Taking the Wrong Fork (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

 

A dead end can be a negative or a positive, depending on your viewpoint. But it can mean real trouble when you come upon one unexpectedly. 

 

Call it what you will—caving, spelunking, crazy—exploring under the earth is a pastime that just draws some people. My friend and I were two of those people. We started out walking. Then we had to crouch a bit. Soon enough, we were crawling on all fours. All of this to find the rumored “crystal cave.”

 

And always on a slight decline. 

 

In time, the tunnel dimensions grew pretty tight. We lost the ability to turn over on our backs; just too narrow. There was only enough ceiling height for us and our gear. 

 

We eventually found ourselves at a juncture. Left? Right? Like many of life’s choices, the two tunnels before us bore no sign to indicate the best way. For no particular reason, we chose the left tunnel. We expected more decline, so we got pretty excited when the tunnel turned even more downward—until we came to the wall.

 

Dead end. 

 

So there we were, one in front of the other, heads down, feet up. At this point, the tunnel was too tight for us to turn around. We hadn't found the crystal cave. We couldn't go forward. We were out of options. 

 

We just wanted to give up. 

 

Are you feeling that? The claustrophobia? That sense of failure? No room to maneuver? Nowhere to turn? Stuck between a rock and a hard place?

 

The Hebrew word for this kind of situation is tzoros. It's the word for trouble. But not just any run-of-the-mill trouble. It means dire straits, nowhere to turn, between a rock and a hard place, no room to maneuver, out of options, no margin.

 

That's the word in this week's scripture from Psalm 91 where God says, "Those who love me…I will be with them in trouble [tzoros]," 

 

More often than not, we just don’t see tzoros coming. Whether we expect it or are caught off guard, what a difference it makes to not be alone! My friend and I were able to discuss our situation, cheer each other up, and crawl backward to that earlier junction. It took a little longer, but our wrong turn helped us know which was the right turn. And taking that other tunnel led us to the crystal cave (which, by the way, was breathtakingly beautiful and well worth all the trouble). 

 

In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott writes, "This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to anyway. It goes down into the rat hole with us…and there it swells and comforts. It gives us second winds, third winds, hundredth winds." That is God's response to no margin, to dire straits, to "out of options," to trouble so bad it needs a special word to describe it. 

 

God knows when we are in tzoros and will be with us in it. God goes down into it with us. God meets us at the dead end...even if we are revisiting that dead end. No matter how much tzoros we’re in, God's expansive (and expanding) love truly can conquer all.

 

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PHOTO: a giant concrete arrow seen from the air 

 

Link to Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies: https://smile.amazon.com/Traveling-Mercies-Some-Thoughts-Faith/dp/0385496095/ref=sr_1_1?crid=HS72A167N5OE&keywords=traveling+mercies+by+anne+lamott&qid=1569534211&sprefix=Traveling+m%2Caps%2C316&sr=8-1

 

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Join us Friday morning for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We meet at 8:00 on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place restaurant for an interesting hour of food, scripture, and fellowship. 

 

Blessings,

Steve 

**Contact me for the Zoom link

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

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=281

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_Proper21.pdf

 

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

Amos 6:1a, 4-7

Psalm 146

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Luke 16:19-31

Proper 21 (26) (September 25, 2022)

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Ditch Digger’s Dilemma (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

 

I suddenly needed money.

 

During high school, my cash reserves had been just fine. I had a generous weekly allowance that covered my daily school lunch with some spending money left over. 

 

That is, until they raised the price of the school lunch. 

 

Suddenly, my allowance would only pay for lunch. It was in the midst of this situation that I heard Principal Mutchler’s announcement. There was a need for a boy to do some manual labor on Saturday. I hurried to the office to let them know I wanted that job. I was motivated by my need for money, and I really didn’t much care what I had to do. 

 

As it turned out, the job was digging a ditch.

