Word for Today

From Psalm 27:

⁸My heart speaks your message— "Seek my face."

Your face, O LORD,  I will seek.

From Genesis 15:

 ⁵ God brought Abram outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."  

Wouldn't you love to get lost in this star scape, lying on your back in the middle of a mountain meadow on a moonless summer night?

I wonder what the star scape was like when Abram looked at it. God was giving a promise to a childless man (childless from one perspective!). The promise was that Abram would be the father of many. Children are divine blessings. I don't suppose God and Abram lied down on their backs in order to gaze at the stars that night, but the mental picture is nice!

I hope this image stirs your heart a little. The psalm above mentions something about a message that the human heart knows. As if a dialog is happening between the heart and the mind:

Heart: "Seek the face of God."

Mind: "Yes! I will."

I pray for that kind of harmony between my heart and mind. I also pray for the driving passion that comes from the heart, which is created to seek God. I pray for you and me to seek God's face. Together.

Read about this picture here

Pastor James Aalgaard

www.wanderingnorwegian.blogspot.com

St. Paul Lutheran Church

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Word for Today

From Psalm 91:

¹You who dwell in the shelter of ^| the Most High,

who abide in the shadow of ^| the Almighty—

²you will say to the LORD, "My refuge ^| and my stronghold,

my God in whom I ^| put my trust."

This is a monastery called Metéora in Greece. It's an Orthodox monastery that was begun in the 11th century, shortly before the invention of cargo helicopters. Someday it would be a blast to visit this place. I would hope for a smog-free day.

Take another quick look at the Bible verse above. Do you think the psalmist was thinking of a place like this? To be suspended above the rest of the world and her problems seems nice. Maybe it would actually work to disengage like that.. for a time. Then thoughts and worries would span the crevasses that we created, and we would find ourselves right back in the midst of the world that still wants and needs us.

Where do we go to find God? Do we go to a high elevation? How about an exotic (read 'warm') place?

I take my cue this morning from the little phrase "shadow of the Almighty." Wherever there is a shadow, there is the Almighty watching over. Can you find a shadow near you? If so, then claim right now the protection of the Almighty.

The season of Lent is about drawing shapes around shadows, studying them, feeling their chill. But remember this, shadows can only exist with the Son nearby.

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church

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Word for Today

From Exodus 34:29

"As (Moses) came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God."

From Luke 9:29

"while (Jesus) was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white."

Lene Vestergaard Hau, a Danish-born physicist, has developed a method for slowing down light. (Thank you Radiolab for a wonderful radio program). She uses sodium as her medium, cooling the substance so that when it's a supercold atomic gas, light itself will slow to 17 meters per second. That's quite an accomplishment when you recognize that light's natural speed is 186,000 miles per second! Light can take on wave-like properties and particle-like properties. There is so much to discover in light. It bears information. It's movement is efficient. It brightens our darkness.

This Sunday is the Sunday of the Transfiguration. Jesus goes to a mountaintop to pray, and his appearance changes. He captures light. He harnesses the light of the world. He glows with hope and possibility. If I were with him on that day, I would have joined Peter who said, "Let's hang out here for a while. I will start setting up the tents."

But this moment in time, or out of time, can be a light that brightens the darkest moments of our lives. From the mountaintop, Jesus goes down then up to Jerusalem, where he becomes enveloped by darkness, thus becoming the Light of the World. This is THE hidden will of God and our source of life.

Makoto Tojiki loves to use light in his art. Instead of commenting on it, I think I will just let you gaze and wonder yourself!

Blessings!

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church

/W/orshipping/I/nviting/S/tudying/E/ncouraging/G/iving/P/raying/S/erving

Word for Today

From First Corinthians 13

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

Have you gone through the experience of having cataracts? I haven't and I am thankful for that, but I know many people who have. Before the procedure they have a steady decline in their ability to see detail. The world gets cloudy, fuzzy even. After the procedure to remove the cataracts, people act like they have a newfound freedom. A new lease on life. The ability to capture with your eye what you had been missing all along, that must be a sensational spiritual feeling!

Do you have spiritual cataracts? Do you miss the detail of God's work in the world around you? Are the loving acts of people toward you clouded with bitterness, or regret, or guilt? As you've graduated through the grade levels of the "hard knock" school of life, has your ability to see the way God sees gotten steadily more vague? It's understandable.

Love. That's the concept, the spiritual practice, that comes right before the cataract problem in this passage. Paul says with hope, "we will see (Christ) face to face." Love is what binds a community together. Love hardly ever feels equal (we so often feel that we are loved MORE than we love). Love is the way of Christ, a gift given through cloudiness from me to you and you to you to you. Do you ever love not knowing how it will turn out in the end? Good! One day, you will see your Lord face to face. Who could think of a better promise than that?

