Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

Today's Office Gospel contains some favorite and close-to-the-heart words:

Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

I can rest in these words, and they say enough for one day, but they connect with our current moment so clearly that there's a little more to say. In recent weeks I have been hearing the Lord's Prayer, "give us this day our daily bread" differently. Rather than the daily or ordinary way that I might have prayed it in other seasons, these days I hear of our "daily bread" as daily sustenance, enough for the moment, like manna from heaven that can't be stored up for later. The tenuousness of our moment pulls us into the present with God. In some ways it frees us from the five-year plan or the control that might have felt normal to many of us. In other ways the present moment pulls us into an awareness that many hold in their bodies every day, the tenuousness of this life. It's an opportunity to practice treasuring what matters unlike the barn-builder in Jesus' parable:

“What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

How can this moment pull us into greater solidarity with our neighbor rather than into our own business? How can the one day at a time requirement of this moment reorient us to a stance of trust and peace in the one who cares for ravens and lilies? How can the only-God-can-handle-this-moment-ness of the this time draw us into generosity with our daily bread, and knowledge and love of God? Give us this day our daily bread, enough for today.

In Christ,
Mtr. Taylor