Sermon from Sunday, September 29, 2013

“In all this darkness -- some light”

 

That was the headline of a story in The Hamilton Spectator this week about the birth of Dominic Steve Mesic to Sharon Dorr, the partner and fiancée to Steve Mesic who was shot to death June 7 in an encounter with Hamilton Wentworth police.  Steve’s death is still being investigated and the 3 ½ months since have been a dark nightmare for Sharon and all of her and Steve’s family.  But with the birth of little Dominic -- the child she and Steve conceived, some sense of thanksgiving for life has re-appeared in the family’s story.

 

In all this darkness -- some light.

 

Isn’t that what we all hope for, and live for?

 

The world looks dark at times -- I don’t need to tell you all the ways.  We read the paper either in print or on-line, watch or listen to the news, see the changes right around us, share in the anxiety and anger of our time.

 

Our lives feel dark or shadowed at times -- we talk about it a lot, and I’m sure we don’t tell one another the half of it.  And you don’t need to be a senior, or have gone through mid-life crisis, or be unemployed, or poor, or a young adult trying to make a start to be able to feel it.  Teenagers and young children with all kinds of opportunity and possibility ahead of them can -- and do, also feel angst and depression and darkness.

 

So what’s the plan in a world and a life like this?

 

Some people are tempted to stop.  There have been times in the midst of war, or in the wake of war, when people have simply stopped making babies.  They haven’t felt good or hopeful enough about life to want to bring new little ones into the world as it is.  Some also felt this way when we first became aware a generation ago of how polluted and threatened the life of Earth has become.  How many people said things like, “The world is such a mess; it might not have a future; how can anyone choose to bring a child into this mess?”

 

Some are tempted to run and hide.  The world out there is bad, but we want to keep going, so we create safe spaces for ourselves to be, and we spend our time and money maintaining and insulating our havens.  I think of rec rooms that replaced the street as places for children to play, of tax shelters that replace contributing to the common good, of private schools that take the place of working for a good public curriculum, of gated communities that supposedly protect from the world by keeping evil and anxiety out.

 

I wonder what options tempted Jeremiah and the more astute people of his day?  Jeremiah sees very clearly that their kingdom lives under a shadow of judgement it cannot escape.  And it’s not just a few who will suffer -- not just a few bad apples that can be removed to make things better.  All the kingdom, from top to bottom, is going to fall.  All people, from rich to poor, will suffer dislocation.  And even the land itself -- Earth and the good order that God ordained and spoke into being from the beginning, will be shaken and will fall into disarray.  The corruption is that profound; the decay is that deep.

 

In the midst of this Jeremiah and other people of vision are tempted.  As we read through the book of Jeremiah’s prophecies, there are times he wants to be able to stop seeing and speaking, stop caring, stop being part of the kingdom’s ongoing life.  There are times he wants to retreat and find a little place of his own to be, away from the turmoil and the inconvenient truths of his time, shut away and insulated from the dark and shadowed journey that the kingdom is on.

 

But in the midst of darkness -- some light.

 

Jeremiah does not stop -- is not allowed by God to stop -- because in the midst of all the bad news about the end of what has been, he is also made to see a glimmer of light -- an embryo of hope, that as we read through the rest of the book becomes a spark of new direction, then light just enough to see a next good step, and finally light enough to lead the whole nation towards the hope of a new day beyond the end of the old one -- the light and the hope that in time becomes incarnate in Jesus as he is presented in the Gospels.

 

That little seed -- the embryo of hope, is buried in the reading this morning.  It’s just a little half-verse embedded in the litany of woe.  All we know, Jeremiah says, is coming to an end.  The end is near, and it’s God’s work and will; it’s the only thing we can really expect because of how we have been.  But … and here it is … he says, but “I will not make a full end.”  In verse 27:  “For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.”

 

That’s the seed of hope Jeremiah is given and that he gives to the people -- the seed that’s enough to encourage them to still want to share in God’s good work of bringing new life into their land -- to still work with God in creating hope -- to still share with God in bringing God’s good will for the life of the world into their time -- to walk the shadowed path their kingdom must walk with their eyes set ahead on a new day and new way of being beyond the present darkness.

