...rock, paper, scissors, water

By our nurture, by our culture every life is shaped to grow,

fed by long tradition’s learning, formed by mentors as we go;

tune our ears to hear the gospel questioning accepted thought,

ready to respect each other, see the gifts that each has brought.

---Shirley Erena Murray, 2004

Rock, paper, scissors, shoot! If you are like me, you will remember this hand game from childhood. If you are a little less like me, you may remember it from earlier today! For those unfamiliar with it, the game is played using a hand sign each to represent rock, paper, and scissors, and two players face off with their hands out. After counting off three, each player ‘shoots’ one of the hand signs. According to a damage inventory, certain signs ‘beat’ other signs --- rock crushes scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. Best two out of three, of course, wins.

I have always felt that, if I played rock, paper, scissors, I would carry in a trump card, an unbeatable element against which none could stand. The longer I have owned my own home, and been responsible for the innumerable things that can go wrong there, the more sure I have become of my winning strategy. I would bring water to the game. Un. beatable. Boom. Because water dissolves paper into its pulpy components, and rusts the metal fabrication of scissors. And, given the time, water wears away stone to nothing. Not bragging or anything, but water wins every time.

So in our lives, who or what stands in the place of ‘water’ --- the steady, relentless, direction-shaping influence that ends up changing the complexion of our souls? Will culture do water’s work? Will we be eroded by our upbringing and family? Will mentors and learning shape us? Might, somehow, all of these waters flow together and chart their course across the core of us? Will these waters tune our ears and hearts to hear the radical message of the gospel, bathe away the hardness from us and expose the tenderness? What is water in your life?

Because, friends, water wins every time.

...just in time

As I journeyed onward in the noonday's heat,
A great rock blocked the path before my feet;
but from its shade there gushed a cooling spring,
And it quenched our thirst and made our hearts to sing.
When the night seems darkest and our hope is gone,
In the East we see the signs of coming dawn.
---Willys Peck Kent

Have you come to that boulder in the path? That place where all your forward progress suddenly stopped, and what had seemed clear suddenly had you back-tracking and second-guessing? Have you thought it a dead end, sat down in resignation with your back against the rock, cried out with the exhaustion and frustration of being thoroughly beaten?

That's the dark. The parched dry of world-crashing-in, not-good-enough-ness. That is the night of not-hope. And it could be the end of the story. But.

But. There is water, a trickle, a runnel, bubbling from a hidden spring. The boulder in the path has been guarding it, protecting its outlet all along. And there, just at the darkest edge of your vision, dawn is drawing back the curtain between earth and sky. Almost like it was planned, the light comes.

The Water. The Light.

Just in time.

In Paths of Peace

Through war-torn streets where hope is dead,

Fly bombs and anger ‘round our heads.

We raise the cry, “God hear our plea

And guide our feet in paths of peace.”

Through homes where love cannot to be found,

And violence spreads the fear around,

We raise the cry, “God hear our plea

And guide our feet in paths of peace.”

Through lands where food just will not grow,

And streams of water never flow,

We raise the cry, “God hear our plea

And guide our feet in paths of peace.”

Through minds where illness takes first place,

And wholeness longs for any space,

We raise the cry, “God hear our plea

And guide our feet in paths of peace.”

Through challenges of this our time,

Through rage, neglect, greed’s paradigm,

We raise the cry, “God hear our plea

And guide our feet in paths of peace.”

When things seem worst, we hear the song

Hope sings above the din of wrong:

The song of One who hears our plea.

Christ guides our feet in paths of peace.