Lifting Eyes to the Hills

March 1, 2026March 17, 2026
by Sara Baron

“Lifting Eyes to the Hills” based on Psalm 121 and Preface to Social Principles “Community of All Creation”

I am told that the Ancient Israelite temples were creation themed. I love that. I love how it connects our faith tradition to other traditions that were and are more earth based. I think about a tour I once took of a cathedral in Ecuador where the tour guide pointed out places the builders of the cathedral snuck in their own faith symbolism. The people doing the actual building had not been building of their own free will, and they’d not been converted to the faith that forced their labor. The symbols they added, though, were symbols of Mother-earth. And it is interestingly full circle that the “inserted” symbols were also a part the ancient Temples that pre-date our Christian tradition.

I also love that the Temple was creation themed because I think my own faith is creation themed and I like reminders that my faith is a valid expression of a long standing tradition – since sometimes I get messages that I’m too far out of the norm to count. Knowing God as Loving Creator is the foundation of my understanding of the Divine. Seeing glimpses of God in creation is a constant affirmation of my faith itself. Gleaning wisdom from creation has always been at least as important to me as gleaning wisdom from ancient patriarchal texts (the Bible, I’m talking about the Bible – I love it and struggle with it).

I’ve always read Psalm 121 and resonated with “I lift my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come?” I’ve done that. A lot. When I’m driving on the interstates or country roads, I’m pretty constantly lifting my eyes to the hills and soaking in their beauty and wisdom. They speak to me of God. This is for me a comforting Psalm, a reminder of the ways that Creation speak truths to our souls, an affirmation that God is with us, a reassurance that all will be well.

Which means, if I’m honest, that I love it and savor it and inherently distrust it. Because, dear ones, not all is well and not all has EVER been well. This fact doesn’t even require keeping up to date on the news. So I looked this Psalm up in the Word Biblical Commentary and discovered some new ideas. The first is that there is significant debate if the opening line reads the way I always read it, “I lift my eyes up to the hills – this beautiful piece of creation that soothes my soul – from where will my help come? From the God of creation of course!” OR if it means something more like “I lift my eyes to the hills – those mountains I must climb, where dangers abound in my path, from where will my help come in having to traverse them?”

Well then, I’d always missed THAT possibility. But, its valid. And in both cases the answer is the same “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Which is kinda great, that whether the hills are soothing or terrifying, the answer is that the God of Creation is with us.

The commentary suggests that in this Psalm the speaker has been at a Temple festival, and has been fed by being in that worshipful place and experience. The festival is ending, and the Psalmist is trying to find a way to live out the wonder of the Temple experience in day to day life. I can’t quite tell why they assume all this is true, but neither can I find a reason to disagree with it, so I’m going with it. The question of the Psalm then is how to trust in God in the day to day, and the Psalmist expresses convictions of how trustworthy God is. That said, I feel like the Psalmist goes overboard. The commentary explains, “Life is full of dangers, but Yahweh’s help is a match for them all. … In practical terms life cushioned from all unpleasantness was never the lot of the Israelite… but believers in any age hear this message deep in their hearts and are encouraged thereby to bear the heat and burden of the day and to sleep with contentment.”1

By the end of that, I hear the famous words of Julian of Norwich, “And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Julian found those words after decades of prayerful consideration of a single deathbed vision. They come out of pain, fear, and isolation to speak to the truth under it all.

Beloveds, there are all kinds of things that are not well. We could spend days making the lists of what is not well. Hmm, maybe months?

And at the same time, God is with us all. They’re both true. The worst things happening in the world, God is with the people experiencing them. They are not alone. Even more so, God is at work to care for God’s people, all of them, all the time. But quite often people get in God’s way.

God may be trying to shade us from the sun, but sometimes people cut down the trees! God has created plenty for us to eat, but we don’t distribute it well. God wants full and abundant lives for all of us and sometimes we humans drop bombs and missiles on people.

And STILL God is with us all.

God, the creator, dreams good dreams for us where we share in the abundance of God’s resources and take loving care of each other. And, in the meantime, in this world we live in, our help comes from God, who made heaven and earth.