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church
541.889.9349

/W/orshipping/I/nviting/S/tudying/E/ncouraging/G/iving/P/raying/S/erving

Word for Today

From Micah 5:

²But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

from ancient days.

and from Luke 1:

 ⁴⁶And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,

Taking pictures of small things is a growing field. There are electron microscopes and x-ray lasers, invented by people with a desire to know and understand. Scientists are fueling their own curiosities by going smaller and smaller. And by reporting to the world, the world itself is becoming more curious! As you see below, patterns emerge that seem less chaotic and more beautiful. More wondrous.

I searched high and low online for photos of small things to include in this Word for Today. I found so many pictures, the problem for me is they were rather disturbing. How long can a person look the pincers of a bed bug? One of the worse was a picture of the hair follicles of a human eyebrow. A close second was the bacteria that reside on the human tongue. Not exactly appetizing. Bleh.

Scripture today talks about greatness coming from a little place. Little places, little things, small voices carry inside them all the "coding" needed to radically change the world. Little town Bethlehem is about to become a household name. For from her comes a Savior, God-With-Us, Emmanuel.

The first picture is a composite photo of proteins by Thomas White.

The next picture is a special one to me. It's Salvador Dali's painting of Christ. The first picture prompted me to think about the second one. 

The message I would like to leave you with today is that there is no place out-of-the-way enough where God's redeeming and loving presence cannot be. There is no space inside you that God's Spirit cannot fit into. In fact, there is a pattern in you that God laid out in creation which longs for one thing above all others, fellowship with God. Through Jesus, you have it.

Pastor James Aalgaard

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Ontario Oregon

Word for Today

From First Corinthians 12:

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.  ¹⁵If the foot would say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  

Dear fellow amputees, here is Kiarra. She's from Portland Oregon. She had a dream of dancing at the Julliard School.  There is a video about her here. It's a very inspirational little report! I think the picture and the video tell the story better than I, but one thing I will mention is this:

Kiarra says that when she choreographs a dance, she imagines herself with fingers and toes, doing intricate movements. Those lost digits are actually part of her dance, regardless of the fact that she possesses them. She imagines herself whole.

In the above passage of scripture, St. Paul is writing to Christians in Corinth. They had done what countless communities of faith do, which is honor one member of the body over the other. Some gifts are more apparent than others. Some people look for more attention than others. Some members hurt more than others. Some have more tragic lives. Some have better luck. It's easy to say to one, "I don't need you. We don't need you." Over time, the members of the body receiving the least honor disappear. The result? An amputee community.

When I think of the faith community, even my own self, I wonder what I've amputated. Maybe it was actual people. Gifts of the Spirit. Expectations.

I think I will take my cue from Kiarra, and imagine myself whole. I will be a dancing amputee, knowing that the promise of the resurrection, of a world made whole through Christ, grows members back to the body.

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church
541.889.9349

/W/orshipping/I/nviting/S/tudying/E/ncouraging/G/iving/P/raying/S/erving

Word for Today

From Isaiah 43:

  ⁴Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

  ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you;

  ⁶I will say to the north, "Give them up,"

and to the south, "Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

and my daughters from the end of the earth — 

From Acts 8:

¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is my hand in Esther's. She is in her 90's, I in my 40's. I thought about this picture when I read about the disciples Peter and John laying their hands on Samaritan Christians, thereby giving them the Holy Spirit.

Hands move in accordance with the intentions of the mind. Your intentions will be sometimes evil, sometimes holy, sometimes related to work, sometimes love.  The intentions of the disciples that day were to give and gather. The giving and gathering happened in a single swipe, touch, of the hand.

What was given? The Holy Spirit; the very same Spirit that coursed through Jesus when he walked Samaritan roads, when he made a paste of mud in the palm of his hand, and when he wrote in the dust. This is not a replica or a symbolic gesture of any kind, it/she/he is the Spirit that belongs to Jesus. This is the Spirit that allowed the hands of Christ to be held down and nailed to a cross-beam. This Spirit was given that day through the disciples to new disciples.

And in the giving, the gathering has just happened. The verse from Isaiah proclaims that God gathers those who belong from the north and south, from all reaches of the earth. To be gathered into Christ isn't to be gathered to a place, but rather to a people. That's you and me!

I think of Esther often. I visited her yesterday and she has slowed down quite a bit. But the Spirit of Christ (whom we share) is still bright and hopeful, helping her long for the next gathering. She spends a lot of time looking out her window.

I hope you experience (and recognize) the touch of the Holy Spirit this week.

James Aalgaard

St. Paul Lutheran Church

Ontario Oregon