Sunday, January 29, 2023

The Sit before the Change


Only when we sit in the shadow, dwell in and contemplate the shade alongside and with others in similar contexts with parallel stories holding space together willing to name our great fears, losses, and laments, cycled for generations, can we begin to see a new emergence an open invitation to change, a call that comes only after the sit

--

For a variety of reasons, I write about Scripture less and less these days. But somehow, Sunday's lectionary found its way into my morning meditations, pulling the chair out from my normal reading of poetry and a good novel. 


What felt like an abrasive disruption became a nudge to my own stanza above, shaped by this lection: 


"The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat together in the region and sat together in the shadow of death [Ps. 23], light has dawned. From that time, only after sitting with them, Jesus began to proclaim, 'Now is the invitation to Change.'"


--Matthew 4:16-17 (my own paraphrase]