 

Our baptismal liturgy begins with two lines drawn from A Song of Faith -- the most recent statement of the faith of our church, adopted in 2006: 

Before conscious thought or action on our part     

we are born into the brokenness of this world.

Before conscious thought or action on our part

we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love. 

These are two realities of our life that we remember and celebrate in baptism.  On one hand we are born into the brokenness of the world, meaning not only that we suffer from its sin and its mistakes, but we also share in its sinfulness and mistakenness in the ways we live, the choices we make, the kinds of lives we create for ourselves and for others.  On the other hand, though, in spite of our own and the world’s brokenness, we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love, meaning that as with the people of Israel, as with poor and broken people anytime and everywhere, as with all creation, God does not abandon us, does not give up, but always and continually holds us in an embrace of love -- forgiving our sin, blessing us with good things, and always breathing-breathing-and-breathing-still a good and holy spirit in us for healing and wholeness.

 

This is true for each one of us.  It’s true for all people we know.  It’s true even and especially today for little Sawyer Levi Trebovac, which is why, as the statement of faith says, we have “received him into the covenanted community of the church,” celebrated “the nurturing, sustaining, and transforming power of God’s love” in his life, and committed ourselves to helping him grow into the knowledge of that power of good for himself. 

 

And how do we do that -- for him, for any of the children in our church or in the community, for ourselves even?

 

That’s the million dollar question.  And we don’t always have answers, do we?  I know I didn’t always as a parent.  The jury’s still out on whether I do as a grand-parent.  Or as a husband.  Or as a minister.  Or as a citizen of a community.

 

And maybe you’ve felt the same.  How do I help my children or grand-children see the light of God and truly good life in our time?  How do I learn to see it and live in it myself?  How do we as a church do right for the children who are here?  How do we reach out and help enlighten the lives of other children and families and households in the community?

 

In all the darkness -- what light?

 

Light and hope are given -- a seed, an embryo, a little new life that comes into our midst as  gift and miracle.  And as we tend to it and care for it, bend it slowly and lovingly toward the light of God’s love, and find ways to shine the light of God’s love upon it, it shall grow -- and so shall we -- grow up and grow strong towards the new world, the new kingdom, the new and renewed Earth that God desires and never stops working for.

 

So as a congregation -- and as parents and god-parents, we commit ourselves to nurturing the holy spirit within Sawyer, knowing this also means caring for and nurturing the holy spirit in ourselves as well, that we y be faithful together to the hope and light we are given.

 

Because, as we say,  

We are not alone, we live in God’s world. 

We believe in God:

                                who has created and is still creating,

                                who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,

                                                to reconcile and make new,

who works in us and others by the Spirit.

We trust in God. 

We are called to be the Church …

Thanks be to God.

Towards Sunday, September 29, 2013

Season:       Creation
Scripture:    Jeremiah 4:1-2, 14, 18, 19-28
Sermon:      Stand Up For Me (Loving the children)

I have reprinted the Jeremiah reading below, so you can read it easily.  It’s so deeply and tragically moving.

 

Jeremiah speaks as he does because the inequities and corruption of the kingdom have become too much for the people and for God to bear any longer.  The kingdom will soon be overthrown with no hope of saving it -- for now.  The crisis is so complete that in verses 19-28 Jeremiah describes the coming destruction as the reversal and undoing of creation itself, and the return to chaos of all that God put into good order in Genesis 1. 

 

Can we read this as a lament for our day, for the whole international order and for all Earth?

 

A century ago William Butler Yeats wrote “The Second Coming,” which begins with this vision of chaos engulfing the world: 

                Turning and turning in the widening gyre

                The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

                Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

                Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

                The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

                The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

                The best lack all conviction, while the worst

                Are full of passionate intensity?

An awful vision … sounds like the nightly news … and by the end of the poem Yeats’ only hope is the dreadful anticipation of a great and terrible figure of judgement rising up finally to bring an end. 

 

But Jeremiah says more, as do the other biblical prophets.  He says, for instance, that the God of all Earth will not allow “a full end” to be made.  And through the rest of his book he offers other hard-won and honest visions and words of true hope.

