Today's reflection is by Kari Jo Verhulst
Lutheran Chaplain at MIT and Pastor at University Lutheran Church
Did the grownups who raised you ever tell you that it isn’t what you say, it’s how you say it? Mine sure did, especially when I’d been especially whiny or rude, and would protest their protestations with “but I only said…!”
This attention to tone holds also for how we hear God’s voice. Do you imagine the psalmist wagging a finger and scolding “God knows how you were made”—like Santa seeing us when we’re sleeping? Or can you hear this as full of wonder and delight that the God of all knows and loves you in your fragile, dusty vulnerability? So, too, can you receive the Ash Wednesday instruction to “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” as a gentle but firm reminder to return yourself to your rightful place in the universe? That is, as one broken and sinful, beloved and delightful, child of God among all others, who deserves bread, love, and communion no more, and no less, than anyone else.
Try noticing this season of Lent what tone of voice you hear when you read or hear God’s Word.
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