-
Sabbath Devotional :: Pursuing Peace on the Train
About a week ago my family and I were stuck on a very overcrowded train on a holiday weekend in a foreign country. People were behaving badly. There weren’t enough seats on an inadequately staffed train, and the descent into chaos was quick, with many individuals refusing to honor the seat assignments of others. There were fights, and some punches were actually thrown. Long story short, in spite of having pre-booked the journey and paid for reserved seating, my family of six was left standing for much of a seven-hour journey. We were understandably a bit stressed and peeved. A few hours in, we were able to get into some…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Praying the Beatitudes
I have been using a scripture study practice called lectio divina to ponder the Beatitudes. (I learned about this practice from the podcast, Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.) Recently, I studied Jesus’s saying, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” First I read the verse. Then I read it again, slowly, listening for the meaning that the Spirit might wish to impart to me. Then I reflected on the meaning that came to mind. I felt prompted to work for a better understanding of the phrase “pure in heart.” After consulting the concordance, I found that another way to understand “pure in heart” is “clear in…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Three Words
My husband Chris (a wise man, as opposed to a wise guy) directed my attention today to the transcendent scripture Psalm 46:10 (KJV): “Be still, and know that I am God.” If you transliterate that into Hebrew you get these three words: raphah yada’ ‘elohiym These are the meanings of those words: raphah: to sink, relax, sink down, let drop, withdraw yada’: to know, learn to know, perceive, find out, discriminate, distinguish, know by experience, recognize, admit, acknowledge ‘elohiym: gods, The God, judge, goddess, divine one, godly, great If ever there were a need for me to ruminate on this scripture and its rich, holy and layered meanings, it is…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: The Gift of Peace
They were wholly preposterous words. “On earth peace, good will toward men,” sang angels hovering over a land heaving with political and racial tension, ruled by a degenerate despot, choked by Roman oppression, crowded in on all sides by competing foreign powers — a land that in just one generation would collapse under revolt, its temple razed to the ground. Yet it is precisely into the heart of such a conflict-rife setting that the shimmering, pulsating words “peace” and “good will” spilled down the conduit from God’s presence. Like pure water, they gushed into this murky sphere, sending bright, ever-expanding ripples across the thick Judean night. Peace, proclaimed the angels.…
-
Sabbath Devotional :: Find Your Calm Center
A few weeks ago, I came to myself in the middle of my family room late one night. I say that I “came to myself” because I’d spent that day, and the days before it, in such a frazzled mental state that I had hardly had a moment to check in with myself either physically or mentally. The last months in my life have been a study in balance: My career has been at an intense moment, my health has been struggling, my family has somehow still needed to be fed, and I’ve been trying to learn how to live with the constant emotional fluctuation that I’ve felt since the…
