Thursday Thoughts
Re-Remembering the Day the World Shifted
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 03/15/24
I was supposed to have been teaching in person that day (I think on Aristotle), but my university had no safe water because some disease had been found in the local water system (ecoli? Salmonella?). With no way to wash my hands and no masks (remember when we thought we just had to wash our hands to prevent COVID spread?), I moved my classes online that day. I knew full well that I would probably not be back in person with my students again that semester. Indeed, the university decided the following day to shut down the campus and go entirely online. We thought it would be for two weeks.
Within just a few days, the world became almost unrecognizable as we lost our daily structures: worship services, classes, restaurants, family visits, etc.
In the last four years we have all learned many new skills that have enabled us to connect virtually to other folx, but we also carry a load of grief over the losses brought by the pandemic and the losses the pandemic kept us from grieving with our communities.
As you remember this week four years ago and all that has come since, also remember that God walked beside us through all the loss and uncertainty. God also grieved as people turned against one another, as bodies shut down, as children regressed in learning, and rejoiced as people rallied to make it through together. As we remember four years ago, if you haven’t already done so, it might help to shift your memory view enough that you also can see that God was there on March 13th, 2020. God was at every hospital bed, in every home where people hunkered down in fear, everywhere. God walked through that time as well - don’t forget this! I have found it helpful when remembering painful things to pray the simple line, “God, you were there as well.”
In Psalm 42 the Psalmist reflects on their own past grief and their questions of where God was when their world turned from good to bad. Then they took hold of the hope that although they were living in anguish now, they would not always be living in anguish:
“‘Why so dispirited?’ I ask myself.
‘Why so churned up inside? Hope in God!’
I know I’ll praise God once again,
For you are my Deliverance;
You are my God.”[1]
As we re-remember the start of the pandemic, let us re-remember God’s presence with us during that time and let it give us assurance that God is always with us, even when the world turns upside down.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
A Blessing for Collective Grief
This world.
Impossible.
Unthinkable.
We are brought to our knees.
God, today, there is no true north.
And when I last checked,
the sun did not rise at all.
Today, the innocent still suffer,
buildings still fall,
families still grieve.
A world has ended without
any reasonable fanfare.
This is the way of tragedy,
how it breaks in and robs us while we sleep.
Help us to know what to feel,
what to do,
how to grieve–together.
Blessed are we
who try to see things clearly,
though the truth of it all feels
unimaginable.
Blessed are we who ask and wait, and ask again,
for answers that may not come,
for hope that seems hard to find,
for comfort that is not easily offered.
Along the way
show us how to live
when we’ve lost the things
we cannot get back.
Remind us that you, Oh God,
are our home and our refuge.
When life’s unthinkable fragility
Is too difficult to hold,
take my hands.[2]
[1] Psalm 42:5, The Inclusive Bible
[2] “For Collective Grief,” in Kate Bowler’s and
Jessica Richie’s The Lives We Actually
Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (New York: Convergent, 2023), p. 74.
A Prayer for our Humanity
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 02/29/24
As you encounter your own humanity this week,
may you make space for God to work in God’s own time.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
it is time for me
to
see the flaws
of
myself
and
stop
being
alarmed
it
is time for me
to
halt my drive
for
perfection
and
to accept
my
blemishes
it
is time for me
to
receive
slowly
evolving growth
the
kind that comes
in
God’s own good time
and
pays no heed
to
my panicky pushing
it
is time for me
to
embrace
my
humanness
to
love
my
incompleteness
it
is time for me
to
cherish
the
unwanted
to
welcome
the
unknown
to
treasure
the
unfulfilled
if
I wait to be
perfect
before
I love myself
I
will always be
unsatisfied
and
ungrateful
if
I wait until
all
the flaws, chips,
and
cracks disappear
I
will be the cup
that
stands on the shelf
and
is never used.[1]
[1] Joyce Rupp, The Cup of Our Life: A Guide for Spiritual Growth (Notre Dame, Indiana:
Ave Maria Press, 2005), 68.
Hearing God's Voice
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 02/22/24
A prayer for those who seek God’s voice,
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
“She Said, ‘How Do You Know When You are Hearing from God?” By Amena Brown[1]
She said, “how do you know when you are
hearing from God?”
I didn’t know how to explain
It is to explain the butter grit of cornbread
to
a mouth that just discovered it has a
tongue
The sound of jazz to ears that only ever
thought
they’d
be lobes of flesh
The sight of sunsets to blinded eyes that in
an
instant can see
To fail at the ability to give words to how
the scent
of
baked bread can make the mind recall a
memory
Every detail
of a house, a room, a kitchen, a conversation
Like explaining to a newborn baby this is what
it
feels
like to be held
My words never felt so small, so useless,
so
incapable.
