Monthly Archives: August 2020

Table of Contents – What A Seat!

What a seat!  Let’s see: What seats or places of honor have I sat at in my life?  There was front and center in the middle of the wedding party table at my wedding reception.  And my fraternity had a Senior Dinner for each graduating senior so I was front and center for that meal.  (Mmm.  Dessert.  Peppermint Ice Cream Pie in an Oreo Crust covered with chocolate syrup!)  There was a particular ritual performed on a Men’s Weekend that I served on staff for a number of years where I was the center of attention for the opening act of the meal. Great fun!  I certainly felt honored last November at the Birthday Dinner when Elizabeth and I sat at the February table with the McCoys.  And I really can’t think of a time where I sat down at a “low place” at a table where the host ever came up to me and said, “Friend, move up higher.”  I tend to be humble naturally and when I am exalted I get a little bit embarrassed. 

What a seat!  How about thinking of the year 2020 as a table in our lives?  What has come along and pulled up a seat at your table?  And made you laugh, cry, yell, scream or simply shake your head in bewilderment and disbelief?  There are these wonderful BINGO memes floating around social media that play off the absolutely absurd and tragic events that have transpired this year.  BINGO. Some have been calling it “Apocalypse Bingo.”

My guess is: nobody had COVID-19 for 2020.  Civil unrest?  How about one of the largest economic plunges in U.S. history?  Sure, why not!?!  Pull up a chair to the 2020 table of our lives.  Killer hornets?  Wildfires in California?  Everyone had that on their card.  It’s a regular occurrence.  Hurricanes in the Gulf?  Yup.  It’s hurricane season.  Well, how about two hurricanes at the same time?  Better than that…How about a hurricane in Iowa!?! Come on.  Have a seat.  How about most people receiving $1,200 but Jeff Bezos’ net worth increasing by $87 billion during our pandemic crisis?  Okay, Bezos, have a seat.  But, just because you are the richest person in the world doesn’t mean you get to sit at the head of the table. 

Speaking of head of the table…

Where was the “head” of the table at an ancient Greco-Roman-Jewish meal?  That is a very good question. We know that Jesus’ parables are not what they seem at first read and always introduce just a wee little bit of a twist or surprise ending that takes the listener – or reader, in our case – by surprise AND, more often than not, challenges us in one way or another.  Where was the “head” of the table?  And, knowing that, if we follow Jesus’ instructions, where would we sit?

Think of the seating arrangements for the more formal occasions in your life.  A Thanksgiving or Christmas meal.  Dad on this end; furthest from the kitchen.  Mom on this end; closest to the kitchen.  And others sprinkled…how…between them and on which side of the table?  One thing is sure: the seat of honor was NOT at the card table set-up in the living room for the kids.  I have no idea what Emily Post protocol is for being a guest at such a meal.  My guess is the guest would wait for instructions as to where to sit, right?  Imagine taking Jesus’ parable seriously and going straight to the kids’ table when dinner was called?  No doubt the host or hostess would say, No, no, come sit here at the big persons’ table!

Well, there are a couple of tripping points if we think of “sitting” at the table in our dining room for a formal meal.  And here they are:

First, there is no such thing as the “best seat” at the table because people reclined at the table while eating.  A person would lean on his or her left elbow while laying down, leaving her or his right arm and hand free to reach for food and drink from the central table.  No seating.  The highest “seat” in the house, the seat with the most honor was in position 1 on the right.  In that manner all the other people would be on that person’s right.  With one exception.  The host was typically in the first position of the lowest table. 

So, let’s hear what Jesus has to say one more time.  “When  you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host;  and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the  lowest place.  But  when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when  your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you  will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.”

Where are you sitting (or laying down) when you do so at the lowest place?  You are directly across from the most-honored guest.  And, no matter how many tables there are you would always be directly across from the most-honored guest.  Which, in my mind, is a pretty honorable place to be?  And if you were asked to move up, well then, more honor, and publicly given to you.  Well, thank you very much!  What a great feeling.  It’s like that first time where I was told I could sit in the dining room with the big people on a cushioned walnut chair rather than on a hard, metal folding chair at the kiddie table.

