The whirlwind is something we fear – when we feel its ominous approach all we can think of is change with instability and unpredictability. What if we were to shift our perspective slightly so that rather than be governed by fear of the future, we might be governed by trust and obedience? What if we respond with awe at God’s power rather than fear of the unknown? This is what we witness in the story we read today in which the mantle of prophecy passes from Elijahto Elishain the presence of an amazing whirlwind.
Elisha wisely asks for a double portion of spirit rather than wealth or fame, and when we read to the end of the chapter we see the dimensions of the power invested in Elisha. What he blesses is blessed many fold; what he curses is cursed harshly. And all of this comes from his perseverance in trusting his creator.
Footnotes give us more information about Gilgal, the Jordan River, and the prophets guild; but the more important message here might be this: That when the earth shifts beneath our feet in a tectonic tremor of change, when a quick drop in barometric pressure harbingers one of life’s devastating storms, and when our hair stands on end with fear of what we suspect is coming and do not fully understand . . . we will do well to respond simply rather than rashly. We must trust the Creator who has made us and loves us, follow the example of Jesus as the Christ who saves us and protects us, and we must hold in awe the overwhelming power of the Spirit who heals us and transforms us. Then we too, will speak like the holy prophets to kings.
Written on August 11, 2010 and posted today as a Favorite.
Past and future converging in the present. Attempting to establish a legacy from the past that extends into the future. Recording names in books that are passed down through generations. Looking for links to what was. Envisioning the future. Living an intentional present.
We humans concern ourselves so much with time and we hold to our belief that it is a strict, tight line even when mathematics and physics tell us that it is anything buta flat presence consisting of a series of moments. Time . . . God’s time . . . is eternal; yet we humans strive to pull it and push it until it snaps into an obedient straight plane, extending endlessly behind and in front of us. I do not believe that God sees us or time in such a superficial way.
There is value in tracing our roots and recording our deeds. These actions tell us who we are; they remind us of what we have done. With hopewe avoid the errors of this past.
There is value in laying plans, being stewards, husbanding resources, striding forward into an unknown future with confidence and a sense of mission. Our faith accompanies us as we step into the mystery.
There is value in living an authentic present, seeking to move through our days with integrity, looking at our faults without condemning ourselves or others, being honest about our successes with humility. In lovewe live each moment as it comes to us, pleading with God on behalf of our enemies, petitioning favors of God for all those we love, remembering all of God’s creation in our daily prayers.
Hubble Telescope: Two Galaxies Merging
I realize that when I pray I cannot help but think of time as linear when I remember with nostalgia my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who wait for me on the other side of the veil that separates the body from that place we refer to as the world of the deceased. I also imagine the great-great-grandchildren I will never see in this life but whom I will know immediately when they rise to God. Resisting the idea that time is a strict line of seconds that march into minutes, hours and years, I see myself in the immense, slowly whirling, spiraling strands of human beings God has created in God’s image. I see us rising like incense in the night from the altar of our lives to bring a welcome aroma to the God who created us. I see the embrace with which we cling to one another as we dance beneath the arms of the Spirit while she is winging us home. I see us curling and binding with one another in an intimate union as we form the Mystical Body of this God-man walking among us.
Revelation tells us that there are many names written in the Book of Life. The names of the faithful. The names of the righteous. The names of the just. The names of the holy. The names of those who endured. The names of those who persevered. The names of those who have come to understand and return God’s love.
So as we consider God’s plan and God’s time, we pray . . . Let us call one another’s names in hope as we rise together in prayer. Let us call one another’s names in joy as we rise to meet our maker. Let us call one another’s names in love . . . and leave no one behind. Amen.
This week we will examine the Second Book of Kingsto see what this chronicler has to say to us . . . millennia after he first placed his words on papyrus.
When we hear the thoughts and emotions shared by the participants in NPR’s Losing Our Religiondiscussions referenced in yesterday’s Noontime, we recognize that while not all humans cling to God, they cling to a search of some kind. Perhaps we are genetically wired for this universal pilgrimage. If we take an honest look at the responses to the many petitions we have laid before God we will recognize certain truths.
God usually gives us options. God always opens doors we do not see. God cannot turn away or turn us down. God always acts in love. God wants to fulfill our dreams and plans. God places hope in us and asks us to live up to that potential. God instills faith in us according to some measure we cannot understand. God is always moving toward us, calling us to intimacy, promising protection, assuring us of love. God is always clinging to us.
Whoever clings to me I will deliver . . .The amazing story of God is that God wants to save even those of us who do not cling to him.
Whoever knows my name I will set on high . . .We call on God for freedom from our fears and God replies in ways we may not fully comprehend.
