Ice
Yesterday it was warm enough, for only the second time all winter, for me to take off the scarf that is usually wrapped around my head, with only a rectangular-shaped opening to ensure that I can see.
So when I got a text at 5:30 a.m. saying that the university was closed until 9 a.m. due to hazardous driving conditions, I thought it was a joke, or a mistake. But no. I rolled out of bed, checked the weather report and school/nonprofit closings, and proceeded to send e-mails to 47 volunteers to let them know they didn't have to report to their volunteer positions today. Later, as my car slid into a snowbank about three times taller than me, and later still, when I narrowly missed a pole in the middle of the parking lot, I realized this was definitely no joke.
At Ash Wednesday service, our pastor read Isaiah 58:1-11, my favorite bible verses of all time. Here are verses 6-11:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am.
If you take away from the midst of you the yoke,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your desire with good things,[b]
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not.
This morning, I thought about "light break[ing] forth like the dawn"--how light is arriving earlier and earlier, and sticking around longer and longer. How even after we spring forward on Sunday, this trend will continue until we are in light more than in darkness.
I thought about that "watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." I imagined my own gardens, the soil warm in my hands, tomato plants and daisies bending toward sun. It seems so far away. And then I realized that Isaiah was saying that we could be that light, that garden, that water that nourishes the thirsty. We have that potential--and just as the ice will become the water that loosens the soil and nourishes flowers and food, so can we tend to whatever seeds are buried now, waiting to sprout.
So when I got a text at 5:30 a.m. saying that the university was closed until 9 a.m. due to hazardous driving conditions, I thought it was a joke, or a mistake. But no. I rolled out of bed, checked the weather report and school/nonprofit closings, and proceeded to send e-mails to 47 volunteers to let them know they didn't have to report to their volunteer positions today. Later, as my car slid into a snowbank about three times taller than me, and later still, when I narrowly missed a pole in the middle of the parking lot, I realized this was definitely no joke.
At Ash Wednesday service, our pastor read Isaiah 58:1-11, my favorite bible verses of all time. Here are verses 6-11:
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am.
If you take away from the midst of you the yoke,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your desire with good things,[b]
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters fail not.
This morning, I thought about "light break[ing] forth like the dawn"--how light is arriving earlier and earlier, and sticking around longer and longer. How even after we spring forward on Sunday, this trend will continue until we are in light more than in darkness.
I thought about that "watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." I imagined my own gardens, the soil warm in my hands, tomato plants and daisies bending toward sun. It seems so far away. And then I realized that Isaiah was saying that we could be that light, that garden, that water that nourishes the thirsty. We have that potential--and just as the ice will become the water that loosens the soil and nourishes flowers and food, so can we tend to whatever seeds are buried now, waiting to sprout.
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