 

Where is hope today?  And how are we part of it?

 

On Sunday in our worship, we’re baptizing a six-month-old child, second son born to one of our families.  It's always such a wonderful celebration, and this week will be just as joyous.

 

So what do you think?  In the midst of all the world is and all it suffers, is this and are we part of holy hope?   Hope you can be there, to be part of it.

 

Jeremiah 4.1-2, 14, 18, 19-28 

4If you return, O Israel, says the Lord,

if you return to me,

if you remove your abominations from my presence,

and do not waver,

²and if you swear, “As the Lord lives!”

in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,

then nations shall be blessed by him,

and by him they shall boast.

¹⁴O Jerusalem, wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved.  How long

shall your evil schemes lodge within you? … ¹⁵¹⁸Your ways and your doings have brought this

upon you.  This is your doom; how bitter it is!  It has reached your very heart.

 

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish!  I writhe in pain!  Oh, the walls of my heart!  My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent; for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.  Disaster overtakes disaster, the whole land is laid waste.  Suddenly my tents are destroyed, my curtains in a moment. ²¹How long must I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?  ²²“For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.”

²³I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.  ²⁴I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.  ²⁵I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.  ²⁶I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.  ²⁷For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.  ²⁸Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black; for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.

Sermon from Sunday, September 22, 2013

Season:                Creation, Sunday 3 (Sept 22, 2013)

Scripture:           Genesis 13:-18; Matthew 5:5

Sermon:              Walk Lightly on Me (Gratitude or Entitlement)

 

I think my dad was grateful.  I think gratitude was one of the fundamental attitudes of his soul that helped shape his behaviour in the world.

 

He worked hard for everything he had in life -- a home and family, a place in the community and, at the end, a place in the church.  He earned and deserved to enjoy whatever good he had in life.  He would say you need to work for what you want.

 

But he knew also that no matter how hard you work and what you build up, everything can be lost in a second.  His first experience of life was his family’s panicked and frantic flight for life.  When he was only a few months old his family -- German farm-workers in Russia, found themselves without warning having to leave all they had and flee in the night to escape the murderous, anti-alien zeal of the Revolutionary forces.

 

For ten years they made a go of it in Germany but in 1929 felt they had to do it again -- leave behind all they had started to build up, to come to Canada and new opportunity here.  Soon after they arrived, opportunity became scarce and as the newest, non-English immigrants they were often the first to suffer deprivation wherever they were. 

 

Fifteen or twenty years later, married and on the way to being established, working at what turned out to be his life-long job, because of a moment’s mental lapse my father suffered a workplace accident that could have ended his working days.  It’s surprising it didn’t.  He knew how close he came to once again losing it all.

 

I think all these experiences made my father grateful for everything he had, including the opportunity and good fortune to be able to work for what he enjoyed.  He knew he was luckier than many.  He knew that what he worked hard for, was also undeserved gift from a power greater than himself.

 

I think about this because I grew up with more of a sense of entitlement.  Because my father and mother worked hard to provide whatever I and my sisters really needed, I think I grew up assuming that whatever I need will always somehow appear, that I will always be blessed, and that when I see something I want, as long as it’s in reach I should take it.

 

This might be called faith -- faith in God and God’s good will for my life, faith in the ultimate goodness of the world and of life.  And I’ve no doubt there’s truth to that.

 

But it is also a spirit of entitlement -- and maybe entitlement is just one of the shadow sides of faith -- the belief that I deserve not to go without, that what comes to me as gift is meant to mine, that because I am me and God loves me and I am worthy or good or needy or faithful or something enough, I can count on God giving me what I want and need -- that all the promises are for me -- and if others try to take it from me, or they don’t get what they want themselves, there must be something wrong with them.  

 

The spirit of entitlement is probably one of the seven deadly sins or evil spirits of modern society.  And like any deadly sin, it’s hard not to slip into it when we live a privileged life.  We imagine all the promises of God and all the blessings of Earth are just for us.  It’s hard not to nurture this spirit in the hearts of those we provide for so well.  It takes vigilance and courage to live free of it.