All who call upon me I will answer . . . God’s answer to us is more complex than the simple response we humans expect; we do not entirely understand the journey we are on.
I will be with them in distress . . .We may choose to ignore God’s presence but we cannot completely barricade ourselves against God.
I will deliver them and give them honor . . .We may negate God in all our thoughts and actions yet God somehow finds a way to abide with us.
With length of days I will satisfy them and show them my saving power . . . Although we struggle with our doubts, anger, fears and anxiety, we cannot shut God out of our existence . . . for God is always present to us . . . clinging to us . . . abiding with us . . . loving us.
As we spend some quiet time today . . . let us at least consider an initial, authentic response.
NPR Morning Edition – Losing Our Religion: The Growth of the “Nones” Jan 14, 2013
This week we spent time with the opening chapters of Deuteronomy reflecting on what it means to be in relationship with God. This may have generated questions that still linger. Do we need scientific evidence in order to believe that God is with us and that God exists? Do we keep the new word that God loves and protects us to ourselves or do we teach this story to our children and to our children’s children? What does God’s guidance look like? How are we to respond to God’s assistance? Do we owe something in return for God’s protection and mercy? Do we deserve the unmerited successeswe are given at no cost?
Psalm 91, a hymn of thanksgiving and remembrance, describes the meaning of God’s presence. Psalm 91, an anthem of hope and petition, expresses our basic human want to be protected from evil. Psalm 91, a song of call and response, is an intimate conversation with God.
You need simply watch; the punishment of the wicked you will see.Looking at the negatives in life it appears that the wicked always win; remembering the many small times when we somehow did not fall into the path of the wicked, we give thanks for God’s enduring wisdom.
You have the Lord for your refuge; you have made the Most High your stronghold. Knowing that God chooses to love us no matter our faith, no matter our hope, no matter our love, we give thanks for God’s enduring persistence.
No evil shall befall you, no affliction come near your tent.Choosing to follow in the footsteps of Jesus, God among us, we give thanks for God’s enduring power
For God commands the angels to guard you in all his ways. Giving ourselves over to the Spirit who abides within each of us, we give thanks for God’s enduring love.
With their hands they shall support you; lest you strike your foot upon a stone.Accepting the guidance and protection freely given to us, we give thanks for God’s enduring presence.
For a reflection on our Unmerited Success, enter those words into the blog search bar and explore.
This is one of those portions of the Old Testament that we humans can distort to fit our own agenda; we might take it to mean that God shows partiality, or that some of us are somehow above others of us. I do not believe this to be so, and careful reading of good commentary tells us otherwise. The message we might better take away from today’s Noontime is this: Israel has a special function to serve in God’s plan – that of bringing other nations out of the darkness of pagan worship and into the light of mercy, justice and hope which the Living God brings to all. From the HARPERCOLLINS BIBLE COMMENTARY (Mays 198-199): “God has chosen Israel, not because of any special worthiness on its part, but out of God’s personal attachment based on divine love and the promises made to the ancestors (vv. 7-8). The Exodus experience reveals that God’s essential character promises covenant loyalty over uncountable generations (vv. 8-9). However, the integrity of God’s character also threatens individual retribution for those who are apostate (v. 10). A further motive for wiping out Canaanite religion is offered by the promise of fertility for family, field, and flock (vv. 13-14), an especially appropriate counter to Baal’s claims to bestow fertility. Obedience also leads to good health. The plagues of the Exodus tradition will be reserved for enemies (v. 15)”.
When we consider this, we understand that rather than giving his chosen people an exemption from acting in God’s name, God is expecting his faithful to behave as he himself does: with justice and compassion, bringing hope, and acting in love. This is the thinking we hear from Jesus in Luke 12:48: From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
Like Israel, the faithful are in a special covenant relationship with God.
Like Israel, the faithful are called to act in obedience to God’s call.
Like Israel, the faithful are graced with God’s countless blessing.
Like Israel, the faithful have not earned a “special worthiness” . . . yet are loved deeply and dearly by the Living God.
We have heard his voice from the midst of the fire and we have found out today that a man can still live after God has spoken with him.
Reubens: Teresa of Ávila
Moses acts as mediator for the Chosen People because they believe that anyone who sees the face of God and hears his voice must live no more. This thinking changes when Jesus acts and moves among his people to heal their wounds and cure their anxieties. This thinking is altered with Jesus’ death and resurrection. This new idea of a God among us transforms our human fear if we only allow it. Christ becomes our new arbiter with God, interceding for us with our petitions before the Father.
Like the Hebrews, we also have the opportunity to hear the voice of God. We might see his face in those who live as Christ asks; but perhaps like the Hebrews, we are a bit afraid to approach the Holy Presence to petition favor. What we read today tells us that we need not dread God’s presence, and we need not hesitate to ask Jesus for his help . . . this is what he awaits – our realization that he loves us more than we can imagine.
