Sep 30

Old Testament:   Isaiah 9-10
New Testament: Ephesians 3
Psalm:   38-39

Proverbs: 30

• Chronological    (Read the Bible in the chronological order in which its stories and events occurred.)
• Historically  (Read the books of the Bible as they were written historically, according to the estimated date of their writing.)
• Book of Common Prayer  (Daily Old and New Testament readings based on the Book of Common Prayer.)
• Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.
• Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)  Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Hymn: 198 - Blessed is the Man
Birthdays: 
Anniversary:


Thoughts:
Book of Common Prayer. Psalm 90. Maybe it is the age which I am at. But this Psalm relly spoke to me about how short my life has to go  I am approaching 70 and the Psalm speaks to 70 or 80 being the end of life and that life is full of turmoil and trauma-I do not think mine has been. There is a sense of hopelessness until the Psalmists asks God to Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.  The next day, the pastor talked in Ephesians 5, particularly verse 16, saying Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. What speaks to me is that even though I am retired, I should not let my age hinder me from committing to the work God has have me to do for the rest of my days. September 30, 2023.




Creeds:








Quotes:

A humble person is more concerned
   about what is right than about being right,
   about acting on good ideas than having the ideas,
   about embracing new truth than defending outdated positions,
   about building the team than exalting self,
   about recognizing contribution than being recognized for making it 
     - Steven M.R. Covey, The Speed of Trust, pg 64

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The more man meditates upon good thoughts,
the better will be his world and the world at large.  
    Confucius, unattributed

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...the soul of a free man looks at life
   as a series of problems to be solved
   and solves them,
 while the soul of a slave whines,
   ‘What can I do who am but a slave?’
   George S. Clason, The Richest Man in Babylon, The Camel Trader of Babylon

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If you make a man a symbol of things that are bigger
    than any one person can possibly be,
    you risk stripping that man of his sense
       of who he really is. 
    Hecotr Tobar, Deep, Down, Dark, page 450
       as a quotation of Alberto Iturra

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Satire has weakened in our epoch for several reasons,
  but chiefly, I think, because the world
  has become too absurd to be satirised.
    --GK Chesterton, The Illustrated London News, 
        December 16, 1911, "The Small Pleasures of the Poor"

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We can do no great things,
   only small things with great love.
     - Mother Teresa

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Earth laughs in flowers.   
     - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Hamatreya

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Love always leaves a significant mark 
       --William P. Young, The Shack, pg 96

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 Diary of an Old Soul-MacDonald

     The enemy still hath many things in me;
     Yea, many an evil nest with open hole
     Gapes out to him, at which he enters free.
     But, like the impact of a burning coal,
     His presence mere straight rouses the garrison,
     And all are up in arms, and down on knee,
     Fighting and praying till the foe is gone.

 

Lent, Day Fifty-Three, Easter Saturday

Lent, Day Fifty-Three, Easter Saturday
Somehow joy is much harder to express than sadness. It seems that we have more words for sickness than for health, more for abnormal conditions than for normal conditions. Does this mean there is less joy in life than sadness? Perhaps. But it is also possible that joy is in fact a deeper, more intimate, more "normal" condition than sadness, and pain and therefore harder to articulate.

For Jesus, joy is clearly a deeper and more truthful state of life than sorrow. He promises joy as the sign of new life...

Jesus connects joy with the promise of seeing him again. In this sense, it is similar to the joy we experience when a dear friend returns after a long absence. But Jesus makes it clear that joy is more than that. It is "his own joy," flowing from the love he shares with his heavenly Father and leading to completion.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Lifesigns: Intimacy, Fecundity, and Ecstasy in Christian Perspective, pg 109

Scripture:
⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.John 15:5-11

PRAYER
Loving God, our Father, let my life be a witness to your commandments, let me not be as a withered branch that is thrown into the fire and burned. May I pray to you in joy and in times of adversity. Amen.

EASTER ACTION
No greater gift of love could be demonstrated than the death of our Lord on the cross in reparation for our sins. Perhaps then Eastertide is a better occasion for giving gifts than Christmas. In celebration of Christ's resurrection, give small gifts of commemoration.

Lent, Day Fifty-Two, Easter Friday

Lent, Day Fifty-Two, Easter Friday
In prayer, God's presence is never separated from God's absence and God's absence is never separated from God's presence. The presence of God is so much beyond the human experience of being together that it quite easily is perceived as absence. The absence of God, on the other hand, is often so deeply felt that it leads to a new sense of God's presence. This is powerfully expressed in Psalm 22. [My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?]

This prayer not only is the expression of the experience of the people of Israel, but also the culmination of the Christian experience. When Jesus spoke these words on the cross, total aloneness and full acceptance touched each other. In that moment of complete emptiness all was fulfilled. In that hour of darkness new light was seen. While death was witnessed, life was affirmed.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life, pg 106

Scripture:

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
² My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.^[b]

³ Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.^[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
⁵ To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
⁷ All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
⁸ “He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

¹⁶ Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce^[a] my hands and my feet.
¹⁷ All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
¹⁸ They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

Psalm 22:1-8, 16-18

PRAYER
God of presence and absence, I know that no matter if I feelyour nearness or remoteness, you have never forsaken me. I, however, have alienated you through sin. Somehow I hope that these sins will not be fruitless, but will be transformed through your forgiveness. Amen.

