ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
December 29, 2021
When I’m needing a little inspiration or push or jolt, I find Anne Lamott is often the right person to read. In her wonderful book: Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, she writes:
Love pulls people back to their feet.
Bodies and souls are fed.
Bones and lives heal.
New blades of grass grow from charred soil.
We must allow our concept of love to expand beyond hormones and warm fuzzies. I believe it is a power woven into the universe, one from which we can draw energy and inspiration; find peace and wholeness; seek the ways of justice and kindness. If God is everywhere as is poetically exhibited in Psalm 139, and God is love, then my image of God must be far beyond the old man sitting in some celestial castle. I picture God as pure love, not simply present where human beings could name it, but wherever there existence exists.
Wherever you are, O God, there is love. And since there is no place where you are not present, I can trust there is no place where love is not present. In my darkest moments, when hopelessness appears to have won the day, embolden my conviction of your abiding love forever present. Amen.