 

In the story this morning, Lot is a man moved by the spirit of entitlement.  

 

He’s nephew to Abram and he’s travelled with Abram all the way from Haran on the quest for the promised land.  Lot hasn’t had the conversations with Yahweh that Abram has, but he’s heard of the promise of a land and of descendants as numerous as the grains of sand at the seashore, and of being chosen to be a blessing for all the world.  Lot feels pretty special to be part of this and he knows his lot in life is good; it’s ordained by God to be so.

 

So when he and his uncle come back from Abram’s misadventure in Egypt to the valley of Bethel and Ai, he is more than happy to spread out and make himself at home.  This surely must be the promise of God coming true, the blessing of God on him and through him for all the earth.  It’s his destiny and he is more than happy to claim it and start living it out.

 

And when strife develops -- when it comes to be that he and Abram are so blessed that their herds and flocks and shepherds start getting in each other’s way and fighting for space and for the resources that are there, Lot is more than happy -- given the chance, to choose for himself the better part of the valley -- the larger and greener portion, the more fertile and richer section, the part that already is so rich and developed that it even boasts a few cities -- the enticing and interesting cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  It seems a good choice, and Lot is more than happy to imagine that the free choice Abram gives him is a sign that now is his time, he is meant to be on the rise, and dominance and privilege are his birthright -- are God’s promise and good will for him.  He is a man seemingly full of faith in God’s good will towards him -- or at least full of faith’s shadow-side.

 

Abram, on the other hand, maybe knows what faith really is.  He knows there is no good reason God chose him for the journey he is on.  He knows the promise and the blessing are gifts, not rewards.  He also knows most recently from his little misadventure in Egypt that he is and always will be unworthy, prone to making mistakes, taking wrong turns, having to confess and change his ways, and be rescued from himself.  He may wonder why on earth he’s still part of God’s great adventure of creating a people. 

 

So when there’s a choice to be made between grasping or letting go, trusting himself to be in charge or trusting God, he lets go and lets God.  He gives Lot the choice, and accepts what Lot chooses.  He’s like a minority voice at a meeting who when the vote is counted and the meeting is over, accepts and adopts the majority view as the way to go and to support.  Even though he has come to know himself as God’s special and chosen one, what this means is that it’s God and not him who is in charge.

 

I wonder what it would be like if in every situation of strife those who count themselves as God’s servants, took this approach?  When white Europeans brought Christianity and Western culture to North America, was it Abram’s or Lot’s version of the covenant with God that we brought with us and acted out and institutionalized in our history?  When second-and-third-and-even-more-generation Canadians look at a newly multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious Canada, do we see it with the eyes and heart of Abram, open to what shall be, or with the eyes and heart of Lot, assuming we are meant to be in charge and dominant?  When we look at the strife that we are increasingly aware of now between us and other species -- between humanity and plants and animals -- and even clean water and air, all wanting their right-to-be in increasingly tight and limited space, in the way we work it out do we prove ourselves to be children of Abram or children of Lot?

 

We know how the story ends, of course.  Even as Lot is making his choice to be master of the domain and to be in control of the better part just because he’s entitled to be, we see the shadows that start to fall across his way.  It’s the shadow of Sodom and Gomorrah which seem to be places of promise, but which we know already are doomed by their sin.  It’s a future Lot doesn’t see yet, but it’s the one he is choosing.  It’s the destiny and birthright of all who live by a spirit of entitlement.

 

And Abram?  As he goes off to his lesser portion and his more humble place, God consoles him -- repeating the promise of a land God will give him, of the numberless descendants God will cause to flow from him, and of the blessing God will make him to be for all the earth.  God tells him nothing really is changed -- all is still gift and because Abram knows this and lives this out in such a radically non-possessive, non-demanding, non-controlling -- in other words humble and yielding way, Abram remains the beloved servant of God that God calls him to be.

 

I wonder what it might mean today for us to let go of entitlement, and to live happily in the same kind of grateful trust and real faith in God whose good will for all life is greater than just us and our own needs?

Towards Sunday, September 22, 2013

Season:        Of Creation
Scripture:    Genesis 13:1-18
Sermon:       Walk lightly on me (or, who will inherit the earth?)

