Happy Friday,
Seven times a day I praise you for your righteous laws. Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.
Psalm 119:164-5
Some monastic orders interpret this passage literally, requiring their devotees to read the Bible and pray seven times a day. Most Christians understand the passage to advocate lives shaped by the prayerful study of God’s Word. I’m in the second camp, but I am intrigued by the idea of a more objective measurement. And I am trying to imagine what it would look like to pastor in a setting where people read the Bible and pray seven times a day. I’d be thrilled with twice!
Lent: This is day 14 of 40, leaving us 26 days to go (Note: Easter is 30 days away, but you do not count Sundays during Lent). I’ve been enjoying re-reading the Les Mis account of Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel — AKA Bishop Myriel (or Monseigneur Bienvenu) — although his life is very convicting. If you want seven minutes of inspiration, here is Colm Wilkinson’s rendition of Bishop M’s interaction with Jean Valjean.
Without Comment: 1) Greta Gerwig, the writer/producer of last year’s Barbie, is working on a Narnia series for Netflix — the trailer is here; 2) In this article, Australian academic Alison Lewis documents the East German secret police’s discovery that the fatherless were particularly vulnerable to exploitation by the state; 3) This piece explores Russia’s efforts to develop a space-based nuclear weapon to destroy Western satellites; 4) This study suggests that when donations to political parties go up, donations to charities go down; 5) According to this study, cats have 276 distinct facial expressions (274 more than the contempt and boredom I am familiar with); 6) Though applications to other Ivies are up, they have dropped 17% at Harvard; 7) According to the American Cancer Society, 39.5% of Americans will receive a cancer diagnosis at some point in their life; and 8) Wednesday is the new ‘Monday thru Friday’ — i.e., it’s the day of the week you need to be in the office.
IS2M: 1) The fact that Law and Order has been a leading TV series for 25 years says something about US society. (Of course, the fact that The Simpsons has been a leading prime-time show for 34 seasons says even more); 2) We are paying a pretty hefty idiot tax for not teaching Civics over the last 30 years; and 3) We are way too quick to assign evil intentions to our ideological foes — and way too slow to see our contribution to current challenges.
Speed: Juxtaposing this 1956 Buick ad with this 2024 Toyota ad helps us see the accelerating pace of life and/or the decline of our attention span. I count 25 different camera angles in the 135-second-long Buick ad (a shift every 5.2 seconds) and 19 in the 15-second Toyota ad (a shift every .78 seconds).
Word of the Week: In an effort to help you slide into your weekend, I’m by-passing emotional dysregulation, tooth-fairly inflation (some “fairies” now slide $1K under the pillow), and Generation Sicknote, and I’m selecting apricity instead. It refers to the warmth of the winter sun, and I am praying you will have reasons to use it frequently in the days ahead. (BTW, I can’t help but suspect that some Generation Sicknoters suffer from emotional dysregulation because they expect to find $1K under their pillow every morning. In my day, we not only got up at 4 AM to milk the cows and then walked to school (uphill both ways), we paid the tooth fairy, and we were glad to do it.)
Resources: Click here for a picture of Bridger Walker — the 6-year-old boy who was mauled by a dog saving his sister. He figures prominently in this sermon on Exodus 27, in which I attempt to smuggle some emotional awareness of God’s love for you under your radar.
Quotes Worth Requoting: “Hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does to the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates… You can’t see straight when you hate. You can’t walk straight when you hate. You can’t stand upright. Your vision is distorted. There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case… For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false become true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater… So Jesus says love because hate destroys the hater as well as the hated.” Martin Luther King Jr.
Closing Prayer: We pray you, Lord, purify our hearts that we may be worthy to become your dwelling-place. Let us never fail to find room for you, but come and abide in us, that we also may abide in you, for at this time you were born into the world for us, and live and reign, King of kings and Lord of lords, now and forever. Amen. William Temple (1881-1944)