Author: lakewooducc

[Note:  The numbering has been adapted so that Devotion 40 will appear on the day before Easter.  The last day of Lent.  There has been a snag in posting previous devotions.  Thank you for your understanding.]

Where is your home?  What answer do you give if someone asks you where you are from?  How about an inquiry about where you live?  Where do you call home?

Of course these questions are somewhat informed by context.  Who is asking?  Where are you?  What kind of situation are you in?  Is it a social interaction with someone new?  Is it a question from someone in a more official capacity like in a healthcare situation or from someone working for TSA at the airport?  The situation could very much influence your answer to the question, Where is your home?  Where is home for you?  Where do you call home?  

And there is the consideration of what is meant by the word home.  What associations go with that word?  Are there geographical assumptions?  Or relational assumptions?  Are there biological considerations?  Home involving people to whom we are blood related.  Or is the idea of home more a family-of-choice situation?  Home can be a dwelling for one person. 

What is a home?  A living situation in which you feel safe, and your physical and emotional needs are met. That’s a way to think about home.  That is one way to see it.  Is a home permanent; long term?  Or can a home be temporary?  There are many facets to this concept of home.

In the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey, a group of 4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts spend time together on a spaceship.  They are from different countries and cultures but while they are in space together, the spaceship is their home.  It is where they live.  With people they had not known before. It is where their emotional and physical needs are met and where they are safe with each other as they face the risks involved in inhabiting an aging spacecraft.  For a time, it is their home.

And, of course, all of these astronauts are human beings and they have been propelled into space from Earth.  Though they come from different places on Earth – Italy, Japan, the United States, Russia, the UK – from their spaceship, what they see is that Earth is their home.  Earth.  The blue planet.  Orbiting with other planets around our sun, in a cosmos of endless galaxies.  Where is their home?  Earth.  Where are you from?  Earth.  Where do you live?  Earth.  Where do you call home?  Earth.  Every person connected to the same home.  

What might it be like for humankind, all of humanity, to feel connected to the same home?  Where is your home?  Earth.  Maybe with this kind of orientation Earth could become a place where everyone feels safe, and everyone’s physical and emotional needs are met.  

Prayer:  Every person needs a home.  An environment, a community, a place, where they feel accepted.  Wanted.  And loved.  Jesus made everyone feel at home regardless of their background or circumstances. May we do the same.  Amen. 

___________________________________________

Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

What happens in 70 seconds?  What can you do in 70 seconds?  Watch a TikTok video?  Make a phone call?  Heat up some food in the microwave?  Send a text?  Watch the sunset?  Eat a cookie?  

There are a lot of things that can actually be done in 70 seconds.  What about change the world?  Change a life?  

The Challenger Space Shuttle disaster occurred on Jan. 28, 1986.  The space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds after launch.  And for the first time, a teacher was aboard, Christa McAuliffe.  So students were watching on their TV screens the world over as the shuttle fell to Earth and all seven astronauts were killed.   The space shuttle program came to a screeching halt while the tragedy was investigated.  

Seventy-three seconds.  And people went from anticipation and excitement to horror and grief.  So many lives impacted in just 73 seconds.  And for some, the result was a greater interest in space and the desire to become an astronaut in spite of the risk involved.  Or maybe because of it?

Nell, one of the astronauts on the spaceship in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, talks about how the Challenger disaster influenced her.  She was seven when the Challenger fell to earth in real time.  “I think, Nell says, when I watched the Challenger launch as a child, that was it for me.  It wasn’t the moon landings, it was Challenger.  I realised space is real, space flight is real, a thing real people do, die doing.  Real people, like me, could actually do it, and if I died doing it that would be OK, I could die that way.  And then it stopped being a dream and became a –a target.  A goal.  I became obsessively interested in the astronauts who had died.  And so I guess that’s when it started.”  [p. 69]

Seventy three seconds when she was 7 years old propelled the trajectory of Nell’s life.  Can we point to something that has created the arc of our lives?  What has shaped and influenced who we are; who we have become?  Maybe it was an experience as brