MONDAY, APRIL 25
READ PSALM 84:1-4
PSALM 84:(0) For the leader. On the gittit. A psalm of the sons of Korach:
Human parents shape space to sink into, blanketing it with comforting colors and textures; burrowing into the heart of a watching, protective community as they prepare a resting place for the expected young one. Similarly, spaces of shelter and care are shaped for the elder at life’s end.
In good circumstances, humans shape a cushioning nest place for their vulnerable and frail. Is that the truest home or dwelling place? A place shaped around our most defenseless and breakable (sometimes broken) pieces and selves? When those pieces are held and honored, we can sing our contentment like the swallow in a sheltered place.
We begin to learn from these how to shelter our souls in the house, altar, hand, love of God. We begin to draw around ourselves the things of God. We begin to dwell, turn, burrow into the presence and person of God.
As we begin to dwell and sing, how do we remember the unsheltered, the endangered in body and spirit—those needing housing, community, companionship, or respite from warfare? How do we dig, shape, turn out home places with room enough for all, including those with brokenness so close to the surface it frightens us?
Sometimes this means actually sinking our hands in the mud and concrete of a building project or sinking our hearts into the dark places of another’s story. Perhaps in the sinking in, in the turning and dwelling, shelter is created.
Homemaking God, teach us to dwell in you with total abandon and release. Empower us to fashion space from who you are for all your children and creation. Amen.[Regina M. Laroche]
Our mailing address is:
UR Strategic Initiatives
PO Box 340007
READ PSALM 84:1-4
PSALM 84:(0) For the leader. On the gittit. A psalm of the sons of Korach:
2 (1) How deeply loved are your dwelling-places,
Adonai-Tzva’ot!
3 (2) My soul yearns, yes, faints with longing
for the courtyards of Adonai;
my heart and body cry for joy
to the living God.
4 (3) As the sparrow finds herself a home
and the swallow her nest, where she lays her young,
[so my resting-place is] by your altars,
Adonai-Tzva’ot, my king and my God.
Softness of feather, heat of breast, turning of small bird body. . . . These work on the mud, leaves, twigs, and incidental matter to shape a nest for mother to sink into, for eggs to emerge into, for babies to break into.Human parents shape space to sink into, blanketing it with comforting colors and textures; burrowing into the heart of a watching, protective community as they prepare a resting place for the expected young one. Similarly, spaces of shelter and care are shaped for the elder at life’s end.
In good circumstances, humans shape a cushioning nest place for their vulnerable and frail. Is that the truest home or dwelling place? A place shaped around our most defenseless and breakable (sometimes broken) pieces and selves? When those pieces are held and honored, we can sing our contentment like the swallow in a sheltered place.
We begin to learn from these how to shelter our souls in the house, altar, hand, love of God. We begin to draw around ourselves the things of God. We begin to dwell, turn, burrow into the presence and person of God.
As we begin to dwell and sing, how do we remember the unsheltered, the endangered in body and spirit—those needing housing, community, companionship, or respite from warfare? How do we dig, shape, turn out home places with room enough for all, including those with brokenness so close to the surface it frightens us?
Sometimes this means actually sinking our hands in the mud and concrete of a building project or sinking our hearts into the dark places of another’s story. Perhaps in the sinking in, in the turning and dwelling, shelter is created.
Homemaking God, teach us to dwell in you with total abandon and release. Empower us to fashion space from who you are for all your children and creation. Amen.[Regina M. Laroche]
Our mailing address is:
UR Strategic Initiatives
PO Box 340007
Nashville, Tennessee 37203, United States
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