Sabbath Messages > Sabbath Message: Dec. 4, 2004
Good Sabbath
December 4, 2004 "We all declare for liberty", said Abe Lincoln 3 years into the Civil War, "but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing." My favorite American was saddened by the differences between the Americans, whose passions and vanities made this most un-Civil War possible, and the monstrous killing fields, whose trench warfare gave birth to the slaughter of WWI. David Fischer's brilliant book, "Liberty and Freedom", bring both into perspective.
O Lord, give us a peak into the future,
Or would that be so discouraging as to make us pathetic?
We are just discovering our 14 billion-years of cosmic evolution
Which causes us to look "backwards" at a universe we are just beginning
to understand.
As we poke at Mars and pass by the rings of Saturn
Will we find monsters of cinematic creations
Or shall we find ourselves, at last?
As we get deeper into our earliest beginnings, will we be able to predict the weather--the "monster" of everyday--or earthquakes, or arctic warmings or why locusts return from biblical days to yesterday? During the last ten years we mapped a census of the oceans, we have found 13,000 new species and expect to find hundreds of thousands more.
It is amazing what we can find when we open our senses to the apparent. Each morning walk brings my senses to life as I chronicle Autumn's journey into Winter, with leaves magically coloring the trip, with their reddened rusticity, marvelous gold and green chromas. I hate to think that a child misses these miracles while seated before his electronic games. Perhaps beauty isn't explicit enough to compete with digital creativity. We measure success by how big the box office, rather than how we have taught our young to notice the every day, appreciate the silent colors, be mesmerized by the flight of a flock of birds. When grass gets boring, then it's time to stop the parade to the biggest, and love the small--for it was put there for us to notice and appreciate.
As we await winter, we note that a massive storm damages Europe and incredible winds topple trees by the uncountable, and we begin to calculate traffic accidents as a measuring rod. We again witness swarms of ancient locusts plaguing Egypt as they spread across the Mediterranean. The hungry remnants of biblical times come unexpectedly and ravage crops of the desert. Ah ,Madam Mother Nature, what a show she is. I read of a pod of dolphins who saved a New Zealand lifeguard and three young swimmers from a ten-foot shark. Dolphins reputed to be the souls of seamen are as or more intelligent than humans, ducking tuna fishermen's nets, and arresting our affection by their beauty and cleverness. I have often watched pods "sail" by, off the shore of San Diego's Pacific
Ocean, as they frolic and swim towards some mysterious destination.
Last Saturday, my friend David and I sat in the downpour in LA as we watched a football game. This time I'll watch the game on TV as it threatens to rain again. Yet the rain we do get is desert-sparse. We'll probably end the year around the 30-year average of under eleven inches, and complain when we get caught in the traffic as our silly driving amplifies that sparse amount's effect. We can do nothing about the weather, thank God, but our complaints are registered in God's little book that records our attitudes and actions. "Do they want grass to grow and trees to be nourished and crops to feed their stomachs, or just go to a grocer's shelves to find all that they ignore until hunger reminds them to pick up a fork?" God is mystified by what He has created, which entertains and dejects Him, I think.
In the meantime, do not ignore what silently nourishes our senses and our stomachs. And share this Sabbath with those you love so that each nurtures the other.
"I will not be as those who spend the day complaining of headache and spend the night drinking the wine that gives it." (Goethe)
sandy
