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"Running in Faith" is an electronic devotional guide written by members of Abiding Presence Lutheran Church. Each week, writers use their personal interpretation of scripture to write an inspirational message they hope will help readers take their Sunday faith into weekday lives. Your comments are appreciated and, when related to a particular devotion, passed to the writer. We hope you will share these devotions with friends and coworkers. We are always happy to add new names to our e-mail list. Please contact us if you wish your name to be added. |
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Devotion for the week of August 3, 2003
In accordance with our Lord's promise, please pray with us. In the early hours of Monday, August 4th, our older grandson, Sean, age 5, is undergoing open heart surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. A growth inside the heart is to be removed. The benign membrane was detected through an annual physical exam and confirmed through cardiograms and ultrasound. The consensus of physicians at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was that it should be removed now -- sooner than later. So, as Jesus taught us to pray with hope and confidence, ask with us that Sean will be protected and sustained in recovery. Seek God's help and guidance for the doctors and nurses who minister to him. Knock at the door of divine mercy, that comfort and assurance may flow to his family members and friends and that their anxiety may be turned into joy. We love him dearly, as grandparents are wont to do. To paraphrase John Ylvisaker's hymn, we were there to celebrate his birth at St. May's Medical Center, Langhorne, PA. We were there the day he was baptized in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Wrightstown, PA, to praise and thank God for raising him up to a new life and making him a member of the church. And now, we pray, we'll be there to herald his restored health and wholeness, to cheer him on as he begins kindergarten in the Fall, and to see his life unfold in the days and years to come.
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Devotion for the week of August 11, 2003
In 1977 I photographed a miracle. I did it for a friend who wrote an article about it; a miracle of gardens. Gardens that sprang up in the most unlikely places of the most unlikely place on earth. One of those gardens was planted between two burned out buildings. To get an overhead shot, I climbed up a fire escape and had made it almost to the top of one of the buildings, when something caught my eye. I looked up and there, the scowling face of a Hispanic kid looked down on me from about ten feet above; framed by a circling flock of pigeons. He was angry and I couldn't see his hands, I didn't like that. Without knowing it, I was getting too close to his pigeon coop, and too close to his personal territory. All I could think to do was say, "I'm taking pictures of that garden. It's beautiful." His eyes diverted from me and down to the garden, the scowl changing imperceptibly. I took the cue and said, "You must be very proud of it. Did you help?" He looked back at me and said, "No. Not that one." "Can I take some pictures?" I asked. He smiled and brought his hands to his chin, "OK," he said. Before his arms came up, though, I heard two heavy thuds as the bricks he was holding hit the rooftop. "OK," I said, "thanks." I thanked God too. This miracle of the South Bronx came at the height of its horrifying rise to becoming the cesspool of the world. In the pit of that human sewer, a most unlikely and strange event took place; one of such extraordinary proportion, that a few years later its aftereffects would irrevocably change entire sections of The South Bronx, returning them to the hands of saints. It began when a few people, no one knew exactly who, transformed half an abandoned city block in an area ringed with nothing but rubble from burned down buildings. A bulldozer filled in the dangerous open basements and razed half the block flat. Then, they covered the area with about two feet of good topsoil. In the meantime, someone recruited a handful of old Southern Blacks from the surrounding streets, simply asking only for those who had experience with farming. At the same time, he recruited an equal number of young Black and Hispanic kids, asking only for the hopeless who preyed on the elderly for whatever they could get. After the topsoil was laid down, he turned to the very bewildered elderly recruits and said to them, motioning towards the kids, "Teach them to grow these." And he dragged a number of bags of seed corn (sweet white), sweet dried peas, and watermelon seeds out of the back of a van. He looked at them one more time for a few seconds, and begged them not to lose hope, that a miracle would happen. Then he got in the van, and disappeared; never to be seen again. I've compressed much of the story, but Miss Edna Jackson was one of those first Blacks, in that first Block, that started the 'Greening of the South Bronx.' She said that when they all got together that first day, everyone milled about for a bit talking about what to do. It all still seemed less than real to them, and a few joked they were waiting for the hidden camera to come out from somewhere; but it never did. In the group of young kids, Miss Edna kept looking at one grimy face she recognized from only a week before, a young kid that had held her up at knifepoint and robbed her of five dollars. All the while wanting to curse him, or smack him; anything for what he'd done. He was just there, milling around, confused. But he didn't look like no Crack kid. Wasn't antsy, didn't have that constant ready-to-score or ready-to-scare look of an addict, he just looked lost. "You speak English?" she said to him curtly. He looked up a little peeved, "Yeah!" She