Devotion
Accepting Mortality
David Jacobs
My father spent most of his life as an angry man. He grew up in a poor home, was abandoned by his parents, left school at 12 having never learned to read and write, spent his adolescence in and out of care homes and eventually became a bricklayer. The anger and disappointment in the hand that he had been dealt had forged itself with his very being.
Growing up around him was often unpleasant. He would be insecure, angry, and violent at the drop of a hat. He was caught up in so much hate that he eventually became it, causing much stress for my siblings and me.
I grew up, and after completing my studies I moved out and travelled the world, looking for a safe place to call home. My siblings also travelled and found their own places. We kept contact with our parents but it was often more formal than a truly familiar experience.
5 years ago, my father lost his temper with his boss at work, which resulted in him being 50 and unemployed. During that time, he had also developed bad carpal tunnel from years of hard labor in the cold, which had then developed into severe arthritis that meant he could not find further work.
One day, I received a phone call from him, but it was different. I was no longer talking to the angry, insecure man of my childhood. He had been transformed.
"I am not going to live forever." He said. "I know that now, and I wasted so much of my life being mean to people, being so angry and unforgiving that I have driven a wedge between us. I am truly sorry." We made up.
Not long after this conversation, our family had been washed over. We all got along much better. After his confession, my father eventually found a job teaching vocational skills and trades to children that had been expelled from schools, or abandoned by their parents and fallen behind. He now has the chance to do good work with children that may have eventually grown into the man that he once was. He handwrote me a birthday card that year. That old, angry illiterate man has now learned enough that he can use messaging apps on his phone to send me holiday greetings and words of encouragement wherever I am on planet Earth.How incredible is that?
How much time do we spend on things that don't truly matter? Stress, anxiety, worries, anger, sadness...is this how God intended us to wisely spend our time?
Prayer
Through faithful study, meditation and acts of kindness, our insecurities and pain can be transformed into wisdom and love. Amen.
Devotion
Misrepresenting God
Frances Taylor
This passage is one I try very hard to take to heart. For over forty years, I have worked to bring the gospel message to children and adults alike. That is what I'm doing as I write this. It is so important that we don't misrepresent God to others. When someone tells me they don't believe in God, I wonder whose image of God they have been taught. When I was a child, it was common to hear that God was some policeman in the sky that was going to punish me for everything I did wrong. The idea of a loving, forgiving God was not taught as the norm. Ministers and other teachers of religion often spoke more of hellfire and damnation. It's no wonder that there are those who claim that God doesn't exist. On the other hand, there are those who taught that God was like Santa Claus, keeping track of our good deeds and rewarding us accordingly, or tracking our misdeeds and punishing us accordingly. Neither of these images of God are accurate. God is loving ...
Morning Prayer
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
Inspiration
Those in ancient Israel, as today and in all lands, who prey upon the poor and vulnerable, who pervert justice against them and deny them their rights, sin against God. His eyes see, his eyelids try the children of men, and nothing is done in secret where he does not know.
Prayer
Give me a heart of compassion, O Lord, for the weak and helpless, for the poverty stricken, for widows and orphans. And give me a righteous indignation against those who oppress them, pervert their justice, or deny their rights. Amen.
