Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness. Desmond Tutu

Meditation: When we look at the darkness of our times: the hate, the apathy, the greed and the abuse of power, we could lose hope. And sometimes worst case scenarios cross our minds when we feel discouraged. Then we feel like losing hope for this planet, this country, even for humanity. What is it about us that we do not learn from history? What is it that we act so self-destructively and seem unable to see beyond ourselves? When it seems that all is lost, I try to look for those examples that show me that humanity is still reaching out to each other in empathy and care. I look for those light moments when the darkness of hate is overcome by mutual respect and openness. I follow those light testimonies that demonstrate compassion and self-less leadership. And then I hold on to those small light examples for dear life. I won’t allow my hopeless moments to throw me into despair. No, as long as I have those small lights of hope, which testify of God’s Spirit still being among us, I will hold onto the big hope that God has not given up on humanity yet. And so I won’t give up on it either.

Prayer: God of hope, thank You for those small lights. Those Spirit moments of hope, love, respect and empathy that I witness each day. Let me value them more, hold them carefully, as not to allow them to get destroyed by all the negative and dark news of the day. The dark is big and loud. The light is small and quiet. Come, Holy Spirit, with Your quiet presence. Light our way so we won’t miss the path You want to lead us on. And we are grateful for Your Light that sends us those small lights of hope along the way. Amen

The Lord is near to those who are discouraged; he saves those who have lost all hope. – Psalm 34:18

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. Washington Irving

Meditation: People are weeping. They have lost loved ones. Hundreds were killed in recent natural disasters. 58 people or more have died from gunshot wounds inflicted by a random act of terrorism by a US citizen. Politicians and many in our divided country have moved on to critical debates, which is understandable. However, many families are grieving. They are being changed forever. In one day, everything changed. There is sacredness in tears. They are powerful. They speak the unspeakable. They are the messengers the world needs to see first of all. We need to hear the mourning first and not only the debates, the arguments, the rational and irrational discussions. “Where have you put them?” Those victims of the hurricanes? Those victims of the massacre? What are their names? Let us join their families in days and weeks of weeping and of mourning. Let us keep crying for longer than a demonstrative silent minute. Let us share the sacredness of life and of death, of love and of tears with each other.

Prayer: God of life, we drive in our cars to work as if nothing had happened. And yet tears well up when we hear the names of the victims, see images of their suffering, hear their stories and imagine their loved ones. Your Spirit gives us empathy and tears for strangers as a sign of human connection and love. This is the only power that will help us as human race to rise above our current times. As community and followers of Christ, we weep with those who are weeping. Let us allow our tears to flow freely. Nothing else has the power to resurrect us. Nothing else will restore us as a uniting church, as a uniting country and as a uniting world as tears do. And You, God, You weep with us. Amen

He asked, “Where have you put him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. John 11:34-35

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses. Carl Jung

Meditation: It is interesting how many Christian churches operate from a condemnation model in order to change people to how the leaders of the church think people need to change, behave or be. Often these leaders were raised with the same model of judgment and spiritualizing oppression. It is amazing to me how people from oppressive family systems often find oppressive church systems to replicate what they know and are familiar with. How in the world can Jesus’s message and way of being be so abused and twisted? How can Old Testament rules and laws be used as if they were Christian teachings and not pure ancient Jewish law to regulate a certain Jewish culture at a certain time in history? Unless we reach the level of love that Jesus embodied by accepting all persons before asking anything of them, we cannot call ourselves Christians. The Spirit of God always accepts first of all, always liberates, always sets free. If your church operates from a condemnation model, you might not find yourself in a Christian community after all.

Prayer: Jesus, you have come to fulfill and overcome the Jewish law. You saw how it was used and abused to oppress people and to have control over people’s lives. You came to set us free from oppression. You came so that we would follow the Spirit of God and not the letter of the law. Wake our brothers and sisters up who are genuinely seeking you, but who are trapped in oppressive churches and teachings. You do not condemn. You accept us as we are. Your Spirit always sets us free. And we are grateful. Amen

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1

The Iraq War was the biggest issue for people of my generation in the West. It was also the clearest case, in my living memory, of media manipulation and the creation of a war through ignorance. Julian Assange