EASTER ACTION
Collect small stones for each person whom you need to forgive. Keep these stones in your pocket or purse as reminders of your intent to seek and grant forgiveness. Remember an old Welsh proverb: «Love flows out of every act of forgiveness:'

Lent, Day Fifty-One, Easter Thursday

Lent, Day Fifty-One, Easter Thursday
Life is... a short moment of waiting. But life is not empty waiting. It is to wait full of expectation. The knowledge that God will indeed fulfill the promise to renew everything, and will offer us a "new heaven and a new earth," makes the waiting exciting...

The "little while" is a precious time. It is a time of purification and sanctification, a time to be prepared for the great passage to the permanent house of God. What is my task during my "little while"? I want to point to the signs of the Kingdom to come, to speak about the first rays of the day of God, to witness to the many manifestations of the Holy Spirit among us.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
The Sabbatical Journey: A Diary of His Final Year, pg 104

Scripture:
¹⁶ Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.”
¹⁷ At this, some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” ¹⁸ They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.”
²⁰ Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
²² So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 
John 16:16-18, 20, 22

PRAYER
Eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though I am here for "a little while;' keep me ever aware that my earthly weeping and mourning will be replaced by rejoicing when I see you in your heavenly glory. Amen.

EASTER ACTION
Give up nursing grief over past mistakes and instead find a reason to plan and participate in one joyful·celebration.

Lent, Day Fifty, Easter Wednesday

Lent, Day Fifty, Easter Wednesday
To follow Christ means to relate to each other with the mind of Christ; that is, to relate to each other as Christ did to us--in servant-hood and humility. Discipleship is walking together on the same path. While still living wholly in this world, we have discovered each other as fellow travelers on the same path and have formed a new community... We have become a new people with a new mind, a new way of seeing and hearing and a new hope because of our common fellowship with Christ. Compassion, then, can never be separated from community. Compassion always reveals itself in community, in a new way of being together.

Henri J.M. Nouwen, Donald P MacNeil, and Douglas A. Morrison
Compassion: A Reflection of the Christian Life, pg 102

Scripture:
¹³ Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles^[a] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him.
²⁸ As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
³³ They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together

Luke 24:13-16, 28-33

PRAYER
Great God of the entire human family, give me the ability to recognize Jesus in all whom I meet. Help me to give up my self-centered blindness and open my eyes so that I can acknowledge that we all are one in you. Amen.

EASTER ACTION
Think back and meditate on when you may have "passed by" our Lord as did the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

Lent, Day Forty-Nine, Easter Tuesday

Lent, Day Forty-Nine, Easter Tuesday
I know that [listening to the Church] isn't a popular bit of advice at a time and in a country where the Church is often seen more as an obstacle in the way than as the way to Jesus. Nevertheless, I'm deeply convinced that the greatest spiritual danger for our times is the seperation of Jesus from the Church. The Church is the body of the Lord. Without Jesus there can be no church; and without the Church we cannot stay united with Jesus. I've yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the Church. To listen to the Church is to listen to the Lord of the Church.

Specifically, this entails taking part in the Church's liturgical life, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost: these seasons and feasts teach you to know Jesus better and better and unit you more and more intimately with the divine life he offers you in the Church.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Letters to Marc About Jesus, pg 100

Scripture:
³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Romans 12:3-5

PRAYER
God of all power, you who left me in the freedom of my own human will, let me dispense with what overfills my life and leaves no room for God and his works. Help me to jettison the idolatry of all that I clutch to so tightly: money, family, fame, other people, and so on. Let me roll away the rocks from in front of my own tomb, let me find a world of new possibilities in your joyful resurrection and in the fullness of your love. Amen.

EASTER ACTION
Now is not the time to be dismal. Smile at all those you meet today.

Lent, Day Forty-Eight, Easter Monday

Lent, Day Forty-Eight, Easter Monday
We often wonder what we can do for others... It is not a sign of powerlessness when we say: "We must pray for one another." To pray for one another is, first of all, to acknowledge, in the presence of God, that we belong to each other as children of the same God. Without this acknowledgement of human solidarity, what we do for one another does not flow from who we truely are...

To pray, that is, to listen to the voice of the One who calls us his "Beloved", is to learn that voice excludes no one. Where I dwell, God dwells with me and where God dwells with me I find all my sisters and brothers.

Henri J.M. Nouwen
Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, pg 98

Scripture:
 Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, ² and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.
³ But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”
⁴ Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, “Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? ⁵ Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and didn’t she also say, ‘He is my brother’? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands.”
⁶ Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. ⁷ Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all who belong to you will die.”
Genesis 20:1-7

PRAYER
God of ail, I am on this journey of life which is a cycle of life to life: I am born, I live, I die to be born to eternal life. As I pass through on this journey, let my own sinful self die and a new person rise to the challenges of praising you. I will keep the words of the liturgy ever in mind this Eastertide: "Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again." Amen.

EASTER ACTION
The word liturgy means "work of the people:' Make a list of why the celebration of the Sunday liturgy is the most significant event of the week. You might take this opportunity to write a special thank you to the ministers of your parish.