Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Sitting in the sun with my Father

Friday, February 16, 2018

From Isaiah 58
Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast! Tell my people their wickedness ... You must share your bread with the hungry. Shelter the oppressed and the homeless. Cloth the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own.

Daniel Berrigan went to prison more than once because he cried out full-throated and unsparingly. He filled his lungs with air and his pen with ink and called out injustice. But although he lived into his 90s he saw little change and much that stayed the same.

Why do we hang on to what we've got, and turn away from the people with their "help me" signs on the side of the road?

Today we got a pile of $5 bills to keep in our car and give away. But there is no question in my mind about whether we will keep the car.

The consequences of our stubborn selfishness has a name: we call it structural sin. All of us both contribute to and are caught in a web of cultural unfairness and pretense. In his column February 8 David Brooks said, "You can have a nation filled with local change-makers, but if the government is rotten their work comes to little. The social sector has never fully grappled with the permanent presence of sin."

The "social sector" is everywhere: our banks, schools, media, government, and much more. Joseph Tetlow, a Jesuit teacher, says they "are structured to serve first of all the little gods: profit, pleasure and power, the 'ruling forces, masters of the darkness in this world' (Eph 6:12)".

Father Berrigan wrote a book-long commentary on Isaiah. Isaiah never gave up hope, nor did Berrigan. Neither can we. Tetlow knows how deeply we are embedded in our world. "Like polluted air, the earthly order gets into every one of us. And every one of us adds our part to that earthly order." But he goes on to remind himself and us to pray. Prayer is the "best means for us to grasp this. Thank God as you go along for what you are and what you have. Gratitude is our best defense against the miseries of sin in the world."

"Come, let us reason together," says the Lord. The idea behind "simple" prayer is that I take a little time to tell God what I'm thinking and feeling. No need for me to sort things out. My friend Neal says this kind of prayer is "the prayer of beginning again." I need that so much, because one day after another life can be crushing and my response, my contribution to the evil in this world, is all too clear.

The grace God gives me to begin again today brushes up to me like a warm cat purring, and licks my face. For this moment again, we sit together in the window, feeling the sun.

You call me out of my self into your presence, O Lord. "Return to me!" you shout and sing. "Let me love you like the children that you are." O Father, let my ears hear you and my eyes see what you have done in my life, and always let me give thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Devotions Archive

Sitting in the sun with my Father

Friday, February 16, 2018