Daily Devotions and Podcasts

READING  Dietrich Bonhoeffer “The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They lose the moment when the answers are revealed in dazzling clarity.” WORDS OF HOPE I think we all have a tendency to want quick and immediate answers especially when times are hard or things look like they’re not going to go well. This is human nature. This perhaps is the metaphor of the garden of Eden story where Adam and Eve could not wait but needed immediate gratification of taking from the tree. I think this is a big part of the prosperity gospel that has become manifest in our modern world. Put a load of money in the collection plate. God will reward you handsomely and immediately. In the earliest times of the church, the desert mothers and fathers went out and sat and prayed and waited for the Lord to speak to them. I sometimes suspect that the people who came to meet with them and ask questions hoped that the patient waiting had been done and now the quick answer would flow from the desert dwellers. At first, the church felt that Jesus would return quickly. They believed that within their lifetime Jesus would come again. Two thousand plus years later we seem to think the same. But the truth is, there are no quick answers. In fact, sometimes it takes a very long time. Have you ever heard or read a Bible passage and thought “this doesn’t apply to me.” And then, weeks months or even years later you hear or see that passage again and suddenly it has great meaning for you. This of course is how the prophets often worked. Sometimes their words had an immediacy, and sometimes they were meant for the long run. And sometimes a little of each. In our modern world, it is often hard to take the time to meditate or think through what God wants for us. We pray and hope for answers in the here and especially the now. And sometimes that happens. And sometimes it does not happen immediately. If we stop and think of the ‘kingdom’ of God as being here now, we become less concerned with immediate answers and more concerned with living in the presence of God with us each day. Perhaps in our impatience we fail to take time to look around us to see God in the here and the now. PRAYER Loving God, we thank you for being with us. We ask you to open our eyes to your presence in the places we are now. We praise you for giving us the power to act in this time through your Son to help bring about the world as you wanted it to be. Grant us patience to wait upon you in our lives. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare

SCRIPTURE Psalm 139: 8 If I descend to the depths of Sheol, you are there.  WORDS OF HOPE I remember the day my mother quit going to church. She had long been a faithful member of Cochran Chapel Methodist and head of the Care Corps for 17 years. Though she could no longer drive, needed the assistance of a walker, and lived in assisted living, a friend picked her up every Sunday so that she could worship in community. The reason she gave for not going was that it was too painful and laborious to get ready, given her severe osteoarthritis. Though that made sense, I wasn’t convinced that this was the whole truth. After looking back on the early stages of mom’s dementia, I think it was equally likely that she did not want her memory issues exposed as they would be on Sunday mornings when she wrapped up folks in her large-hearted embrace and caught up on how they were. Soon she could not manage her medications herself and later I found that her practice of doing the daily crossword wasn’t all that it seemed: she was filling in letters for the responses, but they didn’t spell a word. The most painful and difficult manifestations of the disease were the anger and aggression. Seemingly overnight the person who mothered scores of young women in the boarding program at the school where we both worked, whose “Millie hugs” and listening ear soothed fears and anxieties, became reactive and hostile with aides, and therefore she became increasingly isolated. Before the most severe stages set in, I’d had a conversation with mom trying to affirm God’s presence in the midst of her pain. With the assuredness of an experienced teacher correcting an uppity student, she said, “Pat, I talk with Jesus every day.” As the grey fog closed in around her, I so wished that, in the core of her interior self, that were still true. In my own friendships and congregational care work, I journey with caregivers pretty regularly, often for a family member with dementia. One friend shared, after a few years of caregiving, that when her husband died, she could only remember the person whom disease had radically diminished and feared that it would be so forever. But after months, the bright, lively, funny man she and her daughters loved returned in memory. Recently, as a friend and I sat over brunch, she shared advice a supportive physician gave her in the early days of her husband’s condition: 1. Preserve Ted’s dignity (name changed for privacy). 2)Take the actions she must take to keep herself and Ted safe. 3) When Ted balks at a decision she has made thoughtfully and with care, his preferences must be set aside. She must do the thing anyway. Writer Louise Penny’s has offered her own experiences about her husband’s Alzheimer’s and the grief of losing him. Penny and her husband Michael, a pediatric hematologist and brilliant scientist, decided that they were going to go public with the diagnosis to try to educate others and dispel some of the shame about the disease, a shame which drives families behind closed doors and into isolation. In an article for AARP, the mystery writer tells of the promises she made to Michael in the early stages-- for example, that she would never leave him behind and that they would never leave their rambling home in the country. But as the situation worsened, she had to break those promises, moving into a smaller, single level condo, and others for safety and to be able to navigate daily life with less stress. Though there were times that were hard, hard, hard and she was exhausted and wept often, her deep love for Michael sustained her. And, rather than losing him quickly to a heart attack or stroke, she and Michael had the “long goodbye,” as Nancy Regan called it. Every day she whispered into her beloved’s ear: “You are magnificent. You are brave……You are safe and you are loved.” https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/stories/mystery-writer-essay/ I was not with my mother when her great heart failed, but it was a blessing when the Sunday before, two friends who loved her encircled her bed with me while I prayed for the light and love of her homegoing. PRAYER Be with us at the end, O God, no matter our condition. Whisper into our ear, “You are magnificent. You are safe, and I love you.” Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon