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Today is the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost — the year slopes toward All Saints Day and Advent.
When you all receive this, I will have been in four cities this past week talking about faith and democracy, the crisis of Christian nationalism, and the growing threat of fascism in the United States. I’ve given nine presentations on these intense concerns.
But it isn’t just this week. I’ve been on the road since mid-September speaking about the same. Two things stand out — people are afraid and exhausted. I’m afraid and exhausted. But, as honest an assessment as that is of this moment, it is important to point out that fascism thrives on both of those emotions.
In short, the authoritarians among us are achieving their political goal. One of the strategies of fascism is wearing people down.
How to push back? Many good people have asked me that question in these weeks.
The Hebrew Bible readings — Job 38:1-7 and Psalm 104 — in this week’s lectionary offer an answer to that question: Wonder is an antidote to fear.
Job 38 is one of my favorite Old Testament passages. As I tiredly considered what to share this week, I remembered that I wrote a post more than two years ago that I really liked on those verses. The news was really difficult then, too. Especially the then-recent Uvalde school shooting. But, in the midst of painful tragedies, something beautiful happened: NASA released the first photographs from the James Webb telescope.
On this Sunday, when fear and exhaustion are palpable, I’m sharing the 2022 post again. You may have forgotten it. You may be new to the Cottage and never read it. The message and hope in its words are more relevant than ever.
I invite you to recall wonder. The wonder of new discoveries. The wonder of the universe. Let wonder fill your soul. Breathe in wonder. Rest with wonder.
We need wonder to make it through the days ahead.
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It has been wonderful to see and meet so MANY Cottage readers on the road this week! Your encouragement, cheers, support, and hugs mean everything to me. THANK YOU!
Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b
Book of Common Prayer version
Bless the Lord, O my soul;
O Lord my God, how excellent is your greatness!
you are clothed with majesty and splendor.
You wrap yourself with light as with a cloak
and spread out the heavens like a curtain.
You lay the beams of your chambers in the waters above;
you make the clouds your chariot;
you ride on the wings of the wind.
You make the winds your messengers
and flames of fire your servants.
You have set the earth upon its foundations,
so that it never shall move at any time.
You covered it with the Deep as with a mantle;
the waters stood higher than the mountains.
At your rebuke they fled;
at the voice of your thunder they hastened away.
They went up into the hills and down to the valleys beneath,
to the places you had appointed for them.
You set the limits that they should not pass;
they shall not again cover the earth.
O Lord, how manifold are your works!
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.
Hallelujah!
Job 38:1-7
The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?
Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.
— Abraham Heschel
I think that every discovery of the world plunges us into jubilation,
a radical amazement that tears apart the veil of triviality.
— Dorothee Soelle
“On Stars and the News,” originally published July 13, 2022
When NASA released the first pictures from its new telescope yesterday, the world seemed to stop for a moment to gaze — and gasp — at that which has been hidden from us.
“Today, we present humanity with a groundbreaking new view of the cosmos from the James Webb Space Telescope – a view the world has never seen before,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “These images, including the deepest infrared view of our universe that has ever been taken, show us how Webb will help to uncover the answers to questions we don’t even yet know to ask; questions that will help us better understand our universe and humanity’s place within it.”
The photographs are beautiful — gas cliffs sheltering new born stars, a four-billion-year-old star cluster appearing to dance across a dark sky, a star shedding its dust toward all corners of the universe, and five galaxies of such luminosity that they seem to be angelic beings.
I cried.
Wonder. Jubilation. Those are the words of Abraham Heschel and Dorothee Soelle. Such things bring us human beings to our knees. As the Psalmist once cried out, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”
Awe is the first response to seeing the expanse of the heavens. And, as a scholar of religion, I’m fairly certain that’s the origin of religion itself. Some ancient ancestor of ours looked up at the night sky and said, “Wow.”
But there’s a second response as well — perspective. Looking at pictures of events from four billion or more years ago puts a different frame around our problems, adjusts our attention, and calls us to see our lives more clearly.
Yesterday’s news was also filled with an array of really bad stories. Fires in California threatening the world’s oldest trees. The horrible video of the Uvalde school shooting. Fallout from the abortion ruling. High gas and food prices. A black man’s body riddled with bullets. The January 6 hearings. Climate change, gun violence, the rights of women, inflation adding to economic inequality, racial violence, and the crisis of democracy — a single day in America.
The specifics may change over days, weeks, or months. But the news seems on a miserable gerbil wheel of the same stories over years — maybe even a decade or two. Nothing changes except the details in this endless groundhog day of despair. People are in a foul mood, unable to process the anger, fear, and pain because it comes at us so fast.
If I’m honest, living in this horrible cycle of suffering, even generally optimistic me has become increasingly like Job — the biblical character whose entire life is plagued with one terrible thing after another — in a culture of Jobs.
For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes.
The biblical book of Job is based on an ancient story about evil centered on a question: can faith survive the worst suffering imaginable? In more than thirty chapters, once-prosperous Job experiences the loss of his home, land, wealth, health, companions, and family. “My whole being loathes my life,” Job laments, “Why from the womb did You take me?” To heap misery upon misery, the three worst friends in recorded history try to cheer Job up by offering unwanted advice and lecturing him with the most inane theology imaginable. Job argues and rages, alternating between anguish and fury at his situation, his friends, himself, and God.
Finally, when things reach the emotional bottom, God — the Voice from the Whirlwind — speaks to Job’s complaint. The response begins with a question: “Where were you when I founded earth?”
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? . . .
Can you tie the bands of the Pleiades,
or loose Orion’s reins?
Can you bring constellations out in their season,
lead the Great Bear with its children?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you fix their rule on the earth?. . .
Who has placed in the hidden parts wisdom,
or who gave the mind understanding?
Who counted the skies in wisdom?
and the jars of the heavens who tilted,
when the dust melts to a mass
and the clods cling fast together?
And there it is: perspective. Lift your gaze, Job. Look to the stars.
We’d be wrong, however, if we think God is telling Job to simply stop complaining because God is all powerful. This isn’t a “shut up you foolish mortal and let me fix it” speech.
The Voice begins with the stars and extends its lyrical celebration to all of creation — from the birth of the cosmos to the birth of every animal, the courses of nature. In this hymn of the cosmos, God is birthing presence in and through all, from the far heavens to the smallest bird — everything is woven into divine wisdom.
The answer to suffering isn’t that Big God will defeat evil. The answer to suffering is that since the creation of the stars, sacred intention and presence is the very essence of existence. We are all of the same stuff — God-stuff, star-stuff, soil-stuff, us-stuff — and this knowledge is what finally vanquishes suffering and evil (called “Behemoth” and “Leviathan” in Job). The complexity and beauty of the cosmos, the deep interrelation of everything, alive with God’s compassionate creativity, is what ultimately saves Job. He learns to see differently; his perspective changes. “By the ear’s rumor I heard of You,” Job cried out to God following the vision of creation, “and now my eye has seen You!”
In effect, suffering and evil are the gods that defeat us when we mortals forget the reality of creation and the vastness of the universe. When we lose the sense of our lives in the cosmic web. Only the Voice can call us back to the truth of things — we are part of something much larger than ourselves.
When NASA released the pictures, I couldn’t stop looking at them.
By the ear’s rumor I heard of You, and now my eye has seen You!
And, for just a short time, the universe seemed to reorder itself. I saw things differently, and I knew that more is afoot in the world than the machinations so breathlessly reported on cable news.
“Awe,” wrote Abraham Heschel, “enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.”
To truly see the universe is a great gift — and a transformative responsibility. In seeing, we widen the horizon of possibility of caring for each other, of committing ourselves to healing and peace, of living free from hatred and violence. When we see the very dust clouds in which our own world was born, the ancient stardust that may have fallen through space to make the earth and us puts things in perspective.
The “veil of triviality” has been rent. May we never go back to the old way of seeing.
Look to the stars.
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INSPIRATION
I saw no Way — The Heavens were stitched —
I felt the Columns close —
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres —
I touched the Universe —
And back it slid — and I alone —
A Speck upon a Ball —
Went out upon Circumference —
Beyond the Dip of Bell —
— Emily Dickinson
There, in the field,
you catch the flash
of dark brown wings,
the tail a startling white,
just before the great bird
disappears into the pines
and the heart leaps up
at the gift—the thrill.
You almost missed it.
Once you stood
on a long rocky spit
for an hour watching
hundreds of bald eagles
fly and land, swoop and dive.
How is it that only one bird
for only one sliver of a second
could invite a wonder equally strong?
Such strange math—
the way it takes so little
to create a joy so large
so that seeing the eagle,
you lift your arms from your chair
as if you, too, are taking flight,
as if, you, too, might disappear
into the moment and soar.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Wings of Wonder”
For this land in all its wonder, for each city, farm and town,
For each mountain filled with splendor, for each place where love is found,
For the freedoms we enjoy here,
God, may thanks to you abound! God, may thanks to you abound!
For your peace and love unending, breaking barriers that divide;
For the joy of cultures blending as we live here side by side;
God, we thank you and we pray now:
May we all be unified! May we all be unified!
For your hand to lead and guide us, for your work in history,
For your vision born inside us of a just society,
God, we thank you and we pray now:
May this vision come to be! May this vision come to be!
May we be a nation seeking ways that are both wise and fair,
May our living and our speaking serve your purpose everywhere.
May we follow where you lead us;
God, this is our hope and prayer! God, this is our hope and prayer!
— Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, “For This Land in All Its Wonder.” Hymn tune: CWM RHONDDA (“God of Grace and God of Glory”)
Look with kindness and you will always find wonder.
― R.J. Palacio, “We're All Wonders”
The Convocation Unscripted Goes on the Road!
Sunday, October 20: Tempe, AZ, at Dayspring UMC, 5PM
Come out and hear me, Robert P. Jones, Jemar Tisby, and Kristin Du Mez on Christian nationalism (we’re not for it!) and why people of faith must be engaged in politics in this LIVE in-person Convocation Unscripted — plus great music!
It is free — bring your friends.
DETAILS and REGISTRATION INFO HERE!
Thank you. I just finished reading an article in the NYTimes about the DT rally planned in NYC at the end of the month... I was sickened. Your "wonder cure" was a strong antidote ... I will probably have to read it every day until the election is over.
The most wonderful realization is that no matter how bad things get or how much suffering has to be endured, the capacity to perceive love always remains. Being made in the image of love gives us that inner place of knowing in the center of our souls that the Source of all things cannot possibly abandon itself.