Prayer is the best way to hear the voice of the Creator, Redeemer, and Consoler, and God has advice for us that is better than any offered by any human. We may not have time for formal, liturgical prayer. We may not feel comfortable in communal prayer. We may find that individual prayer lacks direction and intensity. However, whatever our condition or opinion regarding prayer, we must address all obstacles to it . . . for this is the only way to reach the serenity that God promises, the peace that Christ purchases, and the love that the Holy Spirit offers.
Today’s MAGNIFICAT Meditation is taken from words of Teresa of Ávilaregarding prayer. The good that one who practices prayer possesses . . . is that in spite of any wrong they who practice prayer do, they must not abandon prayer since it is the means by which they remedy the situation; and to remedy it without prayer would be much more difficult.
This does not mean to say that those who pray each day have a magical entrée to God’s presence and favor; but what it does say to us is that people who pray daily have a place to take the stresses that come to bear on them as they maneuver their daily obstacle course . . . and that place is God.
We might wish that God would show us a physical smoking presence with a loud booming voice as the Lord does with the Hebrews in today’s reading . . . but would this be more helpful than that quiet voice which speaks to us from behind to which Isaiah refers in 30:21?
We might wish we had stone tablets on which are written God’s words clearly . . . but is this more loving than God’s writing on our hearts as Jeremiah predicts in 31:33?
Teresa of Ávila tells us that she trusts in God’s mercy and love; she perseveres in prayer through the dry times in order to maintain contact with this God of compassion and peace. When we struggle with our own desire to know God intimately and to commune with him daily, we will know that we are not unique . . . for holy and saintly people have their doubts, their fears and their anxiety when they speak with God. We can do no worse and no better than this then, to listen for the voice of God . . . a God who loves us in spite of any wrong we commit.
Cameron, Peter John. “Meditation of the Day.” MAGNIFICAT. 28.5(2010): 385-386. Print.
Teach them to your children, and to your children’s children . . .
Each time I read from the books of the law, the Torah, I again understand how difficult it was for Jewish leaders to take hold of and believe the words that Jesus spoke to them about the merciful love of God. I also understand how difficult it was for these followers of the Mosaic Code to believe that anyone but God who lived in the temple and out of reach of the ordinary human could forgive sin. These ideas were revolutionary for them, even blasphemous; yet, the man who delivered them was not only able to restore health, he was also able to calm the elements of nature.
What we read today tells us of a God who is faithful, a God who has shown his constancy, a God who continued to reveal himself to his people despite their errant ways.
Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it heard of?
Yahweh rescued his people, he brought them out of slavery, he nourished them and taught them who they were, how they were to be, and what their potential was. Jesus arrived to walk the earth as God among his people. Jesus fulfilled prophecy. Jesus compressed the hundreds of Torah laws into one . . . the Law of Freedom, the Law of Love. Nothing like this had ever been heard of. Nothing like this has ever been heard of.
You must keep his statutes and commandments that I enjoin on you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.
The focus in this reading is on the dichotomy between believing in God and believing in idols. One of the rewards for following Yahweh is the gift of physical territory which God grants to his chosen people. Other rewards are his fidelity to us, and his mercy when considering our actions. These are all proofs of God’s love. Further proofs of God’s goodness are that once Jesus is resurrected and returns to God, The Holy Spirit settles upon us to abide with us and to dwell in us, God’s people. This is God’s promise and as we hear in today’s mini-reflection in MAGNIFICAT: God is true: he has a long memory for his own promises and a short memory for our failures to keep ours. In the gift of his promised Spirit, we find our daily joy. The prophet Isaiah reminds us the Morning Prayer: Though the mountains leave their place and the hills be shaken, my love never shall leave you nor my covenant of peace be shaken, says the Lord who has mercy on you. (54:10)
We look for assurances and guarantees; we sign contracts and agreements that we trust more than we trust God’s love for us. He has given us proofs . . . and this is the story that we must pass down to our children and our children’s children . . . so that it may live with us and in us . . . beyond the end of time.
Cameron, Peter John, Rev., ed. “Mini-Reflection.” MAGNIFICAT. 19 May 2010:265. Print.
Whether we ourselves have children or not, it is beneficial to universal society for those of us who have survived cataclysm to teach those who follow us how to endure wellrather than to endure at all costs.If we hope to improve both collectively and individually we must be willing to take an honest look at how we operate, what we value, and how we enact our values. This is what Moses calls us to today. We are not asked to pass along stories of how othershave carried on through crisis; we are asked to be earnestly on our guard not to forget the things which our own eyes have seen, not let them slip from our memory as long as we live, but teach them to our children and to our children’s children. This is a noble vocation: to pass along a manual for how to persist through pain, fear and antagonism.
