Don't Tread on Me

At least since our War in Iraq began, the pre-emptive strike seems to have become an important form of social communication, our new modus operandi. Every day, I drive past a home in my community that displays a flag with the old message: "Don't tread on me." I think to myself, Well, who was planning to do that?

I heard this week that a large 2nd Amendment Rally is planned in D.C. They will shout and make great noises: Don't tread on me. Well, again, Who has been talking lately about taking guns from gun-owners? Still, these folks will gather, shake their fists, show their guns, and try to intimidate someone for some reason.

It is odd. We fear something now, the imposition of another's "tread". But there isn't really much treading going on by the people the pre-emptive types fear. God knows, we have been tread upon, but it wasn't by Big Government, or tax and spend Liberals, nor even as much by terrorist lunatics, as by our own unexamined and unchallenged greed, expressed on Wall Street. The unlimited and relatively unregulated pursuit of private wealth came closer to destroying our country than anything else ever has. No war, storm, earthquake or civil unrest ever threatened us more than our own hunger to be more and more financially secure.

Where is a Scriptural word for this fearful, raging society, about declining one's rights in favor of the neighbors' good? Sharing one's goods? Seeking harmony? I distrust the new interest in pre-emptive threats, and irrational accusations that go with it. It inspires nothing but dread in me.

Kindness, respectful address, and some degree of trust do not rule in the media, nor in public discourse, and this could some day mean that they do not rule in our towns and neighborhoods.

The Sound of God

It's about 4 a.m. My wife and I have been spending two or three days in some friends' place on Lake Superior near Lutsen. Half-awake, and half-asleep, I listen to the Shhhhh...Shhhhh...Shhhh...of gentle waves breaking on the shoreline. For some reason, I turn to my wife and say, "That is the sound of God." Then I return to sleep.

A few hours later, I remember just enough of this dreaming moment to wonder what I meant. I think it comes to this, God's presence is in some ways like "white noise" that we barely notice most of the time. Yet that voice is calming, reassuring, beautiful, continually present and comforting. What some people experience as the absence of God may instead be the quiet sound of divine Presence. We do not recognize God's voice because we do not listen in silence to silence.

Breakfast

As I went walking a country highway this morning, I found a group of eight or ten robins breakfasting in grass just exposed by melting snow. I watched these birds for a little while, but they did not invite me to join them. I have no ill feeling toward them over this. I do trust in God that my morning meal will also be provided--at another table.

Matthew 6:26: Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Some Days Just Hurt

Some days just hurt.

We come to tears.

Why do we try to escape this? We always want to have "happy" days, happy smiles and Happy Meals. We are so offended if this does not work out for us today. We are distraught over how things went, how we were treated, what people must think of us.

Why?

Benedictine monks are counseled in the Rule of Benedict: "Daily in one's prayers, with tears and sighs....confess one's past sins to God, and....amend them for the future."

Maybe it would be better if we knew this about every day. This will be, or must be, true every day whether we quite know it or not. We suffer or cause suffering. We come to tears of woundedness or confession. We pray to forgive or to be forgiven. We heal. Maybe we smile again.

Some days just hurt.

Don't let this surprise you very much. Even welcome it.

While we see through the immediate glistening light of salty tears, the hurting heart just begins to begin again. By grace, we are made to hurt and also to heal.

Amen.