Thanks be to God who is always with us. Amen

1Leslie Allen, Word Biblical Commentary Psalms 101-150, ed. Bruce M. Metzger et al (USA: Zondervan, 2002), p. 154

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

March 1, 2026

Uncategorized

Untitled

February 26, 2023
by Sara Baron

“What To Do With Creation Stories” Based on Psalm 104:1-4, 10-15, 27-30 and Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25

I was really excited about the idea of starting Lent with Creation. After all, Lent is a season of preparation, a time when we are reflective and attending to the needs of our faith, and what better way to start that work than with the beginning of our shared story?

That excitement lasted until I sat down to reread the texts. At which point I began to question my sanity itself, and why I would set myself up to try to make meaning out of the Adam and Eve story. After all this story has been one of the primary ones used to subjugate women, not to mention queer and trans people AND has a bonus narrative of over emphasizing a duality of gender. My concerns about preaching about this led me down a line of thinking where I started to wonder if Creation itself really matters to Christianity and if perhaps we would be better off just ignoring all stories of Creation so I don’t have to preach on Adam and Eve.

That should count as a red flag in my thinking processes, because my faith is at the root a Creation-based faith. Creation is how I make sense of EVERYTHING. The Bible starts and ends with creation. We as people are co-creators with God, working towards the world as God would have it be (“the kindom”). Creation is sacred. The natural world is one of my best teachers. All of creation sings praises to the Creator. There is wisdom in every rock and stream and leaf. This is how I think. This is how I am!

I myself learned how deeply all of this is engrained when my beloved 2 year old spent last summer curiously pulling leaves and flowers off of living things, while I found myself assessing the health of the plants and inserting myself between him and any plant I deemed likely to be hurt by the loss of a single leaf. The lectures that came out of my mouth about respecting all of living creation were an excellent clue as to what I believe, although – as you might expect – not terribly convincing to the one who heard them.

So, what to do with creation stories?

And, before anyone gets too concerned listening to me, this seems like a prime time to talk about science and how great it is. To take a creation story seriously is not to assume it is factual about history and science, it is to consider it as a meaning making narrative and look for the clues of what it was trying to explain and why. I am DEEPLY committed to understanding God as Creator, it is inseparable from my faith as well as my world view, but I believe God created through the big bang and continued to create through evolution and continues to create today, along with us and beyond us.

For me, to claim God as creator isn’t about denying science. It is about believing there is sacredness in all that is, and that goodness is possible because God is the root of all being.

But, still, what are we to do with creation stories?

Well, I guess, we take them as they are: stories to help us understand the challenges of life, and we listen for their wisdom. Of course, the Bible has a multitude of creation stories because the Bible is working to make meaning and creation stories are particularly good at that. Phyllis Trible, starts the book God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality with the words “The Bible is a pilgrim wandering through history to merge past and present.”1 Looking at creation stories is the same as looking at the rest of the Bible. To make sense of it for the present requires some sense of what it may have meant in the past, but also a firm grounding in the present to see what it means now.

Now, as creation narratives go, Psalm 104 is one of my favorites. It seems to focus on the goodness and majesty of creation, and I like that theme. It also focuses on God’s presence within creation, another one I really like. Best of all, Psalm 104 presents God as active in caring for creation for the goodness of creation itself – us included. It serves as a reminder to be grateful for water, which brings life, and for grass which sustains cattle, for edible plants we get to eat and wine and water and bread to satisfy people. If Psalm 104 does all this while having some weird conceptions about what the sky is and some odd ideas about punishment, I can let it be, because I need the reminders of awe and care and hope that I hear in the text.

However, as creation narratives go, Genesis 2 is probably my least favorite. To be fair though, I dislike the text because of what others have done with it more than because of the text itself. So I forced myself to actually listen to it, and it turns out to be WAY more interesting and life giving than I expected.

Dr. Gafney says the first created human in this story is an “entity that will be divided into equal halves to form two human persons, yielding different theological implications than turning a man’s rib into a woman.”2 She is working on the interpretation from Phyllis Trible, which I’d like to point out was published in 1978 and continues to be one of the best texts on the subject.

In Trible’s translation of this Genesis creation story we start with, “And YHWH God formed hā-’ādām [of] dust from hā’adāmâ and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life and hā-‘ādām became a living nephesh.”3 From the beginning, Trible says, “Hā-‘ādām is the focus of God’s pleasure.”4 She translates hā-‘ādām as “earth creature” as it is a pun on the word for earth, and points out that the earth creature is NOT identified sexually. Rather the earth creatures is “precisely and only the human being so far sexually undifferentiated.”5 Further, “only two ingredients constitute its life, and both are tenuous: dusty earth and divine breath. One from above, one from below. One is visible, the other invisible.”6

And here I start to get a sense of the meaning the early story tellers were trying to get to. They wondered about this fragile reality called life, they noticed that we are interrelated with earth, but also more, at least while we are alive. These metaphors for what we “are” make a lot of sense if you are thinking meaning making and not science, right? Also, if you are listening to what the text says and not assuming that “earth creature” is “man.”

Now, if I were to pick one point from this story as the key thing that I think should be taken from it, I would pick the line “it is not good for the earth creature to be alone” which, as Trible says, “contrasts wholeness with isolation.”7 Please note that this is said while the earth creature is still… one. So I don’t think this is actually about romantic or sexual love, but rather the need for companionship and RELATIONSHIP. Further, God has been quite present with the earth-creature to this point, and it seems that God rather LIKES the earth-creature, but God still senses that the earth-creature is MADE FOR RELATIONSHIP with other earth creatures TOO.

And that, dear ones, I think holds throughout time. Trible says, “Since the earth-creature is not only part of the earth but also other than the earth, it needs fulfillment from that which is other than in the earth.”8 And, I’ve got to say, that feels right. And she points out that the ACTUAL phrase attributed to God says, “I will make a companion corresponding to it.” If you have a word other than companion, particularly one with a hierarchical basis in your mind, know that it is not fair to the Hebrew the story is told in. Trible explains, “According to Yahweh God, what the earth creature needs is a companion, one who is neither subordinate nor superior, one who alleviates isolation through identity.”9 Then God makes the animals, and they don’t fit. This reflects a God who is flexible, and working out with the earth creature looking for what that one needs, right? I like that metaphor too!

And then, God tries something else. Trible says, “In becoming material for creation, the earth creature changes character. Whereas the making of the plants and animals were divine acts extrinsic to the earth creature itself, the making of the sexes is intrinsic. Indeed, this act has altered the very flesh of the creature: from one come two. After this intrinsic division, hā-‘ādām is no longer identical with its past, so that when next it speaks a different creature is speaking.”10

“And hā-‘ādām said,

This, finally, bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh

This shall be called woman [’iŝŝâ]

because from man [’îš] was taken this.”11

Trible again, “the female pronoun this (zō’t) unmistakably emphasizes the woman whose creation has made the earth creature different. Only after surgery does this creature, for the very first time, identify itself as male.” “No ambiguity clouds the words used ’iŝŝâ and îš. One is female, the other male. Their creation is simultaneous, not sequential. … Moreover, one is not opposite of the other. In the very act of distinguishing female from male, the earth creature describes her as “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” These words speak unity, solidarity, mutuality, and equality. Accordingly, in this poem the man does not depict himself as either prior to or superior to the woman. … For both of them sexuality oringinates in the one flesh of humanity.” I’m going to take this a step further and say that if this story claims the first earth creature was not gendered (non-binary perhaps?) and that humanity comes before gender, sex, or sexuality. The human experience is primary. The human need for relationship is primary.

This story seems to be trying to figure out not just where we came from, but what relationships we are supposed to have with God, with earth, with plants, with animals, and with each other. While it is at it, it is trying to figure out the pull of sexuality and the power of new love, the form of families, the role of gender, and what makes humans unique. That’s a lot to try to answer for one story. It is a lot more than the Big Bang Theory is able to offer too.

