Daily Devotions and Podcasts

SCRIPTURE Psalm 62. 1-2 Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly God is my rock and my salvation; God is my fortress, I will never be shaken. WORDS OF HOPE Our Firm Foundation "How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in God's excellent word. What more can be said than what God has said, to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?" This is a quotation from the hymn Our Firm Foundation with words taken from the Rippon Selection of Hymns 1787. Did you ever ask yourself, “What is my foundation?” Can you with assurance say: "God alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I will not be greatly shaken” [or filled with stress and fear]? In today’s atmosphere of uncertainty or fear, the quest for a true foundation in our lives can be overwhelming to all of us. Can we find true foundations in our political leaders, in news sources we trust, or in the endless discussions of friends, family, or mostly strangers on social media? Or, is our actual foundation where it has been all along, waiting patiently, and just a prayer away? For many centuries, the practice of silent prayer has been the principle source for the saints of old to eliminate the cacophony of the world and hear that still small voice of our true foundation, our assurance of comfort. We don’t have to be a Saint of old to hear it, or even better, to feel it. Find a place today, or tonight before bedtime, where you can take a few moments for a time of silence. Here’s a prayer that I often repeat; one that works for me: “I wait for you alone, my God; my hope is in you. You alone are my rock of assurance and safety; I will put my trust in You always, pouring out my heart's concerns to You, my refuge.” God is known for the steadfast love as stated in the Psalm of today’s reading. God is our sure foundation as we journey through this time of distress and uncertainty. Today’s news can be overwhelming to all of us. But these are the best of times to press together the palms of our hands and remember: "God is sovereign, and God is our firm support!" PRAYER Only you, Lord, can focus my heart to be present to you. In the multiplicity of things and distractions of my mind and every day's routine, the one necessity, the one place where my heart can rest is you. May your Spirit help me in my weakness and my distress. May the gift of your presence and comfort speak to my soul.* Amen DEVOTION AUTHOR Donald (Luke) Day Order of St. Francis and St. Clare *modified from the words of Karl Rahner

SCRIPTURE  James 5: 1-6 Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. WORDS OF HOPE Sometimes we overlook or fail to appreciate things because we are so used to them. We don’t even think about them. Sometimes these are big things. I suspect, unless there is some unusual sound, most of us ignore the flyover of planes. But I suspect most of these things that we fail to notice are the small things. And sometimes it is the smallest things that make the biggest changes. One of my favorite little-known holidays is Punctuation Day. A day to celebrate those small marks that we are so used to and that our English teachers so often got onto us about. We don’t even think about them as we read most of the time. I was curious about the origin of punctuation and found some things that were kind of interesting; at least to me. While the ancient Greeks had some marks in their writings that were meant to help auditors as they read, it was not until almost the seventh century CE that punctuation was really used. Isidore of Seville introduced the comma the period and the colon. Prior to this no punctuation was used. One of my favorite teachers in college said that often times Romans didn’t even use spaces between words. Needless to say uppercase letters versus lowercase letters were nonexistent. Soimaginereadingsomethingwrittenlikethis When I read this, it made me think about the people who first wrote, and who first read the gospels and other Christian writings. Most of these things were not available in written form to the general public until the invention of the printing press in the 1400’s. Someone educated who had access to these writings would have to read them out loud to everyone. And because the writings were so valuable, they were kept in a place that was considered safe. People did not have the kind of leisure we have today; one of those small things we sometimes fail to think about. Nor did they have the education or reading materials we have. You worked from the sunup to sundown; usually at some form of manual labor. You maybe had a candle or oil lamp that you could use after dark but probably did not stay up that late. So, you got your gospel on Sundays in church from someone there; a priest who had been educated enough to read from the gospels and write a passage assigned by the church. This was often done in a way that within a specific time span, specific parts of the Bible would be read. So often we take for granted the simple things that make life easier. Punctuation, so simple and like so many things so obvious, makes communication clearer. Yet we do not stop to think about what it does and how much we rely on it. It is frequently this way with God’s creation. We see bugs; small animals. We often kill or chase them away. We fail to stop and think what the world would be like without these little miracles cleaning up our refuse. We worry about our own comfort without thought to the circle of life and death that is part of our universe. We give God thanks for the big things of life but often forget to thank God for the system of existence that is Creation. PRAYER Great and loving Creator, gives us pause to see all parts of your Creation and to appreciate those little things which keep that Creation in order. Remind us that the dominion which we have means care not just mastery. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare