In God I trust and will not be afraid...
Psalm 56. 3 - 4 Whenever I am afraid, * I will put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise,
In God I trust and will not be afraid, * for what can flesh do to me?
In the night when the gremlins of memories creep in, I toss and turn wondering what I could have done differently, said differently to make peace. This morning two pieces of writing spoke volumes to me about that disturbance.
First, one of the psalms appointed for today, 56 (see above) written somewhere between the 9th and the 5th century, spoke directly to my angst..."In God whose word I trust and will not be afraid, for what can flesh do to me?" Remarkable. My fear is as old as the psalms, part of the human condition and the heart of man.
And then, our old favorite, Richard Rohr, shared the story of a Vietnamese soldier's trauma as a result of the war and his coming to grips with naming it, facing it and being freed from it.
But I’m not special, you know. You can do this, too. You can face your own sorrow, your own wounds. You can stop wanting some other life, some other past, some other reality. You can stop fighting against the truth of yourself and, breathing in and breathing out, open to your own experience. You can just feel whatever is there, exploring it, until you also discover the liberation that comes with stopping the struggle and becoming fully present in your own life. This is the real path to peace and freedom. You could do this for yourself; you could do this for your family. Our whole world will benefit. (see the link to the full article below)
Claude AnShin Thomas, At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace (Shambhala: 2004), 152–153, 154.
Lessons for today...Name your wounds and sorrows, trust in God, stop the struggle and "go out into the world to love and serve the Lord."
And all God's people say, "Thanks be to God!"