What a seat!  And like all of Jesus’ parables not only is there a twist or surprise ending but there are two twists or surprise endings or a particular challenge that the parable presents.  What is THAT in this seating chart?  Yes, Jesus is turning the tables upside down at the meal table.  Jesus is also telling us, without telling us, to take this way of “seating” and use it throughout out our daily lives.  Our Sunday School/Study Group is addressing this in our get together after church today.  Their homework was to pay attention to where their power was limited or abused or truncated in some way this past week.  And, like Jesus asks over and over again in the Gospels: in this parable about the table Jesus asks us to put ourselves consciously and intentionally into that place of powerlessness anywhere and everywhere in our lives.  Not just at the dinner table.

What a seat!

Table of Contents – What A Mess!

What a mess! How many of you have heard Paul’s description of the words at the Lord’s Table in their context before? Words said millions and millions of times over the bread and the cup over the last two thousand years: “‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In  the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in  remembrance of me.’” Add in Paul’s words to the Corinthians before these instructions and you get a biblical equivalent of John Belushi standing up in scripture and yelling, “Food fight!” And, not to be outdone, after the words of institution, your worst nightmare-ish vision of demon-Mom sending you off to bed with no supper for fighting with your brother.

All of this reminds me of a food fight my brother and I had in the kitchen of the house in which we grew up. The parents went out for dinner leaving two junior high-aged sons home alone and food on the table for OUR dinner. (Thanks, Mom! You’re the best!) I have no idea what the main course was but I do remember cherry jello with mandarin slices and chocolate pudding. I thought my brother and I did a fantastic job of what Paul asks of us, Examine yourselves. We did. We examined ourselves and the kitchen for spots of food. We rinsed our clothes. Mopped the floor. Wiped off cabinets and counters and the ceiling. Only to be called downstairs upon our parents return and to be asked by Mom, Why is there a mandarin orange slice in the kitchen curtain? Why is there a mandarin orange slice in the kitchen curtain? I thought about pointing at my brother. I am sure he was thinking about pointing at his brother. We took the question, Am I my brother’s keeper very seriously. Uhm, well, levitation? I mean, Keith – my brother – I think dropped an orange slice and it landed on the end of a spoon handle and, well, then my elbow accidentally came down on the spoon which then allowed the mandarin orange slice to defy gravity and fly ten feet across the kitchen to land in the fold of the curtain. I look at my brother for confirmation and I get a nod. The next morning I came down for breakfast and Mom was scraping out some dried chocolate pudding from the window frame molding.

My point, though, in sharing this story is this: If Mom has the power to pick out a mandarin orange slice in the rear fold of a curtain five feet above her line of sight – I exaggerate for effect – then how much more can God discern our hearts when we come to the table? And, I don’t think God is too concerned about mandarin orange slices in kitchen curtains or chocolate pudding in window molding as much as God is concerned about OUR concern for the Body of Christ.

Paul is on a terror in these lines of scripture: Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Now there are many scholars who will take Paul’s little diatribe at face value and say that some wealthy people who were hungry couldn’t wait for the buffet that always accompanied the Lord’s Table celebration back then to start so they ate and got drunk before everyone else arrived, particularly before the poor and hungry folks who would like some food and drink as well. It’s like coming to one of our birthday dinners on time and yet all the food and drink is gone – including all of the pink, red and white M & M’s in the dishes at the table for February birthdays – and the rest of those gathered are having a grand time; full and content.

But Paul is NOT raging against some folks who decided to eat before the dinner bell rang. The earliest memory that I have – and I think I have shared this story with you all before – is sitting on the stairs of my apartment building where we lived when I was two or three. I am sitting about halfway up the stairs, looking at the open transom window above the door of my best friend’s apartment. There are smells of cooking and shouts of celebration as a birthday party for my friend is being held. And I am excluded, shut out, and alone. (Now, that’s what I remember. I was probably at his birthday party that he had for friends and neighborhood kids.)

It is the sting, the ache, the tears of exclusion, being shut out, and of being alone that are remembered. Remember me, asks Jesus. Paul passes along Jesus’ words: Do this in remembrance of me. The early 20th-century, Russian, Christian philosopher, Nikolai Berdyaev wrote, “The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question.” This bread, my body broken for you, says Jesus. The next time you break bread think about the mess WE are all in together. And the next time you hear the words, My body broken for you, remember who the you…are. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. What a mess! Imagine, the act of re-membering as an act of cleaning up after a food fight.

