Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

I’m thinking this morning about photographers. They’re like poets because they can capture a whole spectrum of emotions in a single image. Whereas writers expand on ideas, photographers distill them. They can tell a whole story in one shot. (Hence, “A picture’s worth a thousand words.” You can quote me on that:)

When I used to travel with Southern Living photographers all the time, I would always offer to carry some of their heavy lenses—at which point, they would tell me how much those lenses cost, and I would carry the tripod. And as they set up their shots, I found it interesting to see when they would choose a wide angle and when they would zoom in.

These days, I feel like we are sorely in need of a wide-angle view—we need to pull back from this news report or that one and see the big picture: Our world is sick. We are all intricately connected to each other. Until everybody’s health is restored, no one can assume good health. Selfishness is self-defeating, now more than ever.

The only thing to do is pray for the restoration of our collective health and actively help with the healing. Instead of dwelling on all the things we can’t do—and I’m very guilty of this—we can do what we can. Cut an elderly neighbor’s grass. Take a trash can down to the street for those new parents next door who are way too sleep-deprived to remember it’s pickup day. Make yourself some homemade pimiento cheese. You’ll feel better, and so will everybody else.

Sunday Morning Serenity

 

Have you ever felt so many different emotions at one time that words failed you? You couldn't even wrap your mind around it all, let alone verbalize it?

That's where I am this morning. From Daddy's first trip to the emergency room, through a hospital stay, then coronavirus exposure for all of us, then quarantine, then the prayed-for negatives for Dave and me and Daddy's steady improvement, then yesterday I saw my parents for the first time in what seems like an eternity and went inside their house (masked, of course) for the first time since late March. And through it all, the blanket of prayer, love, and support wrapped around all of us by our friends and family.

As my dear friend Jane used to say, "I MEAN!"

All I can say is thank you, Lord. Thank you.

This morning, I was drawn to a song that our choir used to sing. (I can still hear you singing the solo, sweet Ashley:) 

Much love to all the friends and family I look forward to hugging—and praying with and singing with and laughing with and eating 9x13 church casseroles
with—when we can gather together again.

Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

The word of the day is JUST.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot for the past two weeks because we hear it so much in the media these days. And here’s the thing about this small but powerful word: It can elevate humanity or diminish it.

First the elevated.

We're in the midst of an awakening, calling ourselves and challenging ourselves to rethink what is fair and just. Can we find a path to treating all people—not just the ones who look, sound, think, and believe like us—with justice and respect? We don’t all agree on what “just” looks like, but we’re at least talking about it, aspiring to it.

It might help to revisit the “just” that God calls us to:

Defend the poor and fatherless:
do justice to the afflicted and needy.
Psalm 82:3

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Phillippians 4:8

[Christ speaking to his disciples]:
A new commandment I give unto you,
That ye love one another;
as I have loved you,
that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.
John 13:34-35

 For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty;
only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh,
but by love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this;
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Galatians 5:13-14

Loving each other as Christ loved us, which is to say, unconditionally and sacrificially—that goes way beyond the human definition of “just,” which we generally take to mean what we deserve as human beings, what we have a right to. Christ said give love even when it hasn’t been “earned.” Even when you don’t think it’s deserved. Give it freely. Put others before yourself.

It’s such a short command but such a high one: “Love one another as I have loved you.”

And now for the diminishing “just.”

It's an all too human one, I think, because it's a way of keeping a very scary contagion at arm's length: It’s just the elderly. It’s just people with other health problems. It’s just poor people without good doctors. It’s just the deaths we need to pay attention to. 

Most of us could name plenty of elderly friends and family we aren't ready to give up, people who have lived long and rich lives, with still more to give, more life to enjoy, and plenty of wisdom to share. We know young people with preexisting health conditions. We have middle-aged friends and family who are otherwise healthy except for one manageable chronic issue. We have sense enough to know that struggling communities deserve our help, not our scorn.

I don’t shock that easily any more. None of us do, given the barrage of media coming at us every day, all day long, but “just the deaths” shocks me every time I see it.

“The deaths” aren’t numbers, they’re people—somebody’s mother, father, son or daughter, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or grandparent. Each one of them represents a family that will never be the same.

Health care workers and first responders aren’t risking their lives and the health of their families for the dead, but for the living—to try and keep them that way. And in the process, some of them become one of “the deaths.”

Next time you hear or read “the deaths,” replace it in your mind with “beloved family members tragically lost.”

JUST.

My prayer, this Sunday morning, is that we can embrace “whatsoever things" are honest, just, pure, and lovely—God’s “just”—and banish the other from our hearts and our vocabulary. We're called to love and never diminish each other, now more than ever.