Wednesday, February 23, 2022

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The Reverend Dr. Katie Snipes Lancaster

Transformation: I’m not sure we always seek transformation. Some of us (myself included) have days where we say to ourselves, “things are just fine the way they are, thank you very much.” We close ourselves off. We halt any intruding possibility of conversion. We don’t like change, especially the inward change that makes us confront our own assumptions about the way we live in the world. “Please don’t make me think about all that,” we plead.

And yet we know all is not right in the world. At a personal level, at a community level, at a national and international level, there is in fact a need for something new. There is a deep underlying need for reshaping this world in a way that matches God’s vision of peace, justice, and reconciliation. In the upcoming season of Lent we plead to God, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51). We long for the reordering of the world and know that our own transformation is part of that renewing possibility of sacred transformation.

Where are you seeing transformation? Internally? In your relationships? In the complex impossible long-fought struggles for justice nationally or internationally? Even when the news seems to be perpetually reporting crisis after crisis, there is something sustaining about noticing, recording, and reporting the good news of transformation.

Praying the Alphabet
God, we feel tired and threadbare.
The temptations and trials
of this life seem untempered.
We thirst for you, tracing
the transformational themes
across these untamed days.
When it all feels like trainwreck and tragedy,
let your peace transcend.
In trust, we seek the treasure of your truth today.
Together we need your untruncated, tangible presence.
Amen.