The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
REPENTANCE
Children who are picked on by their big brothers or sisters can be remarkably adept when it comes to writing cursing psalms, and I believe that the writing process offers them a safe haven in which to work through their desires for vengeance in a healthy way. Once a little boy wrote a poem called "The Monster Who Was Sorry." He began by admitting that he hates it when his father yells at him; his response in the poem is to throw his sister down the stairs, and then to wreck his room, and finally to wreck his whole town. The poem concludes: "Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, 'I shouldn't have done all that." "My messy house" says it all: with more honesty than most adults could have mustered, the boy made a metaphor for himself that admitted the depth of his rage and also gave him a way out. If that boy had been a novice in the 14th century monastic desert, his elders might have told him that he was well on the way to repentance, not such a monster after all, but only human.
What a powerful story! Too often we do not let ourselves have the time and spend the energy voicing our pain and disappointment in ways that are quite appropriate. The words of the psalms give us that example. It is human to be disappointed...to want to fight back and inflict pain on others...to strike out, yell, and say "the hell with it all." It is also human and within the realm of God's people to say, "I shouldn't have done all that." A strong family or household allows people to run off and bark without the fear of being "cut off." When we mess the house...the house...the home...is still there for us. Yes, it often will take a good cleaning...a renewal of the space and our way of being in it...but it will be there. Coming home...even after raising a storm and a little "hell" is always a possibility...always.
Connection: Repentance is not a odd religious word that demands a list of things to do. It may well be the gift of insight that taps us on the shoulder so that we can be a part of the repair work that is needed in all of our lives. Broken people can have some wonderful insights about being broken and living within the rebuilding and restructuring of our lives.
O Lord you call us back into your gracious reign each of the days of our lives. Yes we wander and rebel and cannot and will not sit by and take in all the ugliness within our world, but you let us yell and scream and act out...and come home....again & again & again. Praise be to you. Amen
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