The Bible gives us multiple creation stories. I think that means we are to take seriously the sacredness of creation, but not fuss over the facts presented in each one. But we do have these stories to help us make sense of the big questions of life. Some of the answers will work for us, some won’t. It is OK to take what brings life and leave the rest.

For me, today, I like the idea of being an earth creature with Divine breath, I appreciate the reminders of awe and beauty, and the ones that say that I was MADE for relationships and that’s why they matter so much to me. What will I do with creation stories? Fight with them and savor them. Thank God. Amen

1Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978) page 1.

2Wilda Gafney, A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church (New York, NY: Church Publishing, 2021), p. 78.

3Trible, 79.

4Trible, 80.

5Trible, 80.

6Trible, 80.

7Trible, 89.

8Trible, 90.

9Trible, 90.

10Trible, 97.

11Trible, 97.

Rev. Sara E. Baron
First United Methodist Church of Schenectady
603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305
Pronouns: she/her/hers
http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

February 26, 2023

Sermons

“Opening Our Hearts to Gratitude”

January 23, 2019
by Sara Baron

Based on 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13

Our theme this Advent is “openness.” We are exploring it in worship, and it is the theme of our Advent Devotions – now available in the Narthex!! Today we’re starting with “Opening Our Hearts to Gratitude.” This may feel redundant to start with gratitude right after November and Thanksgiving, but I think there may always be more to say about gratitude. Or, at the very least, there is always more to be grateful for.

While I adore the season of Advent, I often struggle with the Advent texts the lectionary provides. The texts as a whole are cold, dark, scary, and apocalyptic. In them, one can hear Christian thinking about the SECOND coming of Christ because in the texts, one is reminded that officially Advent is at once a season of waiting for the coming Christ Child at Christmas and a season of waiting for the second coming of Christ.

The issue for me is that I have yet to be convinced about this whole “second coming” thing. It doesn’t fit how I understand Jesus, his message, his work, or the continued work of God with the Body of Christ. I’m perfectly fine with any or all of you being deeply committed to the second coming, because as always, I could be wrong!

Yet, my understanding of the second coming is this: the early Christians claimed Jesus as the Messiah. The faithful Jews who did not become Jesus followers responded by pointing out that Jesus did not do the things that they’d expected a Messiah to do, in particular to establish a kingdom on earth with political, military, and economic might. The Christians had trouble refuting this argument (because it was true), but they worked on it together and decided that Jesus was going to come back and do those things. This idea has taken a stronghold in the Christian tradition.

It doesn’t fit with the way Jesus lived, which had NOTHING to do with wanting to establish a powerful kingship. Nor does it have to do with how Jesus acted, which was all about empowering people without power to work together for the common good. It also misses the resurrection narrative itself, in which the followers of Christ are enabled and empowered to continue his work to transform the world.

I don’t think Jesus is coming back, at least not as a single, human, physical figure to establish a kingdom on earth. RATHER, I believe the shared work of the Body of Christ is to be the continuation of the work of Jesus to build the kindom of God. I believe that we are the continual way that Jesus is “back” although I more commonly think of it as the way that Christ continues to live.

So, I tend to get frustrated with the Advent texts. However, I still think my take could be wrong, and I don’t think I have more wisdom or knowledge than thousand of years of shared tradition, so I try every year to find my peace with the Advent texts. This year I’ve made my peace by picking two Pauline epistle texts (this week AND next week) and attending to them. These are lectionary texts, but not the apocalyptic ones. It is a balance. I think it is going to work out, they’re really excellent.

I wish we started Advent with Creation – as a way of remembering the start of our faith story with the start of the new year. So, I want to try it. My favorite “story” of creation in the Bible is Psalm 104. Read it here: Psalm 104, NRSV.

As it turns out, creation is a great starting point for gratitude. For many of us, being in the wonder of Creation is the easiest way for us to connect with the Divine, and I think that is in part because we are so overwhelmed with gratitude for the wonder and mystery of it all. The Psalm meditations on how each creature is cared for within creation, by God’s good gifts. The gifts for humans are like a communion set PLUS –“wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine, and bread to strengthen the human heart.” The Psalmist is not only practiced at noticing the wonders of creation, the Psalmist is also masterful at naming them with gratitude.

Another of the major access points to gratitude meets us in the opening verse of our reading from 1 Thessalonians. Paul asks, “How can we thank God enough for you, for all the joy we feel before God on your account?” I have been meditating on this verse all week, thinking of individual people I know and love; considering how incredibly grateful I am for their lives, their wisdom, their actions, their prayers, their BEING; and then trying to consider what it would take to adequately put together words to express my wonder.

How can we thank God enough for you? It actually feels impossible – even if I just pick one person, and even the one I pick isn’t someone I see all the time or know exceptionally well. How could I adequately thank God for the support of my high school chemistry teacher, or my junior high Sunday School teachers, for a college friend I’ve lost touch with but once had thought provoking conversations with? I’m SO grateful. But the words don’t feel like enough. And then there are ones I know better, and the ones I see more: how I could I ever thank God enough for my beloved partner, for my parents, for my dear friends, for the leaders, and members and participants of this church, for the staff I work with who make so many things possible?

The possibilities of things to be grateful for is (or approaches) infinite. I see where Paul gets his exuberance. There is so much joy to be found on account of God’s beloved people. There is so much to be grateful for. If you are needing the gift of opennness in your life, if you are willing to play with letting gratitude soak into your heart, I encourage meditating on this exuberant verse. “How can we thank God enough or you, for all the joy we feel before God on your account?” There is plenty to be found in that one little verse.

Paul’s exuberant gratitude for the people was writing to is, of course, not the final point. He also offers blessings to them, and one of them is particularly striking, “May Christ increase to overflowing your love for one another and for all people, even as our love does for you.” Scholars believe that this is the first letter of Paul, making this the first book written in the New Testament. Thus it reflects the earliest recording we have of the faith of the early Christians. I was stuck by this passage because it is more outward looking that much of the New Testament is. I suspect that as Christianity developed, and did so in a world that was hostile to it, it became more concerns with internal survival. Here though, early on, there is a balance between the relationships of the people of faith and those beyond the faith.

Love is presented as expansive. God’s love flows to all people, God’s love flows to and through Paul, God’s love flows to and through the early church in Thessalonia – as does Paul’s love, and Paul prays that it will increase to overflowing with them – allowing the love to be shared within the church and beyond to ALL people.

The joy isn’t the final point – love spreading to all people is the final point. But that end point goes through abundant gratitude. Love itself is a reason to be grateful. So is the expansiveness of love, the healing nature of love, the fact that God’s nature is one of love, the reality that we can share love, the reality for any of us that we have ever felt love, that it comes in so many forms.

How can we ever thank God enough?

Now, having focused on the wonders of creation and the incredible power of love, I want to take a step back. Gratitude is very important, it feeds our hearts, changes our perspectives, and allows a deepening of our spiritual lives.

That said, not everything is wonderful, or even good. There is deep pain the world including grief in its many forms, depression and anxiety, illness and injury, abuse and neglect. There are things we are not grateful for, and there are time when we are not filled with gratitude.

What then?

I think honesty and integrity are in order. When we are not grateful, it is worth paying attention to what emotions we are feeling. Whether it be anger, sadness, despair, frustration, exhaustion, confusion, or something else entirely, our emotions deserve some space to BE in the world without judgment. They’re even worth exploring. WHY are we angry, or sad? What ELSE do we feel? How strong are those feelings? Have they had a chance they need to be expressed?

THEN, and only then, it is worth considering IF there is space for gratitude too. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t, there is no right answer. If so, there may be a silver lining that can be a source of gratitude. Perhaps you can’t be grateful for a terrible experience you had – but you can be grateful that it is over. Perhaps you are homeless and can’t be grateful for homelessness – but you can be grateful for those who see your humanity and support you. Perhaps you can’t be grateful for the death of a loved one – but you can be grateful for the time you had with them.

