Mtr Taylor Devine

Dear Friend,

In this morning's reading from Jeremiah there is a place that says, essentially, “well it seems like it's just the poor people in Jerusalem who are not understanding how God works, let's check with the rich!” As you probably predicted, this does not go well.
"But they all alike had broken the yoke, they had burst the bonds."
Both groups are guilty as charged. No one in their eyes is acting like the salvation of the living God is present, everyone has fallen. This may sound familiar, firstly, the looking for a scapegoat, looking for some reason things aren’t the way they should be, is sadly familiar. But secondly, on a heart level one can also hear the reality that though we look for difference, the core of the human is the same, and the need for God’s grace remains. In the Women’s Bible Study this week we had a conversation about humility, and the way in which both our conscience, and the voices in our heads from our childhoods and from our community, mold us toward humility from time to time. We joked about how there are not really humility practices that we can think of, in the way that there are practices of hospitality that may shape our lives. One of the recurrent themes was the inner voice that says "there but for the grace of God go I." My parents, like others parents, said this in our childhoods. Perhaps reflecting on humility in this way is one such practice. Another lifelong practice is seeking to see that Image of God, and the other, knowing full-well both of our hypocrisies and discrepancies. I wonder how you cultivate humility, what brings you up short, what makes you turn again to the recognition that it is God’s grace that holds us?

In Christ,
Taylor