Abraham is the father of Jews, Christians and Muslims; we look to him for some sense of our spiritual DNA.

Abraham has begun to live towards the promise of a land God will give, and of a people who will come from him to bless the Earth.  By the time of this story he has made a few mistakes along the way, and learned from them.  I like the way he is said in v. 3 to journey with God "by stages" (as we all do) and that after a misbegotten trip into Egypt, he returns "to the place where his tent had been at the beginning," where he remembered earlier making a covenant with God (as we all must).

Lot is his nephew, a generation younger and still needing to learn from, and be humbled by his own mistakes.

In this story, Abraham and Lot realize that together they and their households are too many for the land to support, and increasingly they are in each other's way.  So how will they co-habit the land they are about to move into?

Does it sound like today?  Too many and too much for the land to support?  Different households, tribes, and races getting in each other's way and fighting each other for what they need, and what they have reason to believe is given to them by God?  An economy that threatens to undo the well-being of the land, and that is pitted against the well-being of plants and animals that also claim it as their necessary home.

Our spiritual father says, "Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herders and my herders, for we are kindred?" 

But what does this mean?  How far does "kindred" identity extend in our day?  And how do we live out a no-strife policy with those we see as kindred in the world God has given?  

Are we a lot like Lot, still needing to learn from our mistakes?  Dare we hope that over the long haul, Abraham's spiritual DNA shows through?

Sermon from Sunday, September 15, 2013

Season of Creation
Scripture:  Psalm 19
Sermon:     Lifting the Veil (or maybe, Cleaning My Ears)

The heavens are telling the glory of God,

and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork. 

I had a phone message Friday morning from a fellow minister in Dundas.  He and I have been working together on and off for the past 4 or 5 years to try to sort out a particular problem for Presbytery, and he phoned to tell me of the latest piece of work that was submitted, and the hope that we are just about done.  And then he added, “And I trust you saw the rainbow over Dundas this morning -- a wonderful complete arc from the escarpment on one end, to the other edge of the city on the other.”

 

I didn’t.  I got his message a half-hour after he left it.  During the time of the rainbow I had been either sleeping or closed into my study working on something or other.  And I imagine my day and my awareness of the grace of God through the day were all the poorer for not having seen the rainbow that had been there. 

Day to day pours forth speech;

and night to night declares knowledge. 

There have been a lot of unusually severe storms this summer, and Pete Rainford captured a photograph of the clouds gathering and churning in the sky before one of them.  It’s an awesome image of the power of the elements, and with his permission that image was used on the screen in our summer worship to help us imagine the power and might of the Creator.  It was the image to which we sang the opening words of “All Things Bright and Beautiful” -- all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, in love God made them all.”  

 

Because … when we call to mind the opening verses of the creation story, the first verses of the Bible -- “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the waters” -- what else can we think of but immense darkly churning storm clouds?  And I’m sure my life, as well as my faith are richer for having seen storms, for having seen lightning flash and heard thunder crash and rumble. 

There is no speech, nor are there words;

their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world. 

And as the psalm goes on, what it calls to our attention and celebrates are two ways we come to know God and grow in our knowledge of God.  One way is through Creation -- the life of the heavens and of Earth, and our paying attention to it; the other is the law -- the commands and decrees that come to us through our religious tradition, and our learning from them. 

The point of both is to live well on Earth and in right relation to it.  That’s the point of any honest attention to Earth and its systems of life.  I think we used to think the point of science was to allow us to control and manipulate the earth to our convenience, but I think we’re getting over that now.  

That’s also the point of God’s law and our obedience to it.  I think we used to think God’s law was something we needed to fulfill to make it into heaven.  But more and more we’re coming to see that the purpose of the law is to help us create good and just community on Earth and to live in right relation with other people and other creatures around us. 

And with two ways of being steered in this direction -- two ways of coming to know God’s ways and of growing our knowledge of God’s good will, it’s as though we have something for each of our ears to listen, as we try to shape our one heart and life.  With one ear, we listen to what the heavens and Earth tell us, day to day and night to night.  With the other ear, we listen to what the law of God tells us, from ages past and in a variety of religious traditions.  And as we put the two together in our one, single heart, we’re led to live one single good life all together as it’s meant to be lived. 