Examine yourselves… 1 Corinthians 11:28

Holy Questioner and Divine Judge,
you allowed yourself to be stretched out
upon the Roman cross.
May this bread and this cup
stretch our minds
beyond
the hurt we wish to inflict,
so divisions that make us hungry to hurt
and thirst for our righteousness to be done
come together at a table.
Amen.

Table of Contents – What a Feast!

It is not easy to eat with a mask on. Though I have to be honest. I haven’t tried. Most of my meals have been prepared at home by…me. I continue to limit myself to carry out when I must satisfy those occasional cravings for a Double Butter Burger Basket from Culver’s or a spinach calabrese from Aurelio’s Pizza. My last meal out before quarantine was at Cortona’s in Fortville on March 15 after church with Elizabeth. Delicious Italian food. The only meal I have had out was to celebrate my youngest heading off to college. We went to a new Italian spot in Carmel called Savor because they had a very spacious outdoor dining area. Can you tell I have a taste for northern Mediterranean cuisine?

Speaking of food. I know that I am not the only foodie out there. I remember a delightful Birthday Dinner not too long ago in our fellowship hall. We like to eat. And I dream of the day where that meal with you all can happen again.

In the meantime, there are meals at home, alone, with my dog. My bi-weekly visits with my parents in Bloomington where I pick up something tasty to bring for lunch. This coming week is their anniversary and I am coming down for the evening and picking up from one of their favorite spots, Samira. And mine too! I thoroughly enjoy Afghan food. (Mom, you asked me for my order for Thursday. I want the Chicken Manto, please. Chicken manto is a steamed dumpling filled with chicken, white leeks, cilantro, topped with tomato-basil sauce and spiced yogurt. Divine.)

I am getting hungry with all this talk about fine food. It’s like when I read Ernest Hemingway. Here’s a writer that basically tells it like it is. Simple prose. Not much interiority to characters or psychological psycho-babble. But when Hemingway writes about food. Oh, my. My favorite book of his is even named after a food event, The Moveable Feast. I am all for moving feasts. Take this passage: “I asked for a distingue, the big glass mug that held a liter, and for potato salad. The beer was very cold and wonderful to drink. The pommes a l’huile were firm and marinated and the olive oil delicious. I ground black pepper over the potatoes and moistened the bread in the olive oil. After the first heavy draft of beer I drank and ate very slowly. When the pommes a l’huile were gone I ordered another serving and a cervelas. This was a sausage like a heavy, wide frankfurter split in two and covered with a special mustard sauce. I mopped up all the oil and all of the sauce with bread and drank the beer slowly until it began to lose its coldness and then I finished it and ordered a demi and watched it drawn. It seemed colder than the distingue and I drank half of it.” Oh, MY! It’s a wonder Hemingway could write after all that drink!

With all of this talk about food, I for one am very grateful that God lowered the divine menu from the heavens and said, Eat. Eat anything. Eat everything! Three times. Eat. Eat. Eat. (Remember, this is Peter so anything needs to be repeated three times for him to get it.) Does Peter get it?

For those of us who are currently wandering through the book of Acts in our Bible Study we know that Peter gets it. We also know that this vision, this dream, is NOT about food. Peter awakens from the trance and goes to the gentile Cornelius’ house. Peter is greeted. He begins by saying, You know that it is forbidden for a Jew to associate with or to visit a person of another race. Yes, they all know. And here’s the line where Peter shares with the world that he gets it: God has shown me not to call any person common or unclean. Peter goes on, In truth, I am grasping that God is no respecter of appearances. God is Lord of all!

I have fantastic memories of meals shared with…all. A meal with clergy friends to end a trip in Rome; a meal that began with mussels and ended with limoncello. Meals at my parent’s house as they hosted international students from all over the globe attending Indiana University; an operatic soprano from New Zealand, a Chinese couple in the business school, and a Swiss piano player that became like family. Many meals with Swedish cousins that stayed with us when I was in school. I remember Greek Easter meals at my aunt’s with the old men turning the lamb on the spit. I remember countless Cinco de Mayo’s. A meal with the Saysongkhams, a Laotian boat family that the church of my youth brought to the United States. A traditional Swedish Christmas Eve dinner with lutefisk and brunne benner and potataskorp. A seminary class on world Christian history where we ate at a different ethnic restaurant every week. And Thanksgiving, that always started with mussels and ended with the bouquet of asparagus throughout the evening hours.

