January 2, 2021
Good afternoon,
You will notice a new haiku at the bottom of the email.
Monika has gifted me with a new haiku:
Soaring like vultures
Lifted by unseen hands
Trust, Silent enters my fears.
Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry. It is three lines long. The first line has 5 syllables, the second line 7 syllables , and the third line 5 syllables.Always the same, never different. But always different, never the same. Thank you Monika !
Vultures are not nice looking. They clean up the mess. But they play a significant role in the rhythm of life. In a book on pandemics David Waltner Toews tells us a story about vultures.
When cows died in an area of Nepal, vultures were the scavengers of dead cows. Then many of the vultures began to die. The cows had been given a drug to ease their dying. The drug killed the vultures. Then dogs began to scavenge the dead cows, and then they spread diseases among the people of Nepal. So, the vultures play an important role in combating illness.
So for 2021, what kind of things do you think will be bad for us ? Maybe the ” vultures ” in our lives will save us from some bad things this year. Maybe, seemingly difficult things will enrich and nurture our lives together. For example, maybe we can read the book of Ecclesiates, a challenging book in the Bible, and learn about the meaning of our lives? His talk of ” meaninglessness ” might draw us into new meaning for our faith and life. Look for the opposites in our world this year.
Prayer for 2021
Lord, bring us hope,
Lord, calm our souls,
Lord, test our resolve,
Lord, challenge our certainties,
Lord, love our beings,
Lord, cover our sins,
Lord, watch over lives
AMEN.
Fred
Soaring like vultures
Lifted by unseen Hands
Trust, Silent, enters my fears Monika Pieper Landoni 2021