Caring for the World

AM Psalm 105:1-22 • PM Psalm 105:23-45
Zech. 4:1-14 • Eph. 4:17-32 • Matt. 9:1-8

About interviewing: “It isn’t an inquisition, it’s an exploration, usually an exploration into the past. So I think the gentlest question is the best one, and the gentlest is “And what happened then?’’ — Studs Turkel

I used to interview people from the University of Arkansas, plus others who visited such as Jonathan Miller and Andrei Voznesensky. I called it Arkansas Voices and it was heard on KUAF radio with Kyle Kellams. I noticed certain things that people like to talk about especially when it feels like a loved memory: making houses for wrens, or, food for the chickadees, habits of our grandparents.

Some are sacred feelings about water: Lake St. Claire, Michigan—with its gray peaks—“one of the great lakes…almost.”

In our reading for today from Ephesians, we learn what we must not reflect upon when our minds are darkened in their understanding…and hardness of heart, and, instead, “Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness….”

Paul also told us, “put away falsehood and, if we are angry, “do not let the sun go down on your anger.…Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

It is that sacred voice I hear in the early morning when the geese fly over.

Written by Rebecca Newth

…who also would like to hear the clunking as Jesus climbed out of a boat, and the choir that is working on Mozart’s Mass in C Major.