Export, Pennsylvania 2022
When I served as chaplain at Marine Recruit Depot, San Diego, one of the challenging duties was visiting the recruits who were injured. The goal was to get through training in thirteen weeks. When injured or sick, the weeks could become months. Waiting for the body to heal while hearing the noise of other recruits making progress toward graduation was miserable. And misery did not like company.
Motivation is the heart of recruit training. It begins externally and eventually becomes internal. Telling cells in the body to try harder doesn’t work. Waiting does not come naturally. Sickness and injury forces one to wait. The separation from the recruits one was just beginning to know was more painful than the injury. Not living up to one’s expectations even worse. That’s where chaplains come in.
Those who were interested could meet for a brief devotion and bible study. Those were holy moments. For a time, training could stop, God could be present, and recruits could be individuals together in prayer and conversation.
One of the this worldly words that I would share with them is that stopping is not quitting. At the time, I did not see the connection between those devotions and Sabbath Rest. I saw suffering, and anger and shame and guilt. I didn’t see it as a time of grace. Yet it is really only when we are broken that God can get a word in edgewise. And it’s an edgy word.
It’s the word from the Cross.
I still get it wrong. Somedays, I hear that word from Jesus as, “You think you have it so bad, look at me hanging here on a cross! How about a little gratitude?”
It’s far better to hear the actual words. “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”
In all times, places, and situations, those words ring true.
I confess that I do not know what I am doing. I do know what God is doing. We have God’s word on that. God is forgiving us for all the wrong things that we are doing and for all the good things that we are not doing.
That forgiveness doesn’t get us off the hook (cross?), but it does free us from the trap of our illusions that we can fix everything without the help of God.
Our salvation is as simple as Stop! Look! Listen!
I’ve learned recently that in Latin, listen and obey are the same word. In Greek, it’s attention! That would have been good to know, back then.
Psalm 95, is recited daily in the religious communities of the Church.
O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! … O that today you would listen to his voice!
That day is today. Stop and listen. God’s got this, and us, too.
Be well, dear readers.
