Sien with Child on Her Lap
Vincent VanGogh
I sang "For All the Saints" as my lauds hymn this morning. It just came up in my usual rotation but seemed poignantly appropriate on this September 11. If you are not familiar with it, I suggest looking it up on line or even in a hymnal.
Judging from my Facebook and today's news feeds, people are well remembering the horror of 9-11-01. Those who think it may be fading need not fear. Of course, the fresh, raw emotions of 19 years ago have taken melancholy root in our hearts and minds. And for today's college students who were preschoolers at the time and for today's high school students and younger who were not even born yet, this is a significant landmark in history but not a personal experience.
As we who aspire to follow Jesus remember, I trust we will do so in keeping with his clear teaching to love not just our neighbors (yes, our Muslim neighbors) but even our enemies. Matthew 5:43-48 In this way, we reflect the light of Jesus into our world in this time of considerable darkness.
This morning I began my Psalm prayers with Psalm 11. Though I don't recall seeing it recently, for years I have seen and heard people rip verse 3 out of context to bemoan their feeling of helpless desperation at social, cultural, and political changes they find threatening. "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"
Nevertheless, I see and hear plenty of that in the emotional reactions in our current contentious environment. It is increasingly invoked in the political noise warning that if the side I disagree with wins, it will be the demise of democracy in the US. I do believe this is a critically important election and that the outcome will make a significant difference in the trajectory for the country (and even the world). I do have my own convictions of which many of you are probably aware, but I am not including them here in hopes of prompting thoughtful, hopeful prayer rather than distracting arguing.
The entirety of the Psalm is not a woeful lament about the irreparable loss of foundations which even the righteous cannot rescue. Rather, it is a resounding affirmation of trusting that God is alive and at work from God's holy temple. It calls out the faithlessness of those who are mired in verses 1-3. It is both an appeal to trust God when our limited perspectives leave us feeling hopeless and it invokes God's justice and the promise of seeing God's face.
My Psalm prayers ended with Psalm 131 with an assurance I definitely needed today. When events and the fear-filled clamber draw my heart into trembling, I can. as it were, climb up on God's lap and quiet my soul like a young child with its mother.
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