Meditation: Chaos describes the current state of our federal government, and chaos and manipulative distraction is also what it tries to create. We learned that Russia used our social media to manipulate and set up an internal American culture war by creating culture divides during the pre-election season. Those divides are now being further reinforced by the president as he appeals to the masses’ lowest instincts of fear, hate and projected enemy thinking. War language and hate themes are being used frequently. First they are projected out onto certain internal minorities and then also projected out onto other nations. As a country we find ourselves in a new disorienting era. An increasing nationalist propaganda and a divisive and covert media manipulation like this never existed in the US before. Both internal and external wars are being taken lightly and are even glorified. Through ignorance and through the hyping of the masses the president tries to gain support for his violent “destruction” appeals of the projected enemies. Even as many of us know that the most dangerous enemies to our democracy are those who undermine it within our own government, the masses are being distracted and manipulated. They see the created enemy only as it is being projected out onto external groups and nations. In this way people have the illusion of safety, as they believe their collective enemy to be identifiable and as external. However this illusion proves as false in the face of senseless mass murder and insane and random amok violence. It is time to realize that we are less threatened by any external enemies, but more so by the instinctually driven hate and the propaganda induced divisions that threaten the dismantling of our democratic values from within.

Prayer: God, how do we respond and not just react to an atmosphere of hate, violence and culture divide that is being created? How do we uphold and protect our basic democratic values? How will we know what kind of wolves we are dealing with? Make us “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” so that our souls remain intact in the midst of this chaos. Let all of us who are Jesus’s followers become spiritual leaders in this time of deep social and political need. You are sending us. And as we feel helpless, frightened  and overwhelmed at times, we are also comforted by Your presence. Amen

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Matthew 10: 16

 

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

Meditation: Sometimes life seems so random. Sometimes there are challenging times in life the meaning of which we cannot see until years later. I remember my twenties. I call them my “desert years”. I struggled a lot with loneliness. I was seeking direction and wondered for years why in the world I was studying theology when I knew did not want to be a pastor. Eight years of theological studies seemed like a life sentence. The year before my desert walk (= my studies) ended, I discovered the path of coming to the US and receiving training as a chaplain. My heart pounded filled with excitement and hope… Maybe these eight desert years were not wasted? Maybe I was being prepared for something different, something more long-term, something I could not have fathomed, imagined or even been ready for before this time? Faith is the decision to trust God, to trust life and to hope that all things will work together for good, even though many times nothing seems to make sense. Faith means believing that along the way, and also in the end God will put our mosaic life together as a beautiful tapestry. None of our desert walks, none of our “lost years”, none of our painful waiting periods in life are wasted. All were preparation times. As we become silent and listen within, we may at times catch a glimpse of God’s larger purpose and vision for us. I call those “Grace moments”. In those moments God’s Spirit wants to encourage us and nudge us to keep going even though we can’t see the road ahead of us.

Prayer: God, You guide us in ways that only in hindsight makes sense to us. Thank You that You always have the full picture of our life in mind, when we ourselves can often not even see the next step. Your calling is on all of our lives. You invite us to trust You. Your will is for our fragmented life pieces to find meaning and to one day come together in Your embrace. And we are grateful. Amen

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan. Romans 8:28

If our religion is based on salvation, our chief emotions will be fear and trembling. If our religion is based on wonder, our chief emotion will be gratitude. Carl Jung

Meditation: If we begin our thinking with the idea that “we are all sinners” and need salvation, we will probably be good Lutherans or Baptists, and intellectually the sentence has some truth in it. However, if we start out by staring first at our own faults, shortcomings and sins, we humans often begin to emotionally doubt God’s power (also often called “salvation”). Staring at our sins we doubt if “salvation” is true, real or strong enough to counteract them and fear sets in. If on the other hand we allow ourselves to be touched by the wonder filled stories of Jesus and his love expressed towards humanity, we become relieved and freed from staring at ourselves and our sins. As we hear how Jesus healed people, how he fed those who were hungry, how he forgave some burdened people, though they had not even asked him to be forgiven, we feel touched by an image of love that is unconditional. As we dare believing that these stories reflect the love that God has for us, we will begin walking upright and unafraid. We will stand relieved by feeling deep gratitude. And thus the shadow side of religion that is based on fear and despair is turned towards the light. The experience of wonder and gratitude brings us inner peace, while we remain the loved sinners we are.

Prayer: God of Wonder, we thank you that as we allow ourselves to be touched by the healing presence of Jesus, we can experience freedom from intellectual and theological doubt or fear. Thank You for gratitude that heals all despair. Thank You for unconditional love that overcomes the shadow of fear that religion often casts. Help us not to stare at ourselves in doubt, but let us focus on You and marvel at Your love for us every day, over and over again. And we are grateful. Amen

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. 1 Chronicles 16:34

 

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. Jean Houston

Meditation: Loving is a powerful experience. As we attach to a certain person, a certain place or a certain time in our life, we are being changed forever. As we experience true love, we will always have it as a resource available to us. When life has us leave the person, the place or the time we loved, we are still taking the memories with us. They are ingrained in our bodies and our souls. I invite you to spend five or ten minutes today sitting quietly and recalling certain words, feelings, smells or interactions when you loved somebody or somebody made you feel deeply loved. This is the bread of life God wants you to enjoy daily. Drinking deeply from those recalled memories is the daily living water God wants you to have. All persons, places and times in your life when you have loved and you have been loved are parts of you. You can never lose them.

