Christ on the Sea of Galilee (1841, Eugene Delacroix)
This week while in a meeting, one school leader described the awkward “nuances of interconnectedness” that are strained during this current round of re-opening schools. She referenced how students are unable to speak during lunch because they are forced to eat indoors due to the physical campus restraints of this particular school, and how faculty miss out on the informal lunchroom professional development and community-building. All the schools I work with are now open for this new academic year, and I remain inspired that they continue to do so with grace given all the realities presented by how our society continues to confront Covid-19 in our communities.
Meanwhile my family, friends, and colleagues in the New Orleans area are challenged by the damage, loss, and lack of electricity caused this week by Hurricane Ida. Family in Pennsylvania may be threatened by tornados and/or flash flooding today. And fellow Californians flee the Lake Tahoe area and other locales around our state that are devastated by wildfires.
What are we do amidst such conditions? God invites us to love. To trust. To persevere. To serve.
Monday’s Psalm reading encourages us to give praise to God. This is easier for me to do as a person of privilege, whereby others without medical care, those who do not have the economic means to evacuate areas, or and those without communities of support may be unable to do so. Let us keep those individuals especially in our prayers throughout this week ahead.
In addition to the Psalm below, I invite you to listen to these two songs as well. I have been listening to a lot of blues music lately, and California is a song from a 1960’s British blues band that played with John Mayall. And this cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah– by my favorite Irish cellist Patrick Dexter- is worth a listen, too.
Psalm 96
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Tell God’s glory among the nations;
among all peoples, God’s wondrous deeds.
For great is the LORD and highly to be praised;
awesome is God, beyond all gods.
For all the gods of the nations are things of nought,
but the LORD made the heavens.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;
let the sea and what fills it resound;
let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!
Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.
Before the LORD, for God comes to rule the earth.
God shall rule the world with justice.
Keeping the Faith 