Because, oh yeah, we belong to each other.
Life is hard, for all of us, right now, for a dozen different reasons. And our struggles and reasons are bumping up against other people's struggles and reasons, and it's all a bit much sometimes.
Sometimes it's all a bit much.
Also, we are doing our best, most of us, most of the time.
So God bless us all.
Today is a special day in our faith. Good Friday. And I'm extra emotional about it because we won't be together singing, "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" a cappella in the haunting darkness of the sanctuary, and quietly leaving to try to stay silent in the car all the way home.
Our rituals are all messed up this year. But, thanks be to God, the power and message of this day transcends all our patterns and rituals.
I am grateful for our online gathering this evening. However it happens, I am grateful for the stillness that it ushers in. I am grateful for a community with whom to retell this deep and ancient story of an improbable truth: that God comes in, that Jesus takes all our suffering, all our death, into the heart of God.
There is nothing God has not suffered: hopes that crumble, plans that are lost, fear that rises up and comes out in tears of anguish and dread, betrayal and loss, lungs that can't get air, goodbyes unsaid and departures too soon, all we wish could be and can't, all we wish we could do but won't. It's all held in God and swallowed in love on this day.
There is a place in our faith for hopelessness. A place for all despair. These things belong in the story of God. They are integral to it. Today is the day for all that.
That is how this most awful of days is Good Friday.
A blessing for this day:
Still
For Good Friday
This day
let all stand still
in silence,
in sorrow.
Sun and moon
be still.
Earth
be still.
Still
the waters.
Still
the wind.
Let the ground
gape in stunned
lamentation.
Let it weep
as it receives
what it thinks
it will not
give up.
Let it groan
as it gathers
the One
who was thought
forever stilled.
Time
be still.
Watch
and wait.
Still.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
CONNECTING RITUAL:
Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pause, reflect, and pray in this way, and so join our hearts:
I empty my heart to you this night, O God,
holding nothing back.
Thank you that you receive what I bring.
Bring my soul to stillness.
May I rest in you.
Amen.
I empty my heart to you this night, O God,
holding nothing back.
Thank you that you receive what I bring.
Bring my soul to stillness.
May I rest in you.
Amen.
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