Positively Glowing (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

It seems that "shining" has often been … well, if not a bit controversial, then perhaps disconcerting. It’s the kind of situation that might cause you to take a step back … maybe more than one. 

Take Stephen King's The Shining, for example. His publisher lobbied long and hard for King to not even write the novel, worried he would get typed as a horror writer. There's some irony for you. The book went on to be King's first hardback bestseller.

Then there was the movie. The Stanley Kubrick film, generally considered one of the greatest horror films of all time, nevertheless diverged significantly from King's novel. King was quite vocal about his disappointment. The irony, here, is that the popularity of the movie drove book sales through the roof.  

Also a little disconcerting, people didn't understand the title, even after reading the book or seeing the movie. Where did King get the idea to call it that? He wasn’t saying. In fact, it wasn't until 11 years after The Shining was first published that King explained. He took the title from the John Lennon song, Instant Karma! Lennon suggests we, like the moon, stars, and sun, "all shine on."

There’s shining in this week’s scriptures, too. When Moses came down from his mountaintop meeting with God, his face was positively glowing ... really glowing. Moses was so bright, the people were afraid. He had to keep his face covered with a veil until the glow faded away. If we saw someone like that today, we would be frightened, too. 

Then, in Luke, Jesus takes his inner circle up the mountain where He is transfigured. He too, is left glowing after encountering God there. I wonder how long that glow lasted? Scripture doesn't tell us. One thing we know, though—they didn't come down from the mountain until the next day.

Both "shinings" show up in the Corinthians passage. Paul compares the two and tells us we can let go of that old, fading shine of the Law of Moses. He wants us to know that, since Jesus has “removed the veil,” we no longer need some intermediary to trek up the mountain on our behalf. We can now meet God face to face. But you need to be aware, that’s likely to leave a glow, a shining you do not want to avoid. You want people to see you with that shine. It's God's light pouring through you.

Shine on. 

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Just for fun, here’s Colbie Caillat singing Brighter Than the Sun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYkudx096Pg

For the curious, here’s John Lennon singing Instant Karma!:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqgTSk9Aq50

PHOTO by NASA: 

https://images.nasa.gov/details-GSFC_20171208_Archive_e000084.html

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Not all of us are morning people, bright and shining when we first face the day. That's what breakfast is for. And coffee. Join us for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast Friday morning at 8:00. We gather for a great hour of relaxed fellowship and scripture on Zoom** and in-person at Our Breakfast Place. 

Enjoy the week!

Steve

 

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera and microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Read them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=116

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_TransfigurationSunday.pdf

Exodus 34:29-35

Psalm 99

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a)

Transfiguration Sunday (February 27, 2022)

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Joseph and the Cat of Many Colors (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

If you’ve ever seen the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” or read the Book of Genesis, then you know who Joseph is. The cat is the central figure in the famous thought experiment set up by physicist Erwin Schrödinger. We know quite a bit about Joseph and almost nothing about the cat. 

It’s true, we don’t know the color of Schrödinger’s cat. Nor do we know its size, its gender, or its disposition. It may have been a large, docile, gray tiger-striped tabby. Or it may just as easily been a small, feisty, butterscotch colored despot. Cats come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, personalities and, of course, colors. 

Here's what we do know about the cat in Schrödinger‘s experiment: It’s in a sealed box. With it is a vial of poison and a mechanism to spill the poison. The mechanism will start only if a certain event occurs, and that event is unpredictable. Finally, if the poison spills, the cat will die.

But note: The experiment was purely theoretical: There was never a real cat, any poison, or a box to put them in. It was just a mental exercise. So, no actual cats were harmed in the making of this reflection, whatever color they may or may not have been.

The purpose of Schrödinger‘s experiment was to illustrate a point: Until we open the box—and see with our own eyes—we cannot know whether the cat is alive or dead. From a physics standpoint, nothing has actually occurred ... yet. The cat is constantly either alive or dead. Until we open the box and find out for certain, the cat is in a continuous state of possibility. 

