Brief Thoughts from Bren

At chapel recently, Elizabeth declared that the Psalms were meant to be sung and that’s just what she intended to do that morning. And she did. The notes were crystal clear. I was astonished by the feeling that I was hearing the words at a much deeper level. The experience was beautiful and deeply moving. I wondered why it had ever been our custom to simply read the psalms.

Every disaster produces heroes and heroines. We know some of their names, but the majority are regular people whose names we will never know. Regular people helping other regular people. What they do for others, for the most part, goes unheralded. 

In my imagination standing there in the chapel in the silence with my eyes closed, I saw Jesus as the seed. The Word battling rocks, blazing sun, thorns, and even birds. This seed sown far and wide, through all sorts of means.

The need for equality, for economic and social justice is on our lips and in hearts on a scale larger perhaps than ever before. To meet these problems, we have to be creative. We need a spiritual imagination. We need dreamers and doers, like Clarence Jordan, Millard Fuller, and so many others, to think outside the box. We cannot look to the world that created these problems for solutions. We need to imagine better ways of doing things.

…offering welcome keeps us grounded and leads us ever closer to God. It slows us down. It helps to cultivate within us the ability to listen, to listen with the heart. Recognizing the ache in people’s hearts helps us to recognize the ache in our own. Discovering the laughter in people’s souls helps to remind us of the laughter in our own.