You don’t have to force gratitude on yourself if this isn’t the right time for you. It will come again when it is ready.

However, if you in a place and time in your life when it is possible to feel gratitude, I encourage you to take the time to notice the multitude of possibilities for gratitude around you – from creation to people and beyond – and to express it as well as you can. I suspect it will open your heart – to God, to others, and to even more gratitude as well. Amen

Preached by Rev. Sara E. Baron on December 2, 2018

Sermons

“The Healing Earth” based on Psalm 8 (& James Weldon…

May 28, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

A few years ago I was informed that Sky Lake was a prime example of “Celtic Christianity/Spirituality.” I had no idea what that meant. So I looked it up, and discovered that it was true, AND that there is a name for my spirituality. Isn’t it wonderful when we find names for things we’ve known without having words? Looking up Celtic Spirituality reveals a description that starts with “Love of the Natural World.” It is explained this way:

“The prayers of the Celtic Saints are filled with experiences of God’s presence in creation, simplicity of living in harmony with creation, and awareness of the sacredness of all things. The Psalms are full of praise for God’s handiwork in nature, and Celtic Christianity followed in that tradition, reflected in prayers and poems which spoke of the Sacred soul in everything. As it says in the first chapter of Genesis, all things originate in the Divine Source, and so all things are sacred. The Presence permeates all of nature, and speaks to us of the ‘Original/Essential Goodness’ of everything. To enter into this Presence is a sacramental experience so that when we walk in nature everything is a visible reminder of the Invisible presence.”¹

One of their saints, “Columbanus said – ‘If you want to know the Creator, first get to know the creation.’ If there is any one word that would sum up the essence of Celtic Spirituality, it’s the word ‘PRESENCE.’ Awareness of the Sacred Presence at every moment of life, in all places.”²The other defining factors of Celtic Spirituality are community, hospitality, soul-friends, art and music, pilgrimage.

I suspect that for some of you, Celtic Spirituality is a part of your connection to God. For some, maybe it isn’t. In any case, it is helpful to remember that within Christianity itself there are many developed roads and paths to God, and the ones that fit you best may have road signs and maps, if you want to find them. There are multiple spiritual paths, even within Christianity, because humans connect differently. For today, I’m going to continue to explore within a Celtic vein, but please remember this is one among many.

At this time of year I’m mesmerized by how many shades of green there are, and how many I can see in one glance at the world around us. Each tree and plant offer several shades, with the grass itself adding more. For me, this is a feast. I love seeing the verdant, vibrant, living world, and my soul is satisfied watching the wind blow through the various leaves. The Presence of God seems especially visible.

This is a colorful time of year, even beyond the green. Flowers are plentiful and many trees are still covered in flowers or leaves of other colors! It is a time of visual abundance, as richly and vibrantly beautiful as a snow covered winter day is beautiful in its unbroken stillness and grace.

This time of year I am most receptive to the creation narratives of the Bible, perhaps because spring seems to speak them all by itself, and the words of the narratives add to the story the world is telling! James Weldon Johnson’s poem is one of the most famous re-tellings of Genesis, and Psalm 8 is one of the most glorious reflections on creation in the text. They remind us that God’s fingerprints are found all over the world, and when we look for them, we can find them.

The natural world is the source of all the things we need for life, as well as being a source of deep wisdom. It is a reflection of God, as are all of God’s creatures. One of my seminary professors offered us a way of praying that opens us to the wisdom of creation, by simply paying attention to one little aspect of the whole. He instructed us this way:

1. Go to a place where God’s creation meets you: ask for God’s presence with you.

2. Attend to the works of creation around you. Does one thing seem to invite you, strike you, impress you, or somehow attract you?

3. Come to a sense of quiet rest in the presence of God and in this piece of God’s handiwork.

4. Simply gaze upon this part of creation for an extended time – a time of wonder, amazement, openness, receiving.

5. Eventually, engage God in conversation about this thing you have noticed. You may want to ask God questions such as: Where has it been? Who has touched, held, seen it? What does God value it? How is it related to what is around it? How is it related to me? – to the rest of creation? What does it tell me of myself?

