A New Start for Sabbath Tango

(It has been over two years since I last posted to this blog.  I don't know why I let my sharing in this space lapse.  I have enjoyed travels during that time.  I have written in my journal - but not as frequently as I would like.  Anyway, I have been journaling more lately and I have had some travels recently that I want to share with the wider world.  So I am reviving this blog beginnign with this reflection I wrote on August 31, 2012 while Dianne and I were visiting family in Vermillion, Ohio over Labor Day Weekend.)

Sitting on the south shore of Lake Erie in the shade of two maple trees the horizon appears to stretch to eternity before me.  I know Canada is across the lake, but only because I have been told so, not by any proof to my eyes.  This Great Lake is not the ocean and yet, to my visual senses it appears the same as when I stand on the shore of Biscayne Bay and stare off toward Africa beyond the Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Moments such as these remind me how vast and huge is our world.  Yet, place our globe in the perspective of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and we are a minor planet circling a minor star, on the very fringe of the galaxy composed of hundreds of millions of stars and planets.  Then place our Milky Way galaxy in the perspective of the universe where it is one of thousands of galaxies and the scale of size moves way beyond what my mind can grasp.

On such a scale how do we ever begin to imagine that any of our actions or lives every truly matter beyond our own limited sphere of influence?  Yet we have a tendency as human beings to inflate our actions and lives to the point we believe they and we are the ONLY thing that matters.  We nurse and harbor grudges to the point that we believe a hurt to us strikes at the heart of reality and the universe.  We have trouble accepting apologies, offering forgiveness, and realizing and accepting that most of the time behavior from others that may hurt us has more to do with them, what is going on with them, what hurts and pain and wounds they are carrying around and trying to deal with far more than it has anything to do with us.

But inflating ourselves and our lives to the center and focus of the universe does not really shift or change the scale of reality at all.  We are still momentary, minor moments of carbon elements and gases congealing to experience a brief flash of time and space on the continuum of eternity and infinity.

The Good News from Jesus though is that God loves us.  God created us for these momentary experiences and God loves us through each breath and God will continue to love us when our little speck of time on this globe has passed.  We are infinitely and eternally important to God and beloved by God whatever we do or do not do. 

So why don’t we embrace our brief time to enjoy it fully?  Why don’t we let go of the anxiety and worry that clouds our actions?  Why don’t we let go of hurts and grudges and embrace our fellow travelers in love?  It is a grand, glorious, beautiful world in which God has placed us.  It would be a shame to waste our brief opportunity to enjoy it!