The stories of Elijah

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

The stories of Elijah

A Holy Heart

There is a hole in God’s heart

that only I can fill

perfectly and completely fill

only by me

only with me

as I am

nothing added

nothing missing

just me

completing the hole in God’s heart

So I walk forward and step inside

drawn like a magnet

until our boundaries melt away

there is fusion

and closure

and beating of the one heart

In the dark completeness of God

we complete each other

hugging souls

and ecstasy

in the dark there is ecstasy

Clarence Heller can get carried away when he talks about God’s love. Hugging souls and ecstasy in the dark there is ecstasy … that kind of darkness invites me into its womb, settling me inside its warm boundaries so I curl up, curl up and smile.

The stories of Elijah are desert stories, where warmth is more like stifling, murderous heat. Invitations in the desert are generally desperate ones; often both host and guest are in nearly dire need, often near death.  In this first story that is exactly the situation. But Elijah promised the widow (not a Hebrew widow, by the way, as Jesus pointed out centuries later) food for the future if she gave him what she had today.

First make a little cake and bring it to me. Then you can prepare something for yourself and your son. For the Lord says the jar of flour shall not go empty, nor the jug of oil run dry, until the day when the Lord sends rain upon the earth. She left and did as Elijah had said.

Elijah was not a flim-flam man, who disappeared as soon as his stomach was filled.

She was able to eat for a year, and Elijah and her son as well; the jar of flour did not go empty, or the jug of oil run dry. Lord, let your face shine on us.

The Sandel children met with our farm advisor Van yesterday in Lincoln. We sat around the kitchen table, where Mom and Dad sat with Chris while he stayed with them and attended Lincoln Christian College, where Dad and I sat for a quick lunch before his twenty minute nap and then heading back to work in the summer heat, where Mom and I occasionally smoked secret cigarettes and talked about politics, where years later Mom fixed Dad and her a meal, which they ate quietly, not long before Dad died.

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed.

I came home from my first weeks with Creative Community Project in Berkeley, overflowing with happiness and hungry (first time in years) for the Bible. We sat around the circular table in the corner, windows all around us, ate potatoes and roasted meat from our freezer and read the book of John. We were all surprised, all amazed, all happy then.

Yesterday, six plus months after Mom passed away, we settled on who gets what. Looks like John and his family will take over the house, with the machine shed and farm equipment, the barn, the garage … we have farmland too, and we agreed on how to divide it up. Our conversation was reasonable and friendly. We love each other. Our parents helped set that foundation with their love for us, and of course God is watching over all of it, giving us the love we need to build each other up.

A city on a mountain cannot be hid. A lamp is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

This week Mary Kay is hosting two book buyers who have stores in Springfield. She warned us, “They may not take as much as we want, or pay us as much as we want.” That’s OK. I said to Mary Kay, “I’m so glad none of us are penny pinching, or greedy.” She looked at me, sighed with pleasure. “Yes!” she said.

She has combed Mom’s house for several months, looking for whatever there was to be found. She is honoring the habit Mom had, of valuing old books and letters, plates and silver spoons, cups and saucers that might by now be far more than a hundred years old. She’s sad that time might be coming to an end. She spends as much time as she can in Lincoln, working, sorting, and remembering. Loving her mom, as our mom loved us.

(1 Kings 17, Psalm 4, Matthew 5)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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