Sunday Musings

Inspiration sampler

On Wednesday, I was diagnosed with COVID. And thus, today’s Sunday Musings won’t be a typical weekend reflection.

Instead you’ll find three inspirational pieces — a spiritual sampler — including a conversation with Brian McLaren about his new book, Do I Stay Christian?, the Hebrew Bible reading from today’s lectionary, and a poem.

Cottage interviews are primarily for the paid subscriber community. But I’m opening this one up to everyone because I love Brian’s new book — and who makes a better guest “preacher” at the Cottage than Brian?

This recording has been widely requested and gives you a great sense of what the full Cottage experience is all about. Upcoming will be two subscriber-only events:

• Monday, June 13, 5PM Eastern
  Ruining Dinner: Guns, Baptists, & a Dying Democracy LIVE podcast taping with me, Tripp Fuller, and Brian McLaren (as our guest) which includes some cool insider info about the upcoming Wild Goose Festival. This is co-hosted by the Cottage and Homebrewed Christianity. Link will be sent out to the Cottage paid community on MONDAY about three hours in advance.
  
  

• Thursday, June 23, 4PM Eastern
  ZOOM to the Cottage: Bill McKibben joins us for a live conversation with Q&A on his brand new book, The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon. Links will be sent out to the paid community on the day of.

If you can’t make live events, recordings are sent out to paid subscribers about twenty-four hours later. They are also available to paid subscribers, along with all past conversations, in the Cottage archive to watch whenever you want.

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If I were not so exhausted with COVID, I’d write on this passage today. It is one of my favorites — about how Wisdom was present at the beginning of creation, rejoices in the world, and takes delight in the humankind. Read it, let it sink into your soul, and may these glorious words mark your steps in the week ahead.

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?

On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;

beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:

"To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.

Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth--

when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world's first bits of soil.

When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,

when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,

when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,

rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race."

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INSPIRATION

Whose
order was it
that made the ends of the earth?
Who put clothes on the deep?
What is his name, and what is his

son’s name,
if you can tell?

Wisdom can. Still a child,
she attended God when God had not yet
divided the waters.
It was no one but
God’s to do
to divide what
isn’t said

from what is.
If God was
male already,

Wisdom was not male. . .
— James McMicheal, “Wisdom” can be read in its entirety HERE

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Thank you for the prayers, good wishes, and kind notes regarding COVID at the Bass household. Richard and I are doing our best to rest and recover and get beyond this difficult month! I’ll see many of you online on Monday night, and I’m hoping for some genuine improvement over the next thirty-six hours. I’m very grateful for your friendship and support in all the beautiful ways you show here at The Cottage.

Please make sure your vaccines are boosted, wear masks in any risky environment, and get tested if you are going to a big event! Mild COVID is still COVID. The pandemic situation has changed but COVID remains with us and we need to care for each other — however unpopular it may seem to do so — and adjust to whatever curveballs it throws.

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