Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Pentecost 11b - Psalm 34:1-8

Psalm 34:1-8

I've been delivered more than once from “all my terrors” and saved from more “all my troubles” than I care to count so that this fifty-sixth anniversary of the end of my mother’s pregnancy is a cause for proclaiming the greatness of Lord, or more to the point, the incredible mercy and grace that has encamped around me all these years through no effort of my own. Indeed, maybe my parents are more thankful this day than I am for however it happened my life was spared because on more than one occasion they called to God in their affliction and God saved them from all the trouble Phillip caused. The really good news of the day is that I’m not very good at math or memory and so I’ve been thinking that this is the fifty-seventh anniversary of my birth but since I was born in 1956 and not 55 I’m suddenly a year younger than I thought I was. Woo-hoo! So I’m going to celebrate the gift of my mother’s labor (and my father’s time in the waiting room – it was 1956 after all) by making a slow roasted pork with chilies and oranges served over cilantro lime rice along with Olatha sweet corn roasted in the husk and jalapeno honey corn bread. I’ll be eating with our homeless friends who come to Calvary’s Room in the Inn to find relief from the heat and be delivered, if only for one night, from all their troubles. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the gift my parents gave me for even if my mom did most of the work that day the person I am took more than a moment of blood, sweat and tears and the lessons of loving God and caring for others and contending for the poor were the lessons that I learned from parents who believe God gifts us to be a gift to others. 

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