Have I lost you? Hang on. We're done with the science-y stuff. What it means, in everyday terms, is this: We cannot know what we cannot know.

Anything is possible.

There are many treasures to be mined from the story of Joseph—the limits of prophecy, fractured families, the power of forgiveness, even agronomics. But for me, it's this "not knowing" that keeps me coming back to Joseph. It’s in the “not knowing” that we are like Joseph. 

Despite the cryptic dreams he received as a young man, he could never have known he would become "a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt."

When it comes to what to do and say when things go wrong, Joseph is a great model for us. At each critical moment, Joseph—not knowing the future—could have chosen either way. Just like us. We know that at each challenge point, he chose to behave in a way that was pleasing to God. He did this even though there were no Ten Commandments to guide his behavior. Joseph lived long before God gave the Law to Moses. 

Anyone can know right from wrong.

We, like Joseph, remain in a continuous state of possibility. That only changes when we "open the box," so to speak. Similar to Schrödinger's Cat, until we choose a course of action—in that nanosecond before our thoughts settle into our choice—we can go either way. And like Joseph, none of us can actually know our future.  

But God can.  

God sees all our possibilities. God can see into “the box," if you will. And, if we will allow it—if we can trust God as Joseph did—God will guide us into the best path ... and, perhaps, to undreamed-of achievements.

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

"The task is, not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about that which everybody sees." 

—Erwin Schrödinger

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DaySpring’s Friday morning Lectionary Breakfast is a great way to start the weekend. Join us at 8:00 on Zoom** or in person at Our Breakfast Place for food, fellowship, scripture, and hijinks (is that still a word?). 

See you there,

Steve

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera & microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Read them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=113

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_SeventhSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

Luke 6:27-38

Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany (February 20, 2022)

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An Island Paradise … Sort Of (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

I can hardly believe it was just four years ago that we toured the Caribbean island of Grand Turk. My, how the world has changed. On that day, though, there were no thoughts of pandemic lockdowns, restricted travel, or zero vacations in the Caribbean. Our cruise ship docked in the morning, and we strolled off without a care in the world. We were ready for paradise. 

The paradise part was on full display all about us. There are the tall, stately palm trees capped with wide, green leaves. All about are stunning ocean views. A scenic road winds all the way round the island. The way is dotted with wild donkeys and wild horses. The houses reflect a unique island architecture; single story for the most part, with ubiquitous low walls surrounding every yard (to keep the wild donkeys out of the flower beds). There are windmills and a beautiful lighthouse. 

The “sort of” part was also right before our eyes. The week before our visit, the island had been blasted by a hurricane. Many of the islanders were dealing with power outages and the like. Some of the houses were missing roofs. One was missing the entire second story. Debris lined the road and peppered some of the walled yards. And there were longer-term situations. Parts of the town reflected an ongoing poverty, endemic to small islands completely dependent on tourism for their economies. 

It was on our tour that we learned about White Gold, one other source of income. 

From the 1660s, the economic mainstay of the Turks, particularly Grand Turk and Salt Cay, was the production of what came to be called “White Gold.”

Or, as we say it ... salt. 

Originally, Bermudans sailed to Grand Turk and used the natural action of the ocean to produce this high-demand commodity. The incoming tide would cover low-lying flats with water. Then, when the tide went out, the sun dried what was left into a super-salty brine. This was raked (by hand!) and moved by donkey cart to a higher ground for further drying. During the 18th and 19th centuries, these islands were the greatest producers of salt in the Americas. 

Today, little of that remains. Some of the equipment and paraphernalia are in museums. And, of course, the salt flats are everywhere. But industrialization and modernization have changed the salt industry, irrevocably. Oh, you could still produce salt the natural way. But the economies of scale have eliminated it as an economic engine for the Turks and Caicos. 

The salt still appears, but it’s no longer golden. 

What’s left to sun and sea—the remnants of those old processes—are those flat, salt-saturated, patches ... dead land where nothing grows. Only those that are daily replenished by ocean water have any plant growth. Those island spots just don’t have the nutrients to sustain edible plants. 