looked down at him for a moment, trying hard to hate him, "Do you remember me?" she demanded. "No," he said, then started to walk away. But as she watched the little boy walk away, she inexplicably thought about her childhood, and a memory overwhelmed her. "Boy. You ever taste sweet-pea off the vine?" her voice called out after him. He turned, "You talking to me?" he asked. "Yeah I'm talking to you boy! I said, did you ever eat sweet peas off a vine." He looked confused, but eventually answered "No," and waited. She said, "Hmm, shame. Well, I show you how to grow 'em if you want." After just looking at each other for a while, he shrugged in exasperation. "OK then, c'mon. Let's go," she said. He followed like a puppy. The two of them took some handfuls, of dried seeds, walked into the loamy soil ... and talked; as it turned out, for hours. And planted. And watered. And waited. And day-by-day they watched the miracle take place. The old Black woman from Mississippi, who was brought to The Bronx by a husband that left her for another man's wife, and the young Puerto Rican kid whose mother left him for another woman's husband, found each other under the eyes of God. "That was enough of a miracle," Miss Edna thought out loud. "You know, when he saw them seedling come up, an' watch his plants grow, oh he was so proud. But when I opened a pod for him the first time and tasted one, then gave him one to try? Oh, Lord. His eyes open like big ol' pie plates and he and his friends tore into that bush like locust." She laughed out loud. "There wasn't one pea pod left on those vines, they cleaned 'em out in no time. It took a while to teach 'em to sit on they's hands and wait, and learn patience, so's they could bring in a crop." She looked pensively and lovingly for a few seconds at the quiet young man that laid his head on her shoulder, the young man she called her 'Grandson,' the same young man who a few years before had held a knife to her and who that morning had been ready to bash my brains in. "It's funny how miracles work." she said, "But the hand of God sure scattered them seeds on good soil, didn't it?" Yes, it did. In fact, to this day, the miracle that began with those dreamless old Blacks and hopeless young kids is still taking back the streets of The South Bronx. It's still reclaiming souls from hell, one green seedling at a time; one hope at a time, one dream at a time, one life linked to one life within God's embrace.
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Devotion for the week of August 18, 2003 "They are joined together constantly in prayer." As part of our Sunday worship, two times we are asked to join in the "Prayer of the Church". Once it is announced that way in our bulletin and the other time the act is somewhat hidden under the title of "Collect of the Day". I think of the former as the prayer of Abiding Presence Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the latter as the "Prayer of The ELCA Church". Using the collects gives us the opportunity for ELCA churches to pray collectively. The collect prayer reminds us that the ELCA church is indeed one body. Our prayer rises collectively to heaven from a multitude of ELCA congregations. When worshiping with other congregations, the "Collect of the Day" connects us with our home congregation. Likewise, when we return to Abiding Presence, we know other Lutherans in places such as Texas, Hawaii, Georgia, Oklahoma, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Mississippi, northern New Jersey, as well as other churches in Mercer County are joining us in a common prayer. At such times, the collect also serves as a reminder of our warm welcome when we worshiped with these other congregations. On Sundays when the "Lutheran Book of Worship" (green book) is used, we have the opportunity of following along when the Pastor leads us in the "Prayer of The ELCA Church". I find following the prayer visually helps me to better focus on the words of the prayer. It is a habit for me to use the printed collects. If you are not already doing the same thing, I urge you to take the plunge and join me in using the collect section of the hymnal. The collect section is found on pages 13 through 41 of the green book of worship. These pages serve as the table of contents for our annual worship services. Each collect is under the appropriate heading (i.e., name for that particular Sunday in the church year) and followed by the scriptural readings appointed for the day. You will find this section of the hymnal serves as a little road map to guide through a more meaningful worship service.
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Devotion for the week of August 23, 2003 (This came to me via the Internet in an email in June. I thought it worthy of consideration.) "The Little Hut" The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements, and to store his few remaining possessions. But then one day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, the smoke rolling up to the sky. The worst had happened -- everything was lost. He was stunned with grief and anger. "God, how could you do this to me?" he cried. Early the next day, however, he was awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?" asked the weary man of his rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied. It's very easy to get discouraged sometimes when things appear to be going badly. But we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of pain and suffering. Remember, next time your little hut is burning to the ground, it just may be a smoke signal that summons the grace of God. For all the negative things we have to say to ourselves, God has positive answers.
Pass this on, you never know whose life may be in need of this today. There are some weeks that we all feel our huts are burning.
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