I am an emeritus professor from Cornell University and was a Commissioned Lay Preacher in the Presbyterian Church (USA). For many years I have followed the Daily Lectionary as printed in the Mission Yearbook of my church. For each day of a two-year cycle, the lectionary lists four psalms and three other scriptural passages--usually one from the Old Testament and two from the New Testament. My practice is to copy down a verse or two from one of the psalms and from each of the other three passages. After I have written out all four selections, I reflect upon them, rearrange their order, and incorporate them into a meditation. Sometimes I retain much of the original wording; sometimes all that remains of a selection is an idea that was stimulated when I read the original words. All selections are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. For the Daily Lectionary, see the link below.

Particular Gifts from God--March 18, 2022

[From March 5, 2010 archive;

adapted from my journal, March 1, 2002]

 

As long as I can remember, you have been my God,

as you were my mother’s God, and her mother’s.

 

You have given me particular gifts, as you do to each person.

It is not my gift to remain calm in a boat while it is being swamped.

 

Nor is it my gift to be patient over much of anything.

I am more apt to say, “We should have done this sooner.”

 

Help me refrain from saying, even from thinking, these and

the related and still more useless words, “I told you so.”

 

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 22, 148, 105, 130

Gen. 43:1-15

1 Cor. 7:1-9

Mark 4:35-41

 

Selected Verses 

Ps. 22:10

On you I was cast from my birth,

            and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

 

Gen. 43:10

“…If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”  [Judah, to his father Israel]

 

1 Cor. 7:7b

But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

 

Mark 4:37-38a

A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.  But [Jesus] was in the stern, asleep on the cushion….


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