Jeremiah 17:7: “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.”
I remember the realization in the first years of grieving the loss of my cousin, that perhaps faith is not longing for God, but that God is longing itself. God shifted from the object of a prepositional phrase to a verb.
This shift for me didn’t ameliorate my grief but made each part of the journey — even the lowest lows — more sacred. Whether God felt present or absent to me, my longing for God was sacred and faithful.
I hear this immediacy in Jeremiah, and in the Gospel for this Sunday. Luke’s Beatitudes bring us squarely to the present moment. Blessedness is not a reward for hunger or sorrow or poverty. Blessedness is those things, now, even as God promises healing and fullness for the future. Blessedness is in the hunger, the longing, the waiting.
Where is the longing in you now? What step of your faith journey is before you today? May the Love of God that is the beginning and end of all things surround you now, tomorrow, and each day to come.
Peace,
Liesl
Three Holy Days
In our tradition, we make space on Maundy Thursday to remember central parts of our faith story. We hear about the...
