Coming home from exercise class I was listening to NPR and a program discussing Trump’s attempts to overturn birthright citizenship. In the end, I suspect, the showdown will come when the Supreme Court rules against him. It is then we will find out if there is anyone strong enough to stand against him. Up until now he has chosen to thumb his nose at the rule of law and gotten away with it.
As I was listening, the phrase ”thy kingdom come, thy will be done” popped into my mind, along with another translation’s “don’t let surface things delude us, but keep us from what holds us back, for lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” Trying to put those two together left me in a quandary, for it seems we are surely living in a time of great temptation. Temptations have always existed, I am all too aware, but it seems like we are being bombarded like never before with nonstop advertising for stuff that can trick us into focusing on surface things instead of on what really matters.
Not knowing where to go with my thoughts, I planted a few annuals in front of the house. Being outside always seems to help me find some peace. It’s a beautiful, almost chilly spring day. The birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. Given our onslaught of recent rains, everything is green and lush.
There was something earlier on NPR about finding some new dinosaur bones, which reminded me that while things feel so unsettling these days, our experience is only a blip in time. Like the Psalmist said, “we are here today and gone tomorrow.” Is that what “don’t let surface things delude us, but keep us from what holds us back” means? That we shouldn’t take life too seriously? That we need to step back and try to see ourselves as part of a long trajectory of time? But don’t we have a responsibility to “do justice and love mercy” in the here and now? Can we simply opt out, pretending terrible disasters and injustices are not occurring? That others are suffering? That the less we do the more abuses can continue to happen? What did Jesus mean when he said, “Deliver us from evil?” Are we to sit back and wait for God to intervene in history?
The older I get, the fewer answers I have. But, the older I get, the easier it is to detach, to step back, knowing that there was a time in my life when I was all in, doing what I could to meet the needs of others, to share God’s love. Now I am more physically limited. I find it so much easier to sit back and let the cares of the world slide off my shoulders, breathing in God and breathing out anxiety and fear. But one thing seems to remain clear. No matter how active or inactive, how young or old, we are each called to be emissaries of God’s love, to stand against prejudice and shaming others in the everyday comings and goings of our lives.
Don’t let surface things delude us. But keep us from what holds us back—what holds us back from loving and forgiving, from growing and becoming more like the image of The Great I am.