A culinary delight for the taste buds and for the friendships and now family across the globe. I get it. Just like Peter got it. It is about food. And, it is so much more than just food. There is an ominous ending in today’s text. The New International Version that Steve read doesn’t do the ending to Peter’s dream justice. It reads, Immediately the sheet was taken back up to heaven. But the Greek word used for the sheet that comes down from heaven in verse eleven, othone, is NOT the word used in verse sixteen. Verse sixteen in the New Revised Standard Version reads, “The thing, skeous, was suddenly taken up to heaven.”

Something happens here. Something very, very important. An indication. A warning for our all-too-human and sinful natures. God lowers from the heavens a sheet with every animal on it. A sheet with every thing and every possibility. A sheet that declares, NO person is common. NO person is unclean. This beautiful vision of the universality of God’s love, grace, call it what you will, comes down from the heavens…and then the vision ends. The vision, the dream becomes…a thing. A thing. And what happens when people turn dreams and visions…and other people…into things?

…and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven. Acts 10:16

Divine Deliverer, who brings down "something like a large sheet"
filled with "all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air",
a miraculous menu for all to consider,
voicing from above the earthly table,
“What God has made clean, you must not call profane,”
send more of that sheet,
as we failed, for the fourth time,
to read your writing in the heavens.
For upon its removal, the earthly author
turned
the dream of your holy arrangement
into a disappearing act,
even calling the dream,
"the thing."
Amen.

Table of Contents – What a Table!

A representation of table of Presence

So let’s begin with…what DOES the Table for the Bread of Presence actually look like? Keeping in mind that a cubit is the length from an elbow to one’s fingertips – give or take a finger – it looks maybe like this? Enough room for the twelve loaves of bread; each loaf representing a tribe of Israel. It’s a lovely table…if you’re into gold. Keep in mind, like any good artist designer, God’s tastes evolved over time and by the time Micah gets on the scene, God is more interested in mercy and not in the trappings that surround sacrifice.

My “utilitarian” table

So, maybe my poor, little, front porch table – where the best thing that can be said about it is, “It certainly is utilitarian” – maybe my humble table is acceptable in the eyes of the Lord. So, I will not give in to comparison, which in the words of Teddy Roosevelt, is “the thief of joy.”

Instead, I will rejoice at sitting at THIS table!

My inherited table

My dining room table which passed on to me from my great-aunt Phyllis Cole who received it in turn from her mother, my great-grandmother, Jennie Waggoner. It’s a lovely walnut table with buffet and can be stretched out from its present circular shape with six inserts so that twelve could sit comfortably around it. I understand that the table could, if Jennie didn’t sit at the end all by herself – closest to the kitchen, mind you – seat thirteen. But Grandma Jennie insisted to never seat thirteen at the table for obvious reasons. (To which my tongue-in-cheek response today is, Jennie, there were thirteen at the Lord’s table that fateful night.)

I sit here and imagine the people who have gathered around this table for holiday dinners and family meals. History’s times and events that unfolded in the newspapers spread across the table-top. This table was in Dixon, Illinois, in 1918 when the Spanish Flu pandemic swept through the world. I wonder the thoughts and worries of my great-grandfather, Harvey Garland Waggoner, as he sought to minister to his congregation during that time. And his thoughts about his five children and wife that surrounded the table with him.

Did he have thoughts of his own mortality as he broke bread? He died in 1922 leaving Jennie to sit at the head of this table with her five children and watch alone as they grew up into their own lives. I imagine great-grandma Jennie in those times when she sat alone at this table, as I have often sat alone at this table. But then there are grandchildren and more children that come into the picture. New faces and children of God to sit at new places where familiar faces from the past once sat. Here’s a picture of Jennie at this table laid out for a Christmas dinner:

My great grandmother, Jennie Waggoner (late 1940’s?)

And now, eighty years later I am doing an online worship service at her table.  She would certainly understand about the adjustments needed in life due to a pandemic. Though she may be a bit puzzled at the technology of today that surrounds this process of broadcasting from her table, my guess is that she would understand that though times may change the purpose of the table remains the same: to make memories and to remember.

