Boredom.

This very postmodern confession of sin was evidently featured in a chapel service at the seminary last week and also in class tonight.

Father, we confess that we are satiated and bored;
Creation has bored us.
Work has bored us.
Family has bored us.
Friends have bored us.
Our homes bore us.
Television bores us.
Redemption has bored us.
Truth has bored us.
You have bored us.
No generation in history has ever had so much to entertain it.
We are jaded and cynical.
We think the world is our servant, so we are not thankful when things go well for us, and we are not patient when they do not.
We believe every desire should be satisfied, so we are not delighted when they are, and we are not humbled when they are not.
We laugh, but do not know joy.
We are captivated, but are never really awed.
We celebrate, but we do not worship.
Have mercy on us, and forgive us.
Amaze us with grace – blood stained, incarnate, Messianic grace - the Glory of God in Christ.

--Rev. Michael Kelly, Green Lake Presbyterian Church, Seattle

(This text and other worship elements are at The Liturgy Fellowship.)

Lenten thoughts.

We acknowledge our wickedness, O LORD, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against You. Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake, do not dishonor your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.
--Jeremiah 14:20-21

O Thou terrible Meek,
Let not pride swell my heart,
My nature is the mire beneath my feet, the dust to which I shall return...
Low as I am as a creature, I am lower as a sinner;
I have trampled thy law times without number;
Sin's deformity is stamped upon me, darkens my brow, touches me with corruption.
How can I flaunt myself proudly?
Lowest abasement is my due place, for I am less than nothing before thee.
Help me to see myself in thy sight, then pride must wither, decay, perish.
Humble my heart before thee, and replenish it with thy choicest gifts...
When I am tempted to think highly of myself, grant me to see the wily power of my spiritual enemy;
Help me to stand with wary eye on the watch-tower of faith, and to cling with determined grasp to my humble Lord;
If I fall let me hide myself in my Redeemer's righteousness, and when I escape, may I ascribe all deliverance to thy grace.
Keep me humble, meek, lowly.
--from The Valley of Vision, "Pride," pp. 160-161

Encouragement from an unexpected source.

For my Christian Ethics class, we were asked to read the first papal encyclical from Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est. Taking exception to parts 40-42 which discuss Mary and the saints, this Presbyterian was greatly encouraged and exhorted by his writing about God's love. Some bits and pieces:

"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction." (part 1)

"God loves man... with a personal love. His love, moreover, is an elective [!] love; among all the nations he chooses Israel and loves her--but he does so precisely with a view to healing the whole human race." (part 9)

"God's passionate love for his people--for humanity--is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice. Here... [is]... the mysery of the Cross: so great is God's love for man that by becoming man He follows him even into death, and so reconciles justice and love." (part 10)

"Christ took the lowest place in the world--the Cross--and by this radical humility he redeemed us and constantly comes to our aid. Those who are in a position to help others will realize that in doing so they themselves receive help; ...we are not acting on the basis of any superiority or greater personal efficiency, but because the Lord has graciously enabled us to do so. There are times when the burden of need and our own limitations might tempt us to become discouraged. But precisely then we are helped by the knowledge that, in the end, we are only instruments in the Lord's hands; and this knowledge frees us from the presumption of thinking that we alone are personally responsible for building a better world. In all humility we will do what we can, and in all humility we will entrust the rest to the Lord. It is God who governs the world, not we." (part 35)

"Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed. People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone." (part 36)

"Often we cannot understand why God refrains from intervening. Yet he does not prevent us from crying out, like Jesus on the Cross: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' (Matthew 27:46) We should continue asking this question in prayerful dialogue before his face: 'Lord, holy and true, how long will it be?' (Revelation 6:10)." (part 38)

And my personal favorite (and new mantra, which I have added to my sidebar above!)... "Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that... in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory." (part 39)

Disconnect.

Demonstrating how fragmented and isolated American society has become in the 21st century, MSNBC.com reports that

The partially mummified body of a man dead for more than a year has been found in a chair in front of his television, which was still on, authorities said....Neighbors said they had thought Ricardo was in a hospital or nursing home. “We never thought to check on him,” said neighbor Diane Devon.

I assume he had no children or grandchildren; but still, how awful. Anything else I can say about that just seems pitifully trite.