A Letter from Lindy July 17

Beloved Pilgrims,

I cherish the honesty of our psalmist who is shaking their fist with fury at the wrongdoing of a destructive other who revels in evil instead of good. How I want to channel their words and emotions more often than I probably care to admit! 

Instead of naming and claiming the truth of any such emotion, I wonder how many of you share with me parking that burgeoning box on that far shelf in our spiritual closet? Quickly closing the door, lest it tumble to the floor and spill open like a toxic oil spill. Years and years it would take me to clean the shores of my soul so that I might wade in God’s refreshing waters. Or so I convince myself.

I wonder, though, if God beckons and pleads for us to give the Divine our true selves–the good, the bad, the ugly–so that we might find refuge from the storms of life? How many of our psalms tell us precisely that this is God’s desire, and God can handle whatever we throw Holy way?

There are so many storms these days. No wonder the psalmist orients our hearts toward God’s embrace, where once unburdened from the heaviness of all that pains us, we can feel the master gardener tilling the soil around our roots so that we might breathe and flourish and bear fruit.  In our exhaustion, if even for now, bearing fruit is just catching a glimpse of those embedded glimmers of hope and purpose, glistening like seashells in the sun-drenched, sandy water’s edge.

My prayer… that we stop moving long enough to notice and revel.

Pastor Lindy (she/her) why pronouns matter
 
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Melinda Keenan Wood