Here is my servant whom I uphold,I made the mistake of watching the evening news tonight - both BBC & NBC and then 60 minutes. My excuse is that I was working on a cross stitch project and wanted to veg out, but what I discovered was what I already knew and feared. The world is falling apart, from Iraq, Iran & Afghanistan to Zimbabwe to Burma to the melting glaciers in Antartica to the lobbyists that fund political campaigns and govern what happens in our political system. What are we doing to this gift of life that God has given us?
my chosen one with whom I am pleased,
Upon whom I have put my Spirit;
he shall bring forth justice to the nations,
Not crying out, not shouting,
not making his voice heard in the street.
A bruised reed he shall not break,
and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,
Until he establishes justice on the earth;
the coastlands will wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the LORD,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spreads out the earth with its crops,
Who gives breath to its people
and spirit to those who walk on it:
I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice,
I have grasped you by the hand;
I formed you, and set you
as a covenant of the people,
a light for the nations,
To open the eyes of the blind,
to bring out prisoners from confinement,
and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
Open our eyes Lord, for we are very blind.
Break the bonds of our oppression and those we oppress in turn.
Christ be our light. Guide our way to live in peace.
Give us the strength to be people of God, people of justice, people of love.
Amen.
3 comments:
I find it so difficult to know what is going on in the world and not to despair.
On the one hand we have Julian of Norwich telling us all will be well, and on the other hand we have... everything you mention.
The more I reflect on what we're doing to the planet in various ways, the more I wonder what we can do about it. And I mean that in both the despairing sense (is there any point, what can we do?) and in the questioning sense (there must be something: what can we do?)
But it's also true that the TV news (especially) and newspapers dwell on the not-right and lurk in wait for the cataclysmic ...and, as you say, too much of viewing them leads you into an all-is-wrong-all-is-lost place. Plenty is wrong, but when's the last time you ever saw a story about a country improving its human rights record, opening more schools, etc? And yet I do believe that also happens.
Good point Susan! Guess that's why I don't watch the tv news very often.
I think what we can do is live lives of love and integrity. We can pray for the bigger things, but in our own spheres we do what we can do.
We can be mindful consumers of media. We can stay attuned to the geo-political happenings and share our concerns with our law makers. We can make informed purchasing decisions.
But as people of faith, perhaps most importantly we keep a hold of the larger vision as best we can and pray for God's reign to come.
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