Dear Old South Church in Boston,
As many of you plan Thanksgiving travels, you do so under a world-wide travel alert. Ours is a fear-filled, tear-stained world.
I am recently back from Yale Divinity School where I taught a course to ministers-in-training entitled, Though the Earth Give Way: Ministry in an Age of Crisis. The premise of the course is that we have entered an era that will increasingly be defined by disruptive, catastrophic occurrences due to any one, or a combination, of the following: climate change, terror, epidemic, financial collapse, civil disturbances, and war.
Judith Rodin, author of The Resilience Dividend: Being Strong in a World Where Things Go Wrong, argues that the disruptive phenomena that we are experiencing in this modern era are distinctly different from their predecessors. Today's catastrophes are tied to an ever-increasing urbanization and globalization which, in turn, are exacerbated by infrastructures that are stretched to the breaking point.
It has never been truer that "when one part of the body suffers, all others suffer with it" (I Corinthians 12:26 ). There is suffering aplenty on God's good earth. If the United States was once somewhat immune to the sufferings of others and buffered (by geography, natural resources, and affluence) from those catastrophes that wreak havoc upon so much of the rest of the world, that is no longer so. Today, all who share space on this beautiful and fragile planet are in this together, as we have never before been.
These are not comforting thoughts as you or loved ones prepare to travel. As we gather with friends and family, it may feel hard to summon the resolve to give genuine thanks as the world and its people spiral into free fall.
Happily, as Christians, we come to these matters forewarned. Our forebears in the faith did not enjoy protections from the ravages of nature, suffering, or from incendiary human hatreds. They lived, believed, sang psalms, prayed prayers, gave thanks, broke bread, shared fellowship, and died with a hope that one day, some day, God's will might be done on earth as it is in heaven; that the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey for everybody, a land of justice with peace, was just around the next bend. They produced a mighty stream of literature that bears witness to their hope and faith.
Despite "the sufferings of this present time" (Romans 8:18) there are many things for which I give God thanks. Among them is Psalm 46.
Traveling mercies and Thanksgiving blessings upon each and all.
- Rev. Nancy Taylor
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; God utters God's voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah
Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations God has brought on the earth.
God makes wars cease to the end of the earth; God breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; God burns the shields with fire.
"Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth."
The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah