Heart-rendering

Last updated on: October 18, 2020 at 6:48 am by Anne Kennedy

Heart-rendering 2020-10-18T06:48:57-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I’m over at Stand Firm this morning.

Early Friday morning my parents packed up their meager breakfast, their computers, their small bag of clothes, and checked out of the Candlewood Suites where they had slept that night, and went out to the big horrible overflow parking lot to climb into their Uhaul truck to continue driving across the US with all their stuff—thirty years and longer worth of things stored by my aunt in her attic for them as they continued life in Mali, and then Cote d’Ivoire (which this morning is in violent political turmoil), and finally Kenya. But, you know, covid. So this April, instead of going back to Kenya from Mali where they spent two short weeks, they came to the US. They took up their sojourn in my house in two not terribly small rooms—a bedroom with an ok closet, and the sunroom with a nice view out over the hills and a big tree. They unpacked the stuff they grabbed along the way—Gladly the Teapot and some village clothes. Finally last month my mother bought some closed shoes because it was too cold for sandals.

As covid ground its way along, my mom and dad sorted out various financial somethings, so that finally, at the end of August, they were approved for a loan and began to look at houses here in Binghamton—a place where normally there are tons and tons of houses and nobody wanting to buy them. Because of covid, of course, everyone in the world decided to buy a house, and so they had to steel themselves to be able to say yes or no the moment they walked in anywhere that seemed basically fine. They looked for several weeks, but then a perfectly sized house, with a good sweep of garden, came up and they said yes. And then waited for the 6 weeks or so before the house closing, got the keys, finally, and they made arrangements to go to Oregon to get all that stuff they’ve been keeping for such a time as this.

Stuff that I enumerated on Friday. Some of it feels like a second death to me, because it was moved up into the attic when my grandmother died so suddenly. She had gone to a nursing home to play the piano for a church service there (imagine, going into a nursing home to worship). She sat down, arranged her hands over the opening cord, pressed down, put her head forward on the piano, and was gone—like Bilbo, my mother said, rushing out of his house without anything. But also, there were boxes of language data, and nice stuff from Africa, and some good furniture. Pictures and so forth.

Two weeks of sorting and getting it into a truck, and then all of it is gone in the night, taken by someone who doesn’t know anything, probably, except how much big screen tvs will go for. Unhappy for that person, the only electrical device in the back of that truck is a toaster.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts!
9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness;
tremble before him, all the earth!

10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!
Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved;
he will judge the peoples with equity.”

So cries the Psalmist, shouting at a nation of people whom Malachi, accordingly as the organizers of the Lectionary have so arranged, indicts in that last chapter of the Old Testament:

8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

The thing is, as I have been muttering to myself over the last two days, everything belongs to God. He can do what he likes with it. Though my house is full of stuff, and though I am always wandering around the wasteland of American box-stores, trying to find things I can afford to buy, it is a great deception to think that the money attached to my card is even really mine, or that the breath in my own lungs is sustained by anything less than the provident will of God himself

This goes both ways. He gives it all so that I can use it, so that I can take care of myself and my children and any person at all who happens to wander by, so that I can ascribe to him the honor and glory that belongs to him in the first place. But he can also take it and have it at any point. And if taking it means letting it sit abandoned somewhere, robbed, devoured, that is his prerogative…read the rest here!

Previous Post

October 16, 2020

If You Can Pray

Next Post

October 19, 2020 Mired in Grief Podcast and Links

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How many books are in the entire Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

80 66 73 39

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »