Monday Manna
Repairing and Restoring...
Thank you so much, my friend, for subscribing to Monday Manna. I’m so glad and humbled you are here. My prayer with this little pause on Monday mornings is to offer some nourishment (“manna”) for you — via my reflection, prayer, and painting — as you are nourishing the world around you. Together, we are watching for the ways God is with us and for us as we take one day at a time…
Good morning, friends, and gentle peace to your hearts as we start the new week…
You may know I live in the Chicagoland area. To say this is a distressing and disastrous time in our city would be a gross understatement, but in many ways, what’s happening here serves as a very graphic example of what has been brewing and building all across our country for some time now.
The current terror and heartache around Chicago brings me to my knees daily, praying for families living in fear and separation, praying for God to be at work in the hearts and lives of the ICE agents, praying for a major intervention in the hearts of leaders. I know of pastors who have gone to protest and pray who themselves have been attacked and pepper-sprayed. My husband was set to join a group of clergy last Friday at the Broadview Center to lead communion before our son got very sick in the night.
There is so much more to say here, but I’m sure you have already seen it, read it, watched it, and know it.
At my husband’s and my wedding — a freezing winter night in December almost seventeen years ago — there was one Scripture text we wanted to have read more than any other during our ceremony. It’s a passage from Isaiah 58, where the prophet Isaiah calls the people to fast from injustice. A reminder that what God wants more than anything is for us to devote our lives to caring for the defenseless. Verses 6-7 say,
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
I have come back to this passage many times throughout the years, oftentimes lamenting what a poor job I’ve done of living it out while simultaneously being renewed in the focus of the call. And yet, as I turned to these words again last week, it was the last verse (12) that especially stood out to me, bringing tears to my eyes…
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
The people to whom these words were written were living in exile. Their own land had been pillaged and destroyed. They’d been taken captive and brought to another place. But here in these words is the promise that someday, the people would rebuild their home. They would repair and restore the foundations upon which their community was built.
I read these words and found myself risking to believe and trust the same for us. That renewal and restoration will come, but that your hands, my hands, filled with the love of Jesus, are the hands that will do this work.
It feels timely, too, that on this Indigenous People’s Day today, we remember the darkness that has been faced before. And as our hero, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us, “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
We are not alone and we will not give up. As Frederick Buechner said, “the worst thing is never the last thing.” And that within the long winter, there will be an invincible summer.
A Prayer
This prayer, “When I Cry for the World,” is a place to lay our heartache and take up our call to be the hands and feet of Christ. From my book, Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life…
When I cry for the world
Merciful Jesus,
I cry for our world.
I cry over broken bodies
and broken homes
and broken hearts.
I cry over violence
and exclusion
and indifference.
I cry most of all over the children!
Through my body and breath,
I pray for your kin-dom…
For all to have
nourishing food and nurturing homes,
edifying work and safe, skilled schools,
compassionate healthcare and dignified wages,
soft beds to fall into at the day’s close…
For the children to be protected,
the elderly honored,
and both hugged every single day…
For reparative justice,
cherished diversity,
and peaceful purity in what’s
breathed, eaten, and drunk.
I cry and I pray,
confessing the many times
I’ve declared what I deserve
rather than asked what I could give.
I cry and I pray,
knowing I’m complicit in the pain
and essential to the healing.
I cry and I pray,
trusting my tears mingle with your own,
hoping this tearful river softens and shapes
the hardest canyons of injustice—
or at least lays the groundwork.
I pray and I act,
moving my body and resources
toward your kin-dom vision,
trusting my skills and gifts
carry forward the new, just world you imagine
and are always bringing.
I remember this work is mine to do.
“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which
he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which
he blesses all the world…”†
O Jesus, have mercy
and help me.
Amen.
Isaiah 58:6–12 * Lamentations 2:19 * Luke 4:18–19
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
[The Spirit] has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free…”
—Luke 4:18
Something that nourished me recently…
*A miracle…I wrote a couple weeks ago about the terrible fall I had on my training run, badly spraining my ankle and straining my achilles. I had to do some deep soul-release work in letting go of the half-marathon I had planned to run and was in a boot. But through the care of some amazing practitioners and very swift healing, the Spirit gave it back to me. I got to run the half two days, with my daughter meeting me at the finish line. My husband ran too!
*Our family was so grateful for the opportunity to experience the YMCA of the Rockies for the first time a week ago, and amazingly, my ankle had healed enough to hike and take part. The health practitioner I saw later in the week said that he thinks all the gentle movement of the hiking may have helped mobilize and make the ankle heal faster? The mountains and time in nature with my kids nourished me deeply. Highly recommend YMCA, and if you are a person in ministry, a teacher, or in the military, check out their amazing discounts for families!!
*Timely…I have been thinking so much of the Albert Camus quote, and have that painting hanging in our living room. And then last week, saw Anne Lamott post the entire quote on her Substack. It was so good to read the whole thing again.
Ash and Starlight, plus other good things…
*MY ETSY SHOP ~ I know I keep saying this, but originals WILL be coming. :) Some prints and cards (including the Albert Camus quote) are currently available. A portion of every sale here goes to World Central Kitchen which provides food relief, especially to Gaza right now. You can view the shop here.
*SECOND EDITION OF ASH AND STARLIGHT ~ Find the updated edition of my book here at Chalice or at the Bookshop link.
*MONDAY MANNA ARCHIVES ~ Paid supporters of Monday Manna can view previous Monday Manna reflections here, or for the really old stuff, go to my website.
*WHAT DOES MANNA MEAN? ~ Check out an earlier post to learn how this little bit of “daily bread” got its name…
Thank you, friends, for being restorers and rebuilders through your hands, your prayers, your words, and your actions. We will continue this holy and hard work together.
Love and Light,
Arianne
I love hearing from you! You are manna. Reply to this note to send a message directly to my inbox.
Estes Park is the best! And you *podiumed* that race, you cheetah!
Beautiful words for a turbulent time. Asking God to empower all of us!