Keeping in mind that each time we read or hear the phrase “fear” in reference to the Lord in the New Testament that we might replace it with the word “love,” we can see how the arrival of Jesus is the completion of all God’s promises to the people. God, with his expression of concern and empathy embodied in Jesus, tells us how much he loves us and wants to be with us. God warns us often about the dangers of idolatry and encourages us to consider the advantages of fidelity. God’s own fidelity with us is guaranteed. God’s love proved repeatedly through the stories we can tell about his power to save and restore. God’s hope for us and in us is spelled out clearly as he establishes – here through Moses – cities of refuge in which his people might find a second opportunity for recovery. God never gives up on us.
Deuteronomy, perhaps more than any other book of the Bible, asks its readers to remember and to pass along our own story of how the goodness of the Lord has changed us forever. It asks that we consider God’s goodness, and that we pass along the story of how we came through a wilderness with no road map other than our fidelity to a God who loves us so much he cannot bear to be apart from us for even the smallest of moments. We are loved by a God who does not ever want to be without us.
And so we pray . . .
Father Creator, Jesus Saver, Holy Spirit Abider and Comforter, we see by your actions that you will never forsake the work of your own hands. We realize that the only firm ground on which we stand is the rock of your own steadfastness in your commitment to us. We know that you are incapable of deception, trickery or betrayal. Give us the fortitude and courage to follow you, even when we are fearful, even when we are in pain. We rely on your patience and mercy as always. And we await our own restoration and peace that comes with the joy of knowing and serving you. We thank you for your bountiful love, and we hope to return that love to you always . . . even when we are fearful or in pain.
Help us to pass along to the children and to the children of those children not only the story of your love . . . but the essence of your love as well. Guide us in loving our enemies, in praying for the impossible, and in remaining always with you. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In this last book of the Torah, we find a reiteration of the covenant relationship between God and his creatures as mediated by the man Moses. His aim, as we read in commentary, is to enforce with the Israelites “the Lord’s claim to their obedience, loyalty and love”. (Senior 187) What we see here is God establishing a firm relationship with his people; much as a parent devotes care to strong enforcement of family values with a toddler . . . knowing that the teenage and young adult years – and even the years that carry us into maturity – will be difficult ones. God wants to leave nothing to chance where his creatures are concerned.
In verse 10 we see reference to the fact that these tribes are so multiplied they are as numerous as the stars in the sky. And we remember the promise made to Abraham that even in their advanced years he and Sarah would be the vehicles through which God would create a people dear to him. This is followed with a plan laid out by God for gaining the territory promised to Abraham and his family. Scouts are chosen to reconnoiter the land. This is when they discover that the people are stronger and taller and they have become fainthearted. They begin to lose courage. Moses reminds them of the countless times God saved them from death in the hostile desert . . . and we begin to see the purpose of all their wanderings and suffering.
Of course, these people disobey – as do we – and in this Old Testament story we hear how God punishes them for their lack of faith. Moses reminds them that they have disobeyed and struck out on their own. As observed above, God disciplines the child nation, calling them to himself with reminders that he has been faithful to them despite their rebellion.
There is no doubt that we are sustained by God’s love and intervention as we muddle through our days. God continues to provide resting places, to shepherd us with a pillar of smoke, to guard us with a column of fire. It is easy to become lost, distracted, anxious or discouraged and so as we put our heads to pillows this evening we might reflect on the story we have read today and look at our lives through the filter on this exodus story of God’s people. And we might ask ourselves how we react when we lose courage . . . how we see our wanderings through the hostile desert.
What is our relationship with God like? Do we rely on God at all times or only when we need help?
How do we celebrate God’s goodness? Do we rejoice with others and share the good news that we are well-loved?
What is our belief system? Are we ready . . . and are we willing to give over to God our obedience, our loyalty and our love?
Senior, Donald, ed. THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE. New York, Oxford University Press, 1990.187. Print.
The whirlwind is something we fear – when we feel its ominous approach all we can think of is change with instability and unpredictability. What if we were to shift our perspective slightly so that rather than be governed by fear of the future, we might be governed by trust and obedience? What if we respond with awe at God’s power rather than fear of the unknown? This is what we witness in the story we read today in which the mantle of prophecy passes from Elijah to Elisha in the presence of an amazing whirlwind.![Planting-a-Family-Tree-for-Parents-Day-–-iPhone-and-iPad-Genealogy-Apps[1]](https://thenoontimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/planting-a-family-tree-for-parents-day-e28093-iphone-and-ipad-genealogy-apps1.jpg?w=300&h=297)
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