Meditation for Monday, March 23, 2020
I
had wanted to write this meditation earlier so it would be ready to simply
upload this morning, but had difficulty knowing exactly what I wanted to say
for the first meditation during this time apart. It wasn’t until 3am this morning that inspiration
came and then it took awhile to form in my thoughts.
Scripture
passage for today:
Genesis
17:1-8
When
Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said
to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2And
I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly
numerous.” 3Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him,
4“As for me, this is my
covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5No
longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have
made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6I will make
you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come
from you.
7I will establish my
covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their
generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your
offspring after you. 8And I will give to you, and to your
offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of
Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.”
I shared part of this story already, but on the
morning of Friday, March 13 I went to the Bethesda Church and the Olivet Church
to wipe down and disinfect all surfaces that people normally touch. When I started to wipe down the pews, I
thought about the person who sat in that particular spot and what I knew about
them, their struggles, or the stories they’d shared with me. I prayed for each person. It was a profoundly spiritual and connective
moment. I realized how connected I am to
these people, how much they’ve embraced me and I, them.
Before
we knew how the full impact of the coronavirus would change everything, I began
to also see how connected the world is.
This virus has made it very clear that we live in a mobile society with
people and connections in every part of the globe. It spread from one person or three from
country to country in less than a few months’ time. Father Abraham did become the ancestor to
many nations. We are all family! We have family, loved ones, and connections
in every part of the globe. That’s why
something like this spread so quickly. Over
the centuries I think we’ve forgotten this.
Rather
than fight with each other, we should be uniting to care for one another. We’ve fought over property, over resources,
over who’s better, who’s worse. We’ve
fought over things that divide us. But,
have we ever truly embraced what unites us?
Have we fully understood that we are all part of the one body of
creation?
Divide
and conquer is the game of strategists for winning a war against your
enemies. Perhaps what this virus is
showing us is that the only thing that wins when we divide and conquer is
evil. I think it makes us less human,
more primitive and animalistic. Perhaps
the new mantra for the 21st Century should be Unite and Conquer. Although we must be physically distance from
one another right now for the benefit of all, when we are able to come back together
physically, let this be our new motto.
We
are all family; every nation, nationality, person, place, thing on this planet. When one of us is in pain or hurting, we all
hurt. May we rise to the covenant of
family God made with Abraham.
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