October 28, 2013
| Sunday’s High | 76 | ||
| Sunday’s Low | 48 | ||
| Days in Las Cruces | 126 | ||
| Steps/Miles walked Sunday | 10,013 | 4.7 | |
| Steps/Miles walked | 1,014,950 | 507.5 |
For those of you who read my blog early on Sunday, you may have noticed that it was dated “October 29”. Well, what can I say? OOPS! I didn’t catch it until 9 pm Sunday night.
We began the day yesterday with church. A visit to our new church home, First Christian Church of Las Cruces. Worship was absolutely delightful yesterday. Though I got a giggle out of something that happened at the very beginning, actually just before service began. Scott and I had picked out a couple of seats, sat down, began familiarizing ourself with the reading and various hymns we’d be singing. A delightful lady came up behind us and said “Excuse me. You’re sitting in my spot. I always sit in the fourth pew. Would you mind moving back one row to sit behind me like you did LAST WEEK?!” Of course, Scott and I gladly moved back one row. It’s a small thing. I got such a kick out of it! Evicted from our pew!!! Now seriously, people, doesn’t this deserve a loud LOL? A belly laugh and a guffaw? I say it does! And this is MY blog! So I’m right.
The reading at our service yesterday was from Isaiah 58:6-14. I feel these verses. I mean, I really feel them. They speak so directly to our society today. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to LOOSE the bond of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to BREAK every yoke? 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 them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
I could very easily look at various situations going on in this country, and point fingers and say “This is why YOU don’t have this right!” I have friends, and family, on the opposite side of the political spectrum. I suspect they feel they can quote this scripture and point the self-same finger back at me. So, I am not going to. I try really hard not to broach politics on this blog. And I try equally hard to avoid not to broach religion here, either, when that religious discussion might include finger pointing.
Yes, I discuss religion. It is impossible for me not to. I might as well tell you all goodbye, and close the blog down. And I’m not going to do that. So, before I continue, let me just say this. If you are offended, I apologize. If you disagree with me, I’m sorry. I’ll like listen patiently, I will consider what you have to say. But in the end, if I disagree with your view, you and I shall have to “agree to disagree”. And to the person who recently emailed me in private to ask me to stop writing about my beliefs, all I can say is, no. I hope you can see your way to read my blog in spite of my beliefs. If you cannot, I understand. Perhaps our paths will cross in some other time and place, and we can sit and have a beer and discuss whatever you like except religion.
So, back to what I was saying. Yes, I do think that there are a great many people in this country who profess a Christian faith who have more in common with the first 5 verses of Isaiah 58 than they do with the verses 6 through 14. I would go so far as to say these are a VERY VOCAL population, but still a minority.
The vast majority of Christians I actually know live these verses. But it is that Christianity in this country seems many times to miss the point Isaiah 58 that bothers me. And what really spoke to my heart today was that what I really must do is to contemplate this chapter, and recognize how I, Eric Hays-Strom, has failed to live up to God’s word HERE.
I came across something on Facebook that also spoke loudly to me today, and I hope that the one who wrote it will not object to my posting it here without citation. It was a discussion of a minister’s intent to burn bibles on Halloween, namely all bibles that are NOT the King James Version. This minister claims that all other translations are “satanic”. He goes on to say that Billy Graham, Rick Warren and others are heretics. A frustrated voice then spoke up suggesting perhaps we should burn ALL bibles.
Then, maybe we should teach people to listen for Spirit, you know, the LIVING WORD IN US; teach people to hear what Spirit is saying TODAY, to and through the LIVING prophets. Maybe we have put so much emphasis on what WAS the Word that we’ve lost sight of the RELATIONSHIP involved between Spirit, Mind, and Body.
I’m not quite prepared to throw out “what WAS the Word”, for I truly believe it is valuable and important and has a lot to say to us today. But I for one am totally unconvinced by the argument that God no longer speaks to us today. I believe God’s revelation to us is ongoing; and so, it is imperative, I believe, that we keep our mind open for today’s LIVING prophets, for the Spirit’s voice speaking to humanity today.
I am on a constant quest to discover today’s, non-canonical, scripture, the Word manifested through voices of prophetic nature.
Daily Gratitude
Today, as I was sitting in church, after we had resettled in our proper place, I looked around at my fellow congregation members. I noticed the very stately woman (actually, two, sitting near each other) on the opposite side of the aisle. The sight-challenged man a few rows in front of us. The younger man “over there”.
And I heard my own revelation of sorts, for as I looked around this thought, word for word, came into mind (I wrote it in my notebook)
I saw Jesus in church today, in the faces of each person I saw, and in the faces of those I spoke to today. She even evicted me from my pew!”
Today, I’m grateful that God opened my eyes in church just long enough to see Jesus in those around me, in a very special way!
Prayer Intention
“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” — Psalm 8:1
And, dipping into the prayer clays, I find that this week’s prayer intention is “the Sacred”.
And there in, my friends, family and readers, lies the answer to “what is ‘the Sacred’?”
The sacred is being open to finding the noble in the mundane.
On The Road II 