16th. May. 2020. Daily Devotion.

When I read Peter’s Candle in the Window my thoughts immediately went to Chapter 38 of Job Here is part of it, read the rest if you wish.

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

2 “Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?

6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,

11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?

12 “Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
13 that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

16 “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
17 Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
18 Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.

The search for God is ages old, and here is God challenging Job to find him. The search for God still goes on in science, but also in human consciousness. Sir Philip Pullman, known for the children’s trilogy His Dark Materials, whilst being agnostic, holds that God might be found in things which cannot be measured, human feelings love, compassion, art, and music. (Source New Scientist 16 May 2020).

A Candle in the Window Peter Millar 13th May 2020

The search for God continues: (from an article in the UK’s The Guardian)

In these weeks after Easter as worship goes on behind closed doors, there has been some concern that, in countries such as Britain, coronavirus might finish off the job that decades of western secularisation began. Religious observation is a habit as well as an affirmation of faith; habits, once interrupted, are sometimes hard to resume. Given the work done by people of faith in helping the homeless, running food banks and channelling vital aid overseas, it is to be hoped that such fears are groundless.

There is already evidence to suggest that they are. A study has found that as the pandemic spread, Google searches for the word “prayer” boomed across 75 countries, dwarfing anything previously seen in data going back to 2004. In Britain, online streaming of services from churches has generated virtual congregations far bigger than the number of those previously attending in person. A similar pattern is being observed in Jewish synagogues. Isolation seems to be breeding the opposite of spiritual apathy.

Britain’s churches, mosques and synagogues must continue to play their part in helping the country through this ordeal. The idea of sacrifice lies at the heart of the Christian meaning of Easter. In these days, staying at home is a necessary sacrifice for us all to make. There will be more to come.

Everything else can wait except the search for God. George Harrison

*** Bless, O God, the journey ahead. Bless the travelling and the arrival. Bless those who welcome and those who accept hospitality that Christ may come among us in journeying and in stillness. ***

These beautiful words were written by the late Kate McIIhagga a writer and poet who was a wonderful and wise friend to many people.

And a traditional prayer from the Celtic tradition:

And now, may kindly Saint Columba of Iona, guide you to be for others – an isle in the sea, a hill on the shore, a star in the night, a staff for the weak.

There is a rich tradition of prayers, such as the one above, inspired by the Celtic church. Books containing Celtic prayers and blessings can be found at www.ionabooks.com Iona Books.com

When the lockdown is over can we discover a new sense of shared values and tolerance in our connected world?

Recently I re-read an article by the Scottish journalist, Joyce McMillan written several years ago. Her article was entitled – “Impulse to faith rooted deeply in our society” and in it Joyce asks – “so where does the way to peace lie”? Peace in our world is for many of us interlinked with lasting justice; with awareness of the other who is different; with a wide compassion; with active faith. and with risk. Joyce pleads for all of those things in her article, a small part of which, marginally adapted – I share with you here …. “First peace lies in an acceptance that the impulse to faith is a near-universal feature of human societies; that most faiths, closely examined, tend to embody similar sets of values to do with charity, honesty, fidelity, humility before God, and that all therefore have a contribution to make to developing the codes of shared values on which any successful common life will be based.

Then, secondly, it lies in a strict understanding that faiths must operate within these shared values. If we believe in the fundamental equal value of each human being – as most of our faiths suggest we should, and as most of the great constitutional documents based on these traditions insist –then we cannot sanction Christian churches or any other group that advocate the subjection of women; we cannot have faith schools that teach intolerance, or even a sense of inborn moral superiority; and we cannot use the strident old language of holy war or moral crusade to justify self-interested aggression.

Today we need religious traditions that can accept the metaphorical and tentative quality of their sacred stories and rituals; that can gaze together into the mystery of creation and human consciousness without feeling the need to produce pat answers or to out-argue other faiths.

And those of us who feel that kind of spiritual awareness in our own lives have an obligation to come out of our private worlds and reclaim our place in public religious debate; which may be unfamiliar territory for us, but is now, suddenly much too important to be left to those whose intolerance of other faiths – or even of faith itself – may bring the world to further violence and division, and to unimaginable levels of oppression for more and more people.”

A final note: Remember that wonderful traditional Zulu phrase – umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu” – meaning –“ I am a person through other people.”