I wanted to say
Put your hand in the middle of your chest
feel the rhythm there
I wanted to say you will find the holy text in
so
many
places
On crinkly pages of scripture
In dusty hymnals
In the creases of a grandmother’s smile
The way she clasps her hands
The way she prays familiar, with reverence as
if to
dignitary
and friend
The way she sings a simple song from her
spirit
and
porches turn to cathedrals
I learned from my great-grandmother how to
pray
How to talk to God
How to listen
Watching her and the other silver-haired
church
mothers
gather in her living room
Worn wrinkled hands on top of leather bibles
well
traveled
They prayed living room prayers because you
don’t
have to be inside the four walls of a
church
to cry out to the God who made you
Because no matter where you sing or scream or
whisper
God’s ears can hear you
And despite what the laws say or what your
humans
flaws say
God’s ears don’t play favorites
God’s ears don’t assess bank accounts or
social
status
before they attune themselves to the
story
your tears or your fears are telling
God’s ears are here for the babies
For the immigrant, for the refugee
For the depressed, for the lonely
For the dreamers
The widow, the orphan
The oppressed and the helpless
Those about to make a mess or caught in the
middle
of cleaning one up
Dirt don’t scare God’s ears
God is a gardener
God knows things can’t grow without sun, rain,
and
soil
I want to tell her to hear God
you have to be willing to experience what’s
holy
in
places many people don’t deem to be sacred
That sometimes God sits next to you on a
barstool
spilling truth to you like too many beers
That God knows very well the dance we’ll do
When we love ourselves so little that just
about
anyone
will do
That God cares about the moments we find our-
selves
on the edge of a cliff
on the edge of sanity
on the edge of society
Even when we have less than an inch left of
the
thread
that’s been holding us together
I want to tell her God is always waiting
Lingering after the doors close
and the phone doesn’t right
and we are finally alone
God is always saying
I love you
I am here
Don’t go, stay
Please
I try to explain how God is pleading with us
To trust
To love
To listen
That God’s voice is melody and bass lines and
whisper
and thunder and grace
Sometimes when I pray, I think of her
How the voice of God was lingering in her very
question
How so many of us just like her
Just like me
Just like you
Are still searching
Still questioning, still doubting
I know I don’t have all the answers
I know I never will
That sometimes the best thing we can do is put
our
hands
in the middle of our chest
Feel the rhythm there
Turn down the noise in our minds, in our lives
and whisper,
God
Whatever you want to say
I’m here
I’m listening.
[1] Amena Brown, “She Said, ‘How Do You Know When
You Are Hearing From God?’,” A Rhythm of Prayer:
A Collection of Meditations for Renewal, edited by Sarah Bessey (New York:
Convergent, 2021), 7-11.
A Prayer for Being Known
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 02/15/24
In this week in which we celebrate Valentine’s day, God’s love find us wherever we are and may we know this love deep into our being.
A Prayer for Being Known
Divine Community,
We want to be known and we’re terrified of being known. Of being laid bare in the presence of another. We are grateful that you are not a God who demands a spirituality rooted in some solitary existence, but it is hard to belong without allowing the direction of our lives to be dictated by those from whom we seek affirmation. Help us to daily discern the truth of our selfhood, that our communities would offer insight without commanding assimilation. As we find spaces that truly see and know us, help us to not run from them. The more beautiful a thing is, the more terrified we are of losing it. Do not let this terror keep us from the love we were meant for. And as we learn to accept friendship and care, may we be stirred to extend it to others. Keep us from contributing to loneliness and dislocation in the world, knowing that our freedom is mysteriously entwined with the freedom of those around us.
Amen
A Breath Prayer
Inhale: I was meant for love.
Exhale: God help me to receive it.[1]
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
[1] Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (New York: Convergent, 2024), 70-71.
For the Beauty of This Day
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 02/08/24
For the Beauty of This Day May your days be gentle, kind, and full of God’s presence. God, I want to bottle up the magic of this day, and sip from it again and again. I want to savor the taste of it, the beauty of it, so I won’t – can’t – forget. How is it, God, that such a day could unfold so naturally, and, at the same time, feel orchestrated for perfection? It’s as if it poured itself into my soul and became the essential vitamin I didn’t know I was missing. It appeared the way wild pansies do, suddenly, their bright colors spreading and growing effortlessly in the hard ground, where nothing else will. God, thank you for this day that became for me a gentle gift, and a heat at ease, and hope blooming. Blessed are we with open hands receiving it gratefully, carefully storing it away like a tea set, ready to be poured out again when friends stop by. Blessings, Pastor Amy
