Faith & Life Inspirational Message

Last evening as I was doing the readings from the Benedictine lectionary for the Evening Prayer (called Compline), I was struck by one line.   It comes at the end of Psalm 16.   The Psalmist speaks to God, “You show me the path of life.” (16:11)   I appreciate the matter-of-factness in these words to God.   It is not a petition to God.   The Psalmist is not asking God to be shown the path of life.                When I read it closely, however, I see there are two possibilities.   One way to read this passage is to understand the Psalmist saying, in effect, “You have shown me the path…thank you.”   This would show me the Psalmist now knows the path and needs no more instruction or revelation.   The job now is to get on with it.   In some sense it now becomes an issue of obedience.   I know the path and now I have to walk it!        ...

Sometimes when I am outside, it hits me how majestic and wonderful nature can be.   Since I grew up in rural Indiana, I have always known this to be the case.   However, we live much more insulated lives than people did when I was a little boy.   We live in controlled environments much of the time.   We use air conditioning to keep it cooler in the summer and, then, turn on the heat to keep the rooms warm during the winter months.   I am not complaining and am not suggesting we go back to the good old days! But I do think living life in an insulated way leads more of us to live more unaware.   Because our environments are controlled, we shape our reality as much as it shapes us.   This does not make us crazy, but it does allow us to live in a kind of illusion.   When it is nearly one hundred degrees on a summer day, it probably is a comfortable seventy-two degrees inside.   We have little awareness of the reality of nature.   And we n...

I had occasion yesterday to spend some more significant time in nature than I usually do.   That in itself is not so strange.   Of course, we all live in some form of nature.   Nature surrounds us; it holds us in its very being.   However, I realize how easy it is to be pretty unaware of nature.   I think this may especially be true for urban or, even, suburban dwellers.   I now fit into that category. It may be different for folks who spend most of their time “in nature.”   Growing up on a farm fits that bill.   I would think those folks who have to work outside also are more alert to nature than so many of us who work inside buildings or who are too old or sick to venture outside.   And surely, many of us in the US live in sheltered surroundings.   We move from house to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned buildings.   Or in the winter, it is from heated houses to heated cars to heated buildings.   Nature can’t get u...

There are always cool things to learn if we are open to learning.  And some of the stuff I learn, I am not quite sure what I will do with it.  Just this weekend I read an interesting article in the local newspaper about spiders.  I am neutral on spiders.  They are interesting creatures.  I am not scared of them.  They don’t bother me, but before reading the article I was not particularly fascinated by them either. But now I am intrigued.  The title of the article is catchy: “Unraveling a spider’s secret miracle fiber.”  I think any time someone uses the word, “miracle,” intrigue is built into it.  And then you add the qualifier, “secret!”  Who can resist a “secret miracle?” The article gets to the point when it describes the silk woven by the spider.  We read that “Spider silk is nature’s miracle fiber.  It’s ultra-strong, versatile, durable, replenishable, even edible.  Spiders can churn out 100 yards a day.”  “W...