What tables do you remember? There was a picnic table that I built. My parent’s kitchen table and the formal dining room table that they received from my grandmother. Isn’t it funny how stuff gets passed along and the memories that trail along with each piece. My mom reminded me this week of what her mother said to her when grandma came to visit after moving out of her house in Eureka, Illinois to take up permanent residence in Florida. She would say, “I love to visit my daughters so I can see my furniture again.” So many tables.

And today, so much is coming to the tables of our lives. A pandemic that brings new meaning to the parental demand, “Wash your hands before coming to the table.” The keen awareness that our tables so sharply reflect the divide of race in our culture. The economics of today decide what is on each table and how different tables laden with food and drink actually are. And the politics talked around each table. Or, what is more probably the case, where politics are NOT talked around the table when the entire family is gathered.

Same table. Different people. Different fare. Although Jennie’s bran muffins will always be served at this table. Different world. Same table.

It is a fancy, golden table that God asks to be created for the forty-year wandering of the tribes of Israel in the wilderness. A fancy table created for the wilderness. My guess is this: it wasn’t too much trouble for the tribes of Israel to make the table that God asked them to create. God asks nothing more from us today as we wander through the current wilderness of our time. Make a table.

As we begin this four-week reflection upon the Table and Communion, my hope is for you to take the time to seriously consider what the Table looks like for you…for us…today. What does a table look like when we cannot physically gather around that table? Where does the “gold” that God asks to cover and surround the table come from? What is that gold? Here’s where I think the gold comes from: Your answer to the question, What tables can you create this week?

And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me always. Exodus 25:30

Presence,
Giver of all presents,
presented on the table
is the bread of the Presence,
presently
uneaten.
If You are not going to eat it
can I have a bite?
Or, if my request smites you as selfish
might I share it with the hungry?
Amen.

Pause

Before we formally take a pause with today’s message I need to ask: Has anybody become an expert in living with this pandemic?  We are now five months in.  Surely that is enough time for some expert talent to develop.  I am going to put this week’s cover image on the screen and give all of you time to share any expert tidbits of wisdom and wise coping strategies in the comments section. Here we go…

The view from the pandemic…

In 2014 I began taking daily pictures of a particular spot on my commute to work at Amazon.  This spot is on 300 W  just south of IN-32 which runs between Noblesville and Lebanon.  The first picture I found in my archives from the county road 300 W was from February 14. 

February 14, 2005, 300 W just south of IN-32

I think you can see why I stopped and took a picture.  With full disclosure of my sinful nature I must confess that sometimes I didn’t stop to take a picture.  “But officer, I wasn’t texting I was taking a picture of the beautiful sunrise over the icy fields.”  With Indiana’s change in law where it is now illegal to even have your phone in your hands while in the car I have become more attentive to stopping before picture-snapping.

On July 23 I stopped at a particular spot on 300W for the first time. 

July 23, 2005

A 40 MPH Speed Limit Sign on my right became my marker.  I don’t think I stopped there intentionally as if I had any conscious thought that this would be a great spot to take a picture every morning for the next six to eight months.  Look a little further down the road.  What do you see?  A pair of headlights coming right towards me.  I think I stopped for self-preservation and, in case there was some sort of evidence needed for insurance purposes due to a collision, I took a picture. CYA stuff.  Who knows – God only knows – maybe it would be the very last picture that I ever took if the possible, oncoming accident turned deadly for me.  (As an aside, one learned very quickly to be extra cautious driving to work as the previous 10-hour shift was leaving.  People were so darn out of it and drove with no awareness of the outside world after putting in a shift at Amazon.  I know, because at the end of my 12-hour shift – supervisor hours – I didn’t give an owl’s hoot how straight I drove north along 300 W.)

Day after day I would stop before the 40 mph sign and take a picture.  I did so for eight months never really knowing how or if I would “use” the pictures.  Until today. 

Sixteen pictures out of a couple hundred to use as a metaphor for life in a pandemic.  I certainly did not have THAT in mind, let alone using them as a sermon illustration some sixteen years later as an example of the day after day after day after day of now.

