Sitting here early morning on this COVID Sabbath, reflecting on my 72 orbits around the sun. My expectations for humanity are more realistic than perhaps they once were as a young man in America, with her then amber waves of grain.
So much enlightenment, reinforcement, both from scripture and history. The stories of nations past, ill led by charismatic ego's, sustained by well funded political machines. Their audiences enthralled to the degree of irrational thought, thus held captive.
Of course, my hope is sustained by the Christ of Creation, so early instilled in me by generations of folk who loved and fully appreciated nature. Yesterday, walking in the woods with my grands, it's now their time, though limited to fewer acres, less wildlife and no hounds. Of course, they are guarded against sipping branch water, as I was so prone to as a child.
Then there is my faith, deeply experiential as a fourth generation Pentecostal, though less likely than earlier, that those moments of the miraculous be found in the sanctuaries of today.
Fortunately, my life has been seasoned by 50 years of companionship with my leather backed friend, the Bible. Yet, as many of my evangelical friends now offer caution, my reading is more conversation with God, than memorization of text to be used to convince some unsuspecting homeless man or troubled peer.
This balanced reservoir of life experience at times is like rivers of living water, held deep in my belly. Suddenly, the Spirit resident in me, brings meaning, now more often shared, as it quenches my own thirst, much like that cool, fast moving branch water did when I was a child.