To my companions on the journey,
At 3:29 p.m. each day…PRAY! That's the practice to which I invited you a few months ago. I hope you will keep it up if you accepted that invite or start now.
One of the things I have been praying about each day at 3:29 p.m. is the gulf oil spill and its affects. I hope you have as well.
The other day I encounter this devotion (printed below) on the i.ucc.org web site and thought I'd share it. It was a different way for me to pray for one day about that disaster and gave me a new way to pray in the days ahead about it as well.
tLbwy...pjl
BP
Excerpt from Ezekiel 32:1-15
"You consider yourself a lion among the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you thrash about in your streams, trouble the water with your feet, and foul your streams....I will haul you up in my dragnet...I will let the wild animals of the whole earth gorge themselves with you....then I will make their waters clear."
Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell (Associate Minister of Old South Church in Boston, Massachusetts)
Given the fouling of the waters that's been going on in the Gulf of Mexico these last months, it's tempting to make British Petroleum the object of Ezekiel's diatribe.
And, since I'm mad as hell and have never been very good at resisting temptation, I think I'll do just that. Won't you join me?
**Pause to fantasize about God eviscerating BP and letting the vultures eat its innards, also bringing about massive remorse in the bigwigs responsible, also helping the former employees of the now-defunct company find healthy, productive new jobs, also helping me live a life that doesn't depend on fossil fuels, also descending from heaven with some sort of celestial vacuum to suck all the oil out of the water**
Aaah. Delightful.
One of the great gifts of rants like this is to serve as a container for whatever feelings threaten to overwhelm us. Mad? Terrified? Broken? Somebody, I promise, has written a biblical poem, prophecy, or song just right for you. They are a reminder that God is often mad (or sad, or whatever) about the very same things we're mad about; more importantly, they're a reminder that we're supposed to be mad about the same things God's mad about.
Of course, we miss the boat if we sit around fantasizing all day. The point is the repair of the world. So, remembering that it's always best to let God decide about vengeance and punishment, try this: do the fantasy again, but this time, see whether there isn't a role that you can play in making the fantasy real.
Prayer
God, thank you for the gift of inspiring visions, and even guilty pleasure fantasies. But don't let me stay in my imaginings; give me the strength to go out and do something. Amen.
