After a weekend of winter mix…snow, sleet, ice, rain, wind, the sun is shining, though the winds remain. At least the power is back on. When it went off about 6:30 last night, I decided on an early bedtime. But all is good now and I am once again thankful for all those things which provide the comfortable backdrop for our lives.
My thoughts are somewhat of a jumble as the news from Washington has been extremely concerning, the weather has been reminding us that we aren’t in charge, and I’ve been reading the seditious literature in Richard Rohr and the Scriptures. On top of that, a gang of us gathered on Saturday, in spite of the snow, to discuss ways we can both protest what Trump and Musk are doing and proclaim the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of love and inclusion, at the same time.
Rohr has a long chapter in his book, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, on what he calls table fellowship. He points out that we have turned all of the many examples found in the Gospels of Jesus eating with both rich and poor, religious and non-religious, insiders and outsiders into an exclusive ritualized meal in which only the insiders are allowed to participate when sharing table fellowship is one of the most leveling experiences we can experience. Attend a fire hall fundraiser, for instance. People from all walks of life are there, sitting together and chatting with each other. He goes on to observe that over the years, the church has used the so-called Lord’s Supper as a measure of determining who is in and who is out, who is worthy and who is unworthy, and to make matters worse, sexual “sins” are generally the determinate. Not greed, power-grabbing, or violence., which is absolutely the opposite of what Jesus intended. It is hard for us to imagine, let alone internalize, that Jesus was dirt poor, that his ministry was primarily with and to the poor, and that he was proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven to primarily those who lived on the fringes and depended on each other to survive.
Perhaps with the proposed cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc., we will have to learn how to depend on each other again, sharing meals, homes, transportation, etc. The image of what lies ahead looks very dark, Sometimes we have to lose what we have in order to appreciate what is truly important, as those who have lost everything in the fires and hurricanes will remind us. Losing electricity last night reminded me of just how hard things may get as we’ve become so dependent on modern technology, but then I am also reminded that it always looks darker before dawn.
#12 steps #Celebrate Recovery #gratitude, #lessons