Psalm 130

Lent 5 - Year A

Psalm 130

Hmm, is your experience that forgiveness is based on your promise of subsequent reverence (a most interesting motivation for such a basic) or that forgiveness is a developed response or habit?

Is there steadfast love but only conditional forgiveness? Just how does that work?

Oh, yes, right, this is a cry from desperate depths. From such a spot we are willing to try anything. A foxhole prayer doesn’t rely on a consistent view of life or self or G*D. All that is important is getting out of the current bind.

Jesus was in a tough spot with a request to come and risk stoning. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were in a tough spot with death on the near horizon. Ezekiel was in a tough spot, facing questions far beyond any adequate response. The Psalmist was in a tough spot. You and I find ourselves in tough spots.

How we see the world around us is crucial work and doesn’t come easily. All manner of shortcuts attempt to divert us from seeing the basics of life. Steadfast love, yes. Forgiveness, yes. Deep despair, yes. Waiting and watching, yes. Now take this handful and toss them up into the air. Which comes to earth most easily? Which skitters around? Are they the same weight or circumference? Which has a gravity pull stronger than the rest? Which is background and which foreground. Is one a better lens through which to view the others?

- - -

In or out of extremis
we yearn for connection
beyond judgment
beyond forgiveness
waiting and hoping
for new light
steadfast
steadfast