After Psalm 33

...
Praise and thank God for our many blessings, because we are truly blessed.
Thank God with music, with dance, and with art
Proclaim your love and praise God loudly, so all can hear and see - because God is good and God's every deed is done in faithfulness.

God loves Mercy and Justice; the world is full of the steadfast love of the Lord;
God spoke and the universe was created, and God's breath lives within all life. God knows the fish of the sea, and the stars of the sky, every one by its own name.

God is awesome; God stands before time and also after; God was concerned with the events of your life before your eldest ancestor crept from the sea, and lovingly contemplates the echo of your features in the descendants of generations to come.

There is nothing that is hidden from God, and each of us is in God's sight. God knows us from the inside out, in our most shameful secrets and our hidden joys.

Nations, leaders and movements plot and plan, and seek to own the world, but the world is in God's hands, and God frustrates their plans. God's direction is clear and unchanged. Judgment and time belong to God, and from God no wealth, no power, and no physical strength can save you.

Happy are the people who follow in God's footsteps, who enter into God's labors. God watches over the faithful, who find eternal life in his steadfast love, and manna in the midst of want.

We wait upon the love of God, who is our help and protector. In God we find our joy and in God's name renewal. O Lord, be with us and bless us, even as we hope in you.

Peace,
Locust Eater

A Different Feast

As the sun gazes warmly down
I look down the railbed;
A haze of moisture rises from the earth;
It's hot, and humid.
Making things a few thousand feet away faint and misty.
A freight-car on a siding is a misty, pinkish box.
The cattails sway beside me,
And I hear the train approaching in the distance,
It's horn sounds mournful.

And now the train is here and people are boarding.
I board last, and find a seat in an air-conditioned car,
And watch the ferns, rocks, forests and streams slide past my window,
The train gently rumbling along.

I'd much rather be out there,
With some silly kids,
Poking under rocks and spying on birds and bunnies,
Splashing in streams.
And getting bit by mosquitos.
Getting wet, sweaty, and muddy.

For me, that would be a feast.

Difficult Introductions

Inspired by this and this.

...

'Sin', 'Death' and 'Hell' seem like such tough words to use when introducing God to children... ...any of God's children.

When my children introduce me to their friends, they say that I am 'nice' and 'funny'.

I think God is jealous of me.

Very jealous.

Love,
Locust-Eater

Making a Difference:

Two wonderful examples of how to make a difference in the world, from one blogger;
One:
be sharp-eyed and sensitive.
Two:
Be a friend to strangers.

See, that's not so hard, is it?

The Voice of Evil

The voice of evil calls to us
Wherever it can reach us
It delights in death, despair and destruction
It raises up sin after sin before our eyes
Look! It says; Humans (even you) are hopelessly corrupt!
There is no use in building,
Everything will be swept away!
Everything you create is already dying, falling apart, will be destroyed!
Your neighbors are criminals, rapists, even pedophiles!
Everyone wants to steal from you!
Your very identity is at risk!
Cancer, murder, terrorism, death and loss!
Darkness, addiction, corruption and evil!

The voice of evil shouts at you from your TV, your radio, the newspaper and the internet. It repeats it's message of death and hopelessness over and over, and good honest people start repeating it themselves.

But there is a reason that the voice of evil must be so strident, and so unceasing, and that is because it is trying to drown out another voice; A voice that permeates all creation, that comes from every thing; A quiet voice, a humbler melody - that whispers to everything from everywhere;

Live
Love
Share
Give
Help
Grow
Build
You are beloved
You are wonderful
You are beautiful
You are wanted
You are needed
You can help
You make a difference
You are One

And in the end, the voice of evil is only a counterpoint to the one voice.
Nothing it said ever mattered in the first place.
It is forever on the outside,
Forever trying to obscure what is true,
Forever living in lies;
There is nothing permanent there,
It lies outside of the truth;
It is darkness and distraction;
It is cloud and mist;
It will burn away in the sun;
It will be swept away by joy.

Listen to the voice of joy;

Live
Love
Share
Give
Help
Grow
Build
You are beloved
You are wonderful
You are beautiful
You are wanted
You are needed
You can help
You make a difference
You are One

Peace to you who are One with Love

Why Do You Teach Sunday School?

I teach Sunday School because:

Once upon a time, someone asked me to help.
I got over my fear of caring for other people's children.
It is needed.
I had good examples in the other parents.
I get to create a welcoming, safe, friendly, happy place for children in church.
I get to play with the *other* children.
I care about the place that the children are.
I get to hear children explain God.
I get to see quiet, shy children turn into outgoing, engaging little people.
I get to be an unnofficial God-parent, over and over and over.
I get to draw, color, stamp, paint, and make up silly crafts and lessons.
I am building memories that will last forever, both with the wee ones and with me.
I worry that sunday school will become rote following of pre-packaged lessons.
I think that coloring even a poorly drawn lesson from me is worth much much more to a little person than sitting in a long and confusing service.
I know that sometimes, the families come to church because the children want to color, paste, stamp whatever I have made up for them today.
I get to see the Bible and Prayerbook through a child's eyes - (and they need some healthy editing to be accessible to young ones).
I help build relationships and communities of faith.
I learn that everyone can bloom.

And because it's wonderful to see everyone bloom.


On a similar topic: Click Here

Finding God In Our Moments

I saw the girl-fox again today
She went dancing overhead
While I was sitting in traffic.
She on a railroad trestle
Me on the road
She in the wild that is so closely knit
With the roads and parking-lots and shops of suburbia.

Knowing foxes, I know her schedule.
I know that when I was rolling over for another 30 'Z's, another 20 winks,
She had already been up for an hour and a half.

I used to keep a schedule like hers, you see,
And daily meet one of her cousins a couple hours before sunrise.
At another railroad crossing,
Many miles from here.

Funnily enough, my train will take me in the direction she was headed,
As she set off for perhaps her third time already this morning.

But I still had to wait for my train;
The rails heating up and expanding in the warm sun,
The wooden ties creaking and clicking in response,
While song-birds fill the air with their music,
And the breeze shifts the grasses.

Today the train is late.
And that's just fine.

Keep Dancing in Your Heart

The other afternoon I saw the girl-fox;
Dancing along on her toes;
Both forward and shy at the same time.
Young, yet careworn.
A morsel of food in her mouth.

Guessing where her path might take her,
I moved to where I could see her again,
and she boldly came within twenty feet of me, and stopped,
wary, yet bold, watching me.

I hadn't intended to interfere with her, so I spoke gently to her, and stepped to one side.
She trotted back to where a curve would take her out of sight, and stopped, looking at me,
almost daring me to follow,
and then she went around the curve, not fast, not slow,
dancing on her toes.

I wasn't going to follow, either.
I was mindful of why a girl-fox might carry food,
Instead of eating it.
But then a yapping, fox-singing noise broke out;
The sound of young foxes greeting their mother.
So I walked to where the edge of the tall grass curved, and looked down the dirt road.

At first I saw nothing,
But then the girl-fox danced out,
Eyed me proudly, and sat.
And in a moment, two beautiful young foxes came to join her,
Playing around her,
Bouncing and pouncing.

They looked well fed and cared for,
And I understood the pride in the girl-fox's eyes.
She was care-worn from tending to her joy,
for spending her love on her children.

I asked God's blessing on her little family and headed off to my own little family,
Feeling just a bit less care-worn myself,
And somewhere inside,
dancing on my toes.

- - - - - - - - - -

And maybe this is a sign for me:
My work is very demanding
And not what I would choose
But it is what I am forced to do
What I must do for now
To care for my family
And perhaps I need to approach
My work with more joy
Because doing this work
Is caring for my family

Peace,
LE

A World of Life

Through the haze
The ground appears
Misty, bluish, brown and green

Cut and furrowed
Cross hatched and patched in funny shapes
Jumbled like a mad jigsaw puzzle

Square on this edge
Curvey on that
Jagged on the third

Patterned bits
Nosing into dark green patches
Which slide around light green swatches

The landscape seems to move
Snuggling into itself
Like calico kittens on their mother's bosom
Or sleeping lovers in crazy-quilt PJs

Till God modestly draws a wooly blanket of cottonballs over them
And I float alone in the sky

It Moves Silently

Almost hidden, glinting faintly below the trees, under the bar-berry bush and the rabbits-foot fern, the still stream glistens, small wildflower-petals dotting its surface.

It moves silently through the marshy woods, its bed richly robed in the blackened leaves of last season, each leaf in turn covered with a fuzzy-looking blanket of light brown decay.

No noise makes the stream in this part of its journey, as its waters glide very slowly along. Nothing moves this quiet morning to stir its bed.

Each place in this world has its own peculiar beauty. Every spot is filled with Light. Each small place finds its own way to show forth the awe we share.

Take some time to worship in the silent manner of this stream.

May we may find many such moments of peace in our lives.

Heavenly Accounting

The other day
I found myself parking
In a pay lot
With numbered spaces
Where you put money in a slot

But I didn't have exact change
So I had to pay too much

In the evening
I found exact change
Left for me
By the honest parking attendant
Who had carefully accounted for what I had paid

Even so
Maybe in the end
We will find our efforts tallied up
With every good deed accounted for
And learn the true value of goodness

The way things compound
And children grow
And one good deed can lead to another
Our final heavenly net worth may be
Inestimable

* * * * * * *

Dear Lord,

Help us to place something
On deposit with you
Every single day
And may our investments
Grow in love
Benefiting many

Amen