And finally… How is God present to me through this piece of creation? What does it tell me of God? What is God saying to me, offering me?

6. Remain for a time in the experience of whatever follows these questions.

7. Offer God thanks for this time and for the wonders of creation.³

This prayer form seems to derive particularly from Celtic Christianity, and the wisdom of the natural world and our capacity to hear it! The prayer, trusts creation and those listening to it.

This sounds a bit like the Psalmist, who spoke of star-gazing as source of wisdom. I’d like you to hear the Psalm anew, this version written by Barbara J. Monda. Her version focuses on the nurturing aspects of creation and our response to it. She refers to God as “Shekkinah” which according to Google means, “the glory of the divine presence, conventionally represented as light or interpreted symbolically (in Kabbalism as a divine feminine aspect).” Here is her version:

Shekkinah,⁴ how glorious is this world that everywhere bears the mark of your touch!

I sit among the mountains and am in awe of your beauty.

Babies in their mother’s arms remind me of how you care for and know our every need.

We are safe in the cover of your clothes.

You hold at bay those who want to harm and take vengeance.

Your steadfastness is all around us and your love makes our hearts jump.

When I look up to the moon I see you there.

When I see the stars I know they are jewels worn by you, signaling your presence.

You have made us just less than yourself.

You have given us the caretaking of all the earth

and the creatures on it as our companions.

Birds sent by you to sing cheer my day.

Fish swim at my feet and the fox and deer bring joy to my life.

The work of your fingers is everywhere my eyes turn.

The sun warms us from above and the rocks hold us from below.

The rhythms of the oceans and the passing of the moon are all ours too,

woven in us so we will be fruitful as you are.

Shekkinah, I feel greatness of you in my bones.

How can I properly thank you for all you have done for me?

My soul reflects your love and my heart holds what you have made.

I will be the cup from which others may drink of you and we will all sing of your wonders.⁵

Another seminary professor, Marvin Sweeney, told us that the ancient Hebrew Temple was themed on creation. He said that indicated that creation was the primary miracle of ancient Judaism, and everything else was derived from it. Similarly, creation is a theme throughout scripture, likely because the natural world has been a source of wisdom about God for all of humanity’s history. Some are more in tune with it than others. The poets, the Psalmist, and Monda, and Weldon Johnson are particularly in tune. They each speak of humanity as connected to God, thus given special responsibility for caring for creation. Christian theology sometimes speaks of us as “stewards of God’s earth.” That means that the earth and all that is in it is God’s, but God trusts us to take care of it on God’s own behalf. That is good, and meaningful work. However, given the impact of humanity on Global Climate Change and extinctions, we certainly have plenty of ways we could do that work better!

While the self-descibed defining factors of Celtic Spirituality were love of the natural world, community, hospitality, soul-friends, art and music, pilgrimage; I think the biggest difference I see is a focus on goodness: Goodness of God, Goodness of Creation, Goodness of Humanity. So much of Christianity has chosen to focus everything BUT the goodness. There is plenty in life that draws our attention that is not good. But, there is also much goodness, and when our souls are hungry, they hunger for goodness.

In Weldon Johnson’s poem, creation begins as a response to God’s SMILE.

Then God smiled,

And the light broke,⁶

And that image, which is itself a blessing, feels like the essence of Celtic Spirituality itself. God Smiled, light broke, creation began, and it was good….

And it is good still. Thanks be to God. Amen

1 http://celtic-spirituality.net/what-is-christian-celtic-spirituality/ accessed 5/27/17

2 http://celtic-spirituality.net/what-is-christian-celtic-spirituality/ accessed 5/27/17

4Google dictionary.

5Barbara J. Monda, Rejoice, Beloved Women! The Psalms Revisioned (Notre Dame: Indiana, Sorin Books), 22.

6James Weldon Johnson, The Creation: A Negro Sermon

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady