WATER!

Happy Thanksgiving!  May you be granted a attitude of gratitude, all your life long.  If you are having trouble being thankful, I would suggest you start with a hot shower and these facts:
There are over 7 billion people on our beautiful planet Earth.  Of all those people, if you have access to hot running water you are one of the 5% in the world who does.  That's about 350 million people who do and over 6 billion who do not. 
If that is too big of a number to wrap your brain around, try over 6 million Americans who are homeless many of them children. Then there is the whole issue of clean drinking water.  Estimates of over 7 million people do not have access to clean water.  Check out Unicef's web page on the need.  http://www.unicefusa.org/work/water/

So begin your day with giving thanks for clean hot water.  Then imagine going for a job interview with no way to be clean.  The desperate need for clean water makes me think of the famed poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge called The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink

Today you could make a commitment to help others have access to this vital resource.  A thankful heart overflows with gratitude and then becomes an instrument for change in our world.  Jesus meets a woman at a well and asks her for a drink.  From this request comes a powerful dialogue about who Jesus is and what he brings to the world: 
¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give, will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)

Could you be a spring of water gushing up to give life to others?  I met Tom Logan of the Shallow Well Program of the Marion Medical Mission at a Presbytery meeting in 1992.  At the time he was trying to raise funds to provide a truck for the Embangweni, Malawi Hospital and the shallow well program. During the year the truck was used as an ambulance and when the mission team arrived it was their transport to outlying villages where wells were to be dug. I remember when the goal was to provide 300 wells during a two week mission trip.  They were successful and last year the goal was 2500 wells and they surpassed that goal!  They are now providing shallow wells in Tanzania and Zambia and the mission has a fleet of trucks.   Tom often quotes Matthew 19:23 "... with man this is impossible but with God all things are possible!"
http://marionmedical.org/

 

I dedicate this blog the many people whose hearts are filled with Thanksgiving and

 to all those who bring a cup of cold water to those who thirst

and a hot shower for those who have none.  Blessings, Linda

 

Old Growth

I took some time off to go visit my sister in California.  It was a wonderful time away to re-center and set new priorities

When Moses first comes down with the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, The opening commandments are about our relationship with God.  They begin with “Shall Not” except the fourth one that commands us to remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. (see Exodus 20:1-11)  Moses in Deuteronomy expands these commands from what not to do to what to do. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (6:1&2)  by the teaching of Jesus even the religious leaders saw this command as the heart of the Torah often referred to as The Shema from the first words Shema Yisrael “Hear, O Israel.” 

 

So what does an ancient wisdom from the Torah have to do with a trip to California?  There is a peace that passes understanding when I take time away from my routine or now that I am retired from concerns about health and financial wellbeing.  Such concerns are always part of our lives, but when we are employed we can set those worries aside and focus on our job.   So all of us need time away, to re-center our essence in the Eternal.  It can be true Sabbath time when we really listen for the timeless message of “Hear, O Israel.” 

 

 

Mostly I wanted time with my sister, but I also wanted to see the ocean and get my feet wet and I wanted to touch a Sequoia.  I got to do both of those.  In the Sequoia National Forest among those ancient trees, they touched my spirit with a timeless message of peace and joy.  They absorb sound and even in a busy park they create a place of profound quiet.  Now that I have aged enough to see a new purpose to my life and ministry, I want to also be a source of peace and joy.  But I am learning that my spirit has to be immersed in quiet.  Like marinating food, I will become more tender, more loving and see what God is calling me to do now in the waning of my years.  I have appreciated other friends who have made this journey before me and I dedicate this blog entry to the human Sequoia’s I have known. Blessings on you all!