Category: Speaking to the Soul

Teaching and healing. Word and sacrament. Religious/political discourse and hands-on service to the needs of others. Walking the talk.

Dorothy Sayers says it nicely: “God did not abolish the fact of evil. He transformed it. He did not stop the crucifixion. He rose from the dead.”

Today we begin the Joseph saga in Genesis. We also start Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth, and we open the first gospel, the Gospel of Mark.

“The Lord is near.” What a gentle encouragement. Much of the intention of the many prayer disciplines is to create in us a constant sense of God’s presence. Classical spirituality calls it “recollection” — the state of being constantly aware of God and responsive to God’s presence. Some use the word “mindfulness”. A gentle reminder — “the Lord is near” — repeated over and over can help plant a mindful consciousness within us.

We are to look at ourselves with conscious penitence. We are to confess, and to know our forgiveness. We are to take responsibility for our corporate brokenness and injustice. And we are to commit our selves to a new way, the disciplines of individual goodness and corporate reform.

Now she lived in simple dread — the burden of living up to the perfect chain or the burden of inevitable failure.