And that brings me to this week’s Jeremiah passage. Reflecting the language of Psalm 1, Jeremiah urges his readers to place their trust in God so they can be like “a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

He contrasts this lovely situation with what befalls those who place their trust in anyone or anything other than God, declaring, “They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

Now that I’ve seen such “salt land” with my own eyes, I can assure you, choosing to be the tree by the stream is a much better option ... even in an island paradise. 

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

A great little article about the rise, and fall, of White Gold): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/white-gold-how-salt-made-and-unmade-the-turks-and-caicos-islands-161576195/

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Friday mornings are a high point! Join us for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast at 8:00. We still meet on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place restaurant. Food, fellowship, scripture, prayer, and some of the funniest stuff you’ve ever heard. It really is an hour like no other.

Blessings,

Steve 

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera & microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Read them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=112

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_SixthSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Psalm 1

1 Corinthians 15:12-20

Luke 6:17-26

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany (February 13, 2022)

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Speaker for the Dead (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

Speaking at a funeral or memorial service can be challenging. I know from firsthand experience. I’ve delivered the prepared remarks at memorials for three close family members, and, believe me, that’s three too many.  

Preachers and pastors usually officiate. But it’s often a friend or family member who gives the eulogy; someone who actually knew the deceased. We expect that person to share wonderful, sometimes humorous, stories to celebrate the life and accomplishments of the deceased.

Now, imagine someone who does that kind of thing full time, someone whose role and “calling” is to deliver end-of-life remarks. That’s what’s going on in Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead. Andrew (“Ender”) Wiggin is no longer the little boy and military genius of Card’s earlier novel, Ender’s Game. He is now an adult, and he travels around as a sort of professional eulogizer. He is hired to investigate the life of a deceased person, to try to really understand them before speaking about them. 

There’s just one small challenge that real-world eulogizers don’t face: A Speaker for the Dead doesn’t just praise the deceased. They leave out nothing. Using honest—even blunt—terms, the Speaker for the Dead speaks to all parts of a person’s life: the good, the bad, and, yes, the ugly. 

That can be painful. 

If this is beginning to sound a bit like an Old Testament prophet to you, give yourself a gold star. Those folks had to speak the truth—often bluntly—about the people of Israel, their community leaders, and their spiritual leaders. Sometimes there was good, and sometimes there was bad. And sometimes there was ugly.

This week’s selection from Isaiah 6 contains some harsh truths that God directed Isaiah to pass on to the people of Israel. The message? God is about to end them as a nation. God is going to send a conqueror that will kill many of them, exile the few survivors to a foreign land, and even make the very soil of their homeland barren. 

It’s harsh. But in God’s view, the people of Israel have earned this because they mistreated those who were in need, denied justice to the powerless, and exploited the lowly. 

Isaiah was a Speaker for the Almost Dead. 

Unlike a modern eulogy, he spoke the whole truth to them; something they needed to hear. But because he spoke of future events ahead of the nation’s demise, there was still time for people to repent. 

Praise God, we no longer live under the strictures of the Law of Moses. But even though we believers can depend on God’s assurance that “mercy triumphs justice,” don’t think for a minute we can mistreat our poor and powerless without negative results. 

Our actions influence what is said about us. Because we know this, we get some “say” in what words are spoken. We don’t have to wait for our lives to be over to know what’s in our eulogy. We write it every day. 

Let’s give them something good to talk about.

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PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/wait-are-you-saying-a-podium-is-the-same-thing-as-a-lectern

See the lyrics while Paula Cole sings I Don’t Want to Wait (for our lives to be over): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQILETlwGu8

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There is NO IN-PERSON Lectionary Breakfast this Friday morning. Can you join us at 8:00 on Zoom?** It’s an hour of Bible, discussion, prayer, laughter, and BYOB (Bring Your Own Breakfast). There’s nothing quite like it. 

Blessings,

Steve

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera & microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Read them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=111

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_FifthSundayafterEpiphany.pdf

Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)

Psalm 138

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Luke 5:1-11

Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany (February 4, 2022)

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