 

Those who have dug ditches will agree, I believe, that it is not usually a complicated enterprise. You move earth from one place to another. There is another fairly universal truth about ditch digging: Unless you have access to some pretty sophisticated equipment, it's hard work!  

 

Let me spare you the hour-by-hour description of my first time to dig a ditch. It was not a great experience—not for me, not for my employer, and not for the ditch. But at the end of the day (literally, the end of the day), there was a ditch where one had not previously existed. 

 

And I got paid. 

 

Uncomplicated, but taxing. Simple to understand, but a real challenge to accomplish. Our spiritual walk is much the same. Don’t be fooled by those who tell you different: It is not complicated. 

 

From this week’s 1 Timothy passage: “The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.” 

 

Again, not complicated.  

 

Yes, it can be very challenging. Praying for people with whom we disagree, people we don't trust, people we don't like, even people we didn't vote for. That's hard to do. It helps from time to time to stop and recognize that all we are asked to do are simple things—hear, believe, repent, confess, walk, stand...

 

And pray. 

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PHOTO (of a model excavator): 

https://ec-hobby.com/liebherr-r-945-litronic-full-metal-hydraulic-rc-excavator-20220801-1-2382.html

 

Friday mornings at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast are special. Starting at 8:00, we take an hour to eat, pray, read scripture, and engage us some fascinating discussions. We meet both on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place. You should join us. 

 

Blessings, 

Steve

 

Steve

 

**Contact me for the Zoom link:

 

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

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=280

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_Proper20.pdf

 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Psalm 79:1-9

Amos 8:4-7

Psalm 113

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Luke 16:1-13

Proper 20 (25) (September 18, 2022)

 

 

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Kicking Mules and Kissing Frogs (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

 

I like this scene in the movie, Jesse Stone: Lost In Paradise. Police Chief Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) attempts to mend a broken relationship with a woman he previously upset. But she’s frosty, at first saying she’s “kissed a few frogs” in her day and wondering aloud if Chief Stone is such a reptile. When he offers to make it up to her “over a cup of coffee,” she quotes Mark Twain in response: “There's no education in the second kick of a mule.”

 

You’ll need to watch the movie for the full effect, and for the resolution of the encounter. In romance, we always want  conflicts to be resolved. It is our hope they will finally find what they’ve been looking for. But experience can be a cruel teacher, and some of us are slow to learn. 

 

That seems to be a running theme in this week’s Exodus and Jeremiah passages. God’s people were supposed to be in a committed relationship with God. But they just kept being drawn away to false gods, over and over. 

 

They spent a lot of years “kissing frogs” before God had Moses lead them out of Egypt. In fact, they kissed frogs for so long, they came to believe that was how things were supposed to be. Perhaps we can understand how they were so easily drawn to those bad boys. It’s a hard habit to break. Still, you have to wonder. It’s not like they did these things in a vacuum. God kept giving them reasons to know that He was the real deal. He kept showing them that those false gods never delivered—that, at best, they were just frogs claiming their kisses would produce princes. 

 

Hopefully, we can read these passages and learn the lessons they teach. There’s no need to subject ourselves to a bunch of lies and liars trying to take God’s place in our lives. We should be able to lean into the teachings of Jesus in the Luke passage and the example of the Apostle Paul in this week’s 1st Timothy selection. 

 

Because, after all, there really is nothing new to learn in the second kick of a mule. 

 

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast meets Friday morning on Zoom** and at Our Breakfast Place. The hour starts at 8:00 and includes food, fellowship, scripture, and a robust exchange of ideas. Plus, there’s always the chance of some possibly inappropriate laughter. 

 

Join us. 

Steve

 

**Contact me for the Zoom link

 

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

 

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY AND THE COMING WEEK

Find them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=279

 

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_Proper19.pdf

 

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Psalm 14

Exodus 32:7-14

Psalm 51:1-10

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

Proper 19 (24) (September 11, 2022)

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