The Wheel Keeps Turning

Greetings Pilgrims,
 

It's June! Aside from it being summer, June also makes me think of Pride (though I know Durham celebrates it later) and these days, of Juneteenth as well. So, how to bring these ideas together? Enter player three, Kate Bowler, Duke Divinity professor, author, and cancer survivor. In her devotional book Have a Beautiful Terrible Day! I found this meditation that I think touches on the heart of what both Pride and Juneteenth challenge us to do as Christians.


"Love, love, love--the simplest word and the most complicated act. Our love sucks us into errands. Or love bends our dreams toward other people's fulfillment. Our love is often directly at odds with our ability to rest, play, eat, sleep, or even have time for the people we love....It's the strangest phenomenon and one we all understand because we have seen it up close. The more we love...then the more we love. There is no scarcity in love. There is scarcity in time and resources yes, but love grows and grows.
 
Lord, the shadowed world is full of troubles.
So give me the good, inconvenient work of love.
Link my life to others so that their worries become my own.
Give me errands I don't want which ease the burdens of others.
Divert me from the plans I've made to zip from A to B when you have better ideas.
Put my hands to work with a less-grumbling heart
and let their dreams drift into my own.
 
You've given me tools to use and ideas to fashion
that will bring me neither recognition, nor money, nor praise.
You've made love such a sneaky thing .
the more we love as you do, the less we are keeping track of it at all."
 
Much love,
 
Felix
 
P.S. A very sincere thank you to my friend Jena Reger for sharing the gospel of Kate Bowler with me:).