Prayer: God of Love, we pause today to eat and drink from our memories of being loved and of loving. Sometimes doing so causes tears to well up in us: tears of love, tears of gratitude, tears of warmth and also tears of longing. Help us allow for those loving tears to stream freely. They are healing tears of love. Thank You that all those experiences of genuine love can and will never be lost. Amen

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 1. Corinthians 13:7-8

Things are not as we would like them to be. There is only one way to deal with it, namely to try and be all right oneself. Anna Freud

Meditation: In a time like this where so many things in this world do not work according to our values, according to our sense of justice or peace, we need to speak up and point out where reality does not match the plan of God who wants peace and justice for all. However, instead of only criticizing and accusing others, we also need to take a good look at ourselves: “How do I live peace and justice in my daily life? Do I reach out to people who I know are struggling during these times? Do I use my resources wisely and share them with others? Do I practice what I preach?” I will not be able to change the larger world unless I start with my own small world. “Do I follow Jesus’s example in my home life? In my work life? In my relationships?” It is humbling to discover that I often see the glaring shortcomings of politicians, systems and decision makers, but I am less aware of my own shortcomings in my work relationships, my family system and in my own ways of living my life. As I try and work on making changes towards increasing values of respect, love and fairness in my own life, I am (in)directly dealing with the things of the larger world.

Prayer: Gracious God, we often feel overwhelmed with the daily news. So much failure, so much brokenness, so much hatred and lack of respect! And then You turn our energy to our own lives. Your Kingdom and plan begins with us. Help us learn what it means that “Jesus lives in us”. Help us to live our discipleship consciously and thus become a light in this world. Let us be salt in this world. Your Spirit is at work in many millions of people in million different ways. Help us trust that You are still at work in us and in the world. And we are grateful. Amen

Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you…? 2. Corinthians 13:5

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language. Martin Buber

Meditation: Our animals can be a source of great comfort to us, especially in times of distress and loneliness. Their eyes speak a language that only our own soul can understand. Martin Buber’s concept of the deep “I – Thou” relationship between God and us can be expanded to this special “I – Thou” experience we can have with animals. I have seen couples who don’t have children filled with joy as they care together for their dog as the third “person” in the house. I have seen others go through difficult transitions in life having only their cat or dog to remain with them as a companion. Animals can become amazing gifts of God’s Grace to us. When they sometimes look at us or express their gratitude, affection and attachment in other ways, we know “there must be a God” who created them to be our companions and supporters.

Prayer: God, thank You for all those animals who go through thick and thin with us. Thank You for their loving souls, their grateful eyes and their consistent presence in our lives. We pray for all whose best friend or child is an animal. May they rejoice in their relationship with their pet. May they experience God’s Love and Grace through them. Amen

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Luke 12:6

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult…Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship. Erich Fromm

Meditation: When we experience the worship of a flag and an anthem take priority over people’s life and death situations, we question the sanity of what is happening. For seven days the people in Puerto Rico have been without electricity, water or food after a violent Hurricane struck their Island. We do not even know how many people are trapped, injured or dead. When moments of nationalistic political gain distract and become more important than rescuing the life of people, idolatry is happening. The worship of certain nationalistic symbols while at the same time excluding and neglecting whole groups of people is idolatrous worship. It is insane to obsess about and condemn peacefully protesting minorities, while leaving millions of people for a whole week without any water, food or medical help so they could survive. This kind of patriotism is incest, idolatry and insanity. Love of a country is NO love at all, if it is not love for ALL people who live in that country.

Prayer: God of life, we pray for all those trapped in the dark, the injured, the thirsty and the hungry. Your first priority is always to preserve life, to heal and to restore. We pray for those who peacefully protest racial injustice. Protect them as they express their demand for justice. We also pray for this administration who got hooked into the temptation to worship a privileged idea of nationalism instead of worshiping You who always prioritizes those suffering and struggling to live. Your intent is always to save and heal ALL who are in need. God of love and sanity, restore this country and let us as a nation follow Your will. Amen

And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'” Matthew 4: 9-10