I sat down this morning for prayer and found today’s portion of scripture:  “Jesus himself came near and went with them.” (Luke 24:15b NRSV)

But my mind is like a “herd of cats.” My thoughts are running, jumping, climbing the shelves, batting around small objects. While I sit in my meditation space, my mind travels to many locales: my son’s field trip today, the other son’s future nursery schooling, childcare, my upcoming Valentine’s date with my husband, meal planning for the next few days, my mother, the weather, my leadership teams. I am envisioning the upcoming Women’s Retreat. I am really thinking about the sermon that I am preaching tonight... somewhat nervous about the topic (officially “Unity with God”, which is a nice way of saying “Atonement”) and yet I am excited about the opportunity to proclaim that God’s grace and mercy are still alive and active in our world(s). There are a lot of mental “cats” in a very small space.

I am sure that it is no surprise that I think that dance is one of God’s greatest creations. To stretch beyond the body’s normal breath and boundaries is to connect with the Creator in the most profound and significant ways. I love dance! I am fortunate to be unable to remember a time when I did not dance or see dance.

In theological studies, we learn that the Creator is “transcendent”—our mysterious God is above all and independent of time and mortality. Though the theological reference does not have dance in mind, it still sheds a warm light on dance as a spiritual endeavor.

There is an altar in Poling Chapel on the main floor of Marble Collegiate Church. It was built a couple of weeks ago as a sacred place of honoring people living with AIDS and remembering people who have died with AIDS.  

World AIDS day is this Saturday, December 1. I call your attention to the date so that I might invite you to be in prayer in a few different ways:

Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, ‘May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!’ A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet [ . . . ], so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?’ Daniel then said to the king, ‘O king, live for ever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.’

Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. - Daniel 6: 16-17, 19-23

"These are they who have put off mortal clothing and have put on the immortal, and have confessed the name of God; now they are being crowned, and receive palms."

2 Esdras 2:45 (the Apocrypha)

All Saints’ Day is here once again and I am reflecting on people who are dear to me who have returned home to be with God.

“The fundamental value at the heart of [the Christian journey] is to do justice,” says writer Natalie K. Watson. Doing justice, unlike many of our spiritual intentions, is neither abstract nor intangible. 

Recently, two of my good friends have made concrete efforts to do justice through their travels in the developing world. They have gone to work and pray alongside the people.

Did you know that women are more than twice as likely to experience depression as men?

"..I would like to beg you...  as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet

This is one of my favorite small pieces of writing.  I use it to calm my perfectionist self... as a balm for the me that wants to control outcomes... the me that can sometimes be convicted of Jesus’ accusation: “O you, of little faith.” What faith, what courage it takes to “live the questions.” I am better at it than I used to be, but not as good as I mean to be.