Shoveling after a good snow storm, besides great exercise, always gives me time to think, reflect, wonder, ponder. Yesterday, digging out from the blizzard that stopped our part of the world in it's tracks (...we only had 18 inches of snow drop here...only...), I was thinking about the craziness of our current political situation in the US, the unrest across the world, the coming elections, bombings, friends with illnesses, the extraordinary emerging leaders I've the sacred privilege of mentoring, etc. It was both a beautiful and odd collection of thoughts.
Then, this morning, beginning this day with gaining some welcome wisdom from a favored blog post, I came across this welcome suggestion. It is a thought-filled retooling of Psalm 15 from the Bible. The question is legit for this day...not just way back then when first penned:
Who Can Be Trusted?
A Translation of Psalm 15
Lord, who can be trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak the truth from their hearts;
who have let go of selfish interests
and grown beyond their own lives;
who see the wretched as their family
and the poor as their flesh and blood.
They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people’s trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth,
and their kindness endures forever.
Stephen Mitchell
Source: A Book of Psalms
Dawn, here in Colorado is breaking bright, clear, cloudless...way different from yesterday. So what will this day bring in your own life, the lives of those we know and love, across this planet called Earth?
Yesterday, in Brussels was not a good Thursday. Across this planet, tomorrow, those who dare to define themselves as Christians, Christ-followers (and I am humbled to be counted as one of those...), will be reminded of another loss of life way back in the day, which has, for centuries, been labeled a "good Friday."
For me, on this Thursday, this 15th Psalm helps me live into the turmoil of our world. The tortured death of the One Whom we "celebrate" tomorrow in the Christian calendar certainly took on the world in those harsh moments, and became the One to trust...in my own humanity, hard to do some times, if honest with myself and my own messiness...but, no matter the issues, no matter the cost, that is, this day where, and with Whom I place my trust for all the future days of my life.
Just curious...but I wonder what would happen here in the US of A if any of the current presidential candidates would dare to begin to live out Psalm 15? That, to me, may begin to change the course of history, again.
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