Surely some of us have become experts and perfected our pandemic wardrobes?  Menus and food preparation?  Circulating clothing and laundry?  Let’s see.  I put those shorts on after lunch yesterday.  Or was that two days ago?  Better wash them.  How is it that it feels like I am actually doing more laundry during the last five months than at any other time in my life?  I think the best decision I made was to buy six black t-shirts at the start of this crazy time; all organic materials, safe-dyes, manufactured by human beings – a small and intentional decision on my part to support local economies during this time.  If the shirt is folded than I haven’t worn it.  Put it on.  And it’s really easy for me to tell which black shirts have been previously worn because my dog’s favorite activity is to drag my shirts out of the laundry basket and bring them to her nest on the couch.

So, where in the world am I going with this?  I have no idea other than…to…PAUSE!

Pause.

Where are you now?  Do you know what day it is? Many of us are retired and not seeing much fluctuation in the days’ routine.  Some of us are working from home and…not seeing much fluctuation in the days’ routine.  Even those of us who have returned to a life closer to a pre-pandemic lifestyle, routine-ish?  Where is the “routine” in the midst of the largest three-month drop in economic output our country has ever seen?  Is there “routine” as 150,000 of our neighbors have died from COVID-19?  Will protests or riots or demands or calls for justice become “routine”?  One routine that hasn’t changed because of the pandemic is the inundation of election ads during this time of an election year; those ads would have been nice to have disappeared because of the pandemic.

For all that is going on around us, whether it’s our routine, our lack of a routine, the events of the world, the state of the pandemic, the craziness of different opinions – some scientific and some not-so-scientific – the worry of this parent (and I know that I am not alone) of a child going back to school. 

I think it is helpful to remember that we are all complicit in one way or another for the mess that we all are in.  Biblically speaking, we all took a bite of the apple and, as a result, are removed to some degree – some more removed than others – from the garden of bliss.

Here we are in the real world, a world turned upside down and around and about, needing…a pause…  Which if you think about it is like any other day of our lives, pre-pandemic or now.  Challenges.  To try and NOT get caught up in that first way of being in human community that scripture tells about after humans were removed from the garden of bliss.  Right away, humans got in to trouble.  Cain killed Abel.  Sometimes I think the whole condition of what it means to be human can be found in the second and third chapters of Genesis.  Bliss in the garden.  Bad choice.  Consequences.  Another chance.  Kill your brother and ask, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  Consequences.  Another chance.  And that short story, powerful story, plays out over and over again, differently in each of our lives.

Pause. 

Let’s step outside that story for a little longer.  Yes, same road.  Same 40 mph sign.  Different weather conditions.  Different times.  What can WE control?  And, I LOVE these verses from Paul for giving us a focus for this time of pause and also a way of life for each and every day of our lives.

Take care of your bodies.  Constantly renew your minds.  Do NOT be conformed to this world but always transform your minds, your way of thinking so as to discern the will of God.  And do this, take care of your body and renew your mind, for the sake of the larger body of Christ of which we are all a part.

During this pandemic I have switched over from eating a daily banana to eating a daily apple for my body.  I have done this consciously, as a reminder with each bite of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to work for good in some small way each and every day.  And my mind?  My mind has never been more intensely and provocatively renewed as I read the black thinkers Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi and Resmaa Menakem and the white thinker Robin Di’Angleo, the black novelists N.K. Jemison and Octavia Butler and the black poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Marilyn Nelson, Claudia Rankine and countless other black poets.  And I do so because a large part of our body is crying out in pain from the bondage of injustice.

Take care of your body today and tomorrow and the next day.
Delight in the transformation that happens when you renew your mind.
And if you’re stuck in small ways or a bunch of big ways, ask for help.  Call me. 

Because as Paul also writes, there is a still more excellent way…

Wonderfully depicted this week on the marquis of the Hamilton County Fairgrounds – and, yes, I did stop the car to take this picture.

Eat ice cream.
Read books.
Be happy.

And with one small adjustment, you can read Paul’s very words…

Eat ice cream. Take care of your body.
Read books. Transform your mind.
Be happy to another person for we are all one body in Christ.

“…so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:2

Will-full, God,
who gives me the ability to discern your will,
is your will singular or plural?
Who is the "you" You are referring to?
For while I may be clear
on what is good and acceptable and perfect,
the plurality of "you",
the second persons plural,
them, those people and the Others,
discern a different good and acceptable and perfect.
Amen.