"Out of the Depths"

 Psalm 30:1a I will exalt you, Lord,

    for you lifted me out of the depths…

 I didn’t understand the poet until 2:00 a.m. on Easter morning, April 17, 2022.

 40 hours after a stroke, lying in a hospital bed unable to sleep, unable to feel most of my right side, I finally grasped the poet’s meaning.

 In seminary I read a textbook titled Out of the Depths. In all the years since, I hadn’t experienced ‘the depths’ until that morning. Then, out of the depths, I cried out to God, “Jesus, what is the point of going on with my life?”

 Then, out of the depths, Jesus answered. Not with an audible voice, but with an answer my brain, my heart, my soul, heard as clear as a bell. “There’s more work to do, Bill.”

 Understood. My call to work with the beautiful people of Hope Church, feeding and caring for the sheep, was not over. We have more work to do. And I should be there to help.

 I understand what it feels like to be lifted by the Lord out of the depths.

 This is resurrection life.

     Lord my God, I will praise you forever. (v. 12)

Amen.

 

Why I Pray for the President

 President Donald J. Trump is infected with the coronavirus and is in the second day of his hospitalization. He is among the 34.6 million world-wide (7.4 million U.S.) victims who have been infected. This virus has and continues to upend virtually every nation’s economic, political and social systems, perhaps none more visibly than those of the United States.

 

As the President receives medical care, and as those around him, including his wife, Melania, are also dealing with the rapid-spread of this coronavirus, how should the people of God react?

 

The President is no different than any other human being. In the sentiment of ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’,  when the bell tolls for the life of any human loss it tolls for me. We are a united humanity, at least at the most fundamental level. We should care about and pray for all victims of the virus.

 

But there is an even more specific reason for Christians to pray for the President, regardless of their political views:  “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (I Timothy 2:1-4, NIV)

 

This Sunday I will join thousands of leaders of religious groups in praying for the recovery of our President. It is not a political prayer; it is a prayer for a human whom God wants to be saved and it is a prayer for a person in authority, one who has the ability to permit the Church’s citizens to live peaceful and quite lives, enabling us to effectively  witness to the Good News for all humanity.

 

I prefer the prayer tradition which prays for those in authority by their first names only.  This demonstrates that we pray for them as human leaders whom we respect but to whom we do not bow.

 

For these reasons, I invite you to join me then in prayer for our President, Donald:

 

God, heal our President, heal the people, heal our land. Bring all people to the knowledge of your truth. Amen

Hunting Silence

Maybe I will need to take up hunting. I am not a hunter, not because I oppose it, but because there are other things I prefer to fill the “hunting hours” of my life.  But many hunters I know tell me that as they take up their places today in their favorite trees the true success of the hunt has already happened…they have found silence.  The leaves fall. The critters crunch the underbrush. Peace is found in the quiet of the woods.  Now, what happens in the deer hunting cabin may be less quiet, but that is another story.

I have a friend who wrote a book about the mystery of what happens in the cabin ‘up north’, and in the surrounding woods.  Dreams of Hidden Forest, by Ronald R. Strahl, tells a story which brings out the joy of finding a respite from the hurried life as one explores the relationship of all of trees and deer and bears and, oh yes, hunters, past and present.  One of my takeaways is that often the time spent hunting is as much a time of meditation as it is anything else. 

Simon and Garfunkel wondered about these Sounds of Silence, when the air is filled with “people talking without speaking/people hearing without listening.”  Prophetic words, don’t you think? Do we avoid silence because we need to make sound to prove our worth, to give life meaning? Or, do we fear silence, because of what we might hear in those sounds of silence. For people who pray, the constant challenge is not telling God what we want or need to say, but rather listening in the silence for God’s reply.  We fear the answer, perhaps.  We cannot fathom the silence of a God who speaks only when the time is right and when we can hear. So, we keep on talking, filling the silence with sound.  Thus my challenge to you: Find a silent place, and quietly mediate there for five minutes on this verse from Lynn Unger’s poem, Boundaries.

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?