I have a brother-in-law on Japhia’s side who has spent all his life within the Christian church in one form or another, in ministry of one kind or another.  He has spent years in study, immersing himself in ancient and traditional religious wisdom.  He has gathered and engaged in intentional community, teaching and learning with others what it means to live in right relation and to help create justice and peace.  He has been in dialogue with people of other traditions -- Jewish, Muslim, aboriginal.  He leads retreats and writes books for the benefit of leading others into journeys of their own.   

And it seems to me his deepest spiritual practice right now, and the way he most consistently and intimately connects with the Divine Presence in the world is by walking.  When he is at home he spends hours walking the glens of central Scotland.  When he is away, he walks wherever he happens to be, whether it’s the desert or Dundas.  He makes intentional pilgrimages through the mountains of Spain and takes others with him.  And in this way -- already well-versed in Scripture and theology and a variety of spiritual traditions, he opens himself -- maybe opens his other ear, to the life and good will and life-rhythms of God to be learned in creation.

 

I have another brother-in-law on my side.  He’s a little closer to home for me.  He grew up in rural Manitoba and in a United Church.  He and my sister now live in Burlington, where they attended a nearby United Church while their son was growing up.  Now that he’s away from home, they’ve also drifted a bit from that church -- but not from spirituality and from growing in their knowledge of God and of how to live in right relation on Earth.   

Both, for example, maintain good relationships with a variety of people from different times in their live.  They practice a moderate level of charitable work in the community.  And Jim, more specifically, has spent some time in the practice of Tai Chi, to come to know the rhythms and the movement of his own body.  He also is learning to turn wood in his basement workshop.  He’s learned to identify different kinds of wood and its characteristics, to attend to the twists and turns of different grains and to weak spots and strong spots.  He’s learning, in a sense, to listen to the wood’s personality, and to work with it to make something good and beautiful of it -- and in the process, of himself as well.  And I cannot but think that in all of this he knows something deep of God and of whole and holy living. 

And me?  The one between them?  The one who’s an ordained minister of a congregation, engaged every week in the religious work of a church? 

I tend to listen a lot with one ear to the law of God -- to what comes to us from our own and other religious traditions.  But I’m not so good in the other ear.  It’s a little bit blocked, I think.  I live a little more disconnected from Earth and its systems and rhythms of life.  I walk the dog every morning, come rain or come shine.  I putz around in our herb garden every now and then.  But beyond that …? 

I do remember, though, a few summers ago … the first two weeks of my vacation, when I was feeling especially tired, frustrated and disillusioned about myself.  Japhia was still at work at the seniors program, so she was away from morning to late afternoon.  And the routine I adopted for those first two weeks of my vacation was somewhat Benedictine in its balance and order. 

After seeing Japhia off to work, I spent the morning doing some manual labour -- each day picking some job in the yard or house that took a few hours to finish.  Near noon I stopped for lunch.  After lunch and cleaning up, I spent the afternoon sitting outside on the back deck -- reading, thinking, writing, looking at the escarpment behind our house, enjoying the sun crossing the sky overhead, feeling whatever breeze there might be that day, listening to the children playing in the park just across the street from us.  Then Japhia would come home from work, we’d make and have supper, and have a nice evening together. 

Those two weeks were one of the most restorative times I have known, and the balance of manual labour and spiritual reflection, both practiced in openness to Earth and its systems of life, was one of the deepest spiritual practices I have found.  I emerged from those two weeks healed and made whole, with a clarity of spirit and life renewed within me. 

Psalm 19 ends with this prayer: 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. 

It’s a prayer for singleness of purpose in our heart and for God’s one wisdom to be lived out in all that we say and do, no matter where we are.  And when we learn to listen with both ears to all that we can about life as God has created it to be -- one ear listening closely to the rhythms and life systems of the heavens and of Earth, and the other listening carefully to the teachings and truths of our religious traditions, we stand a far better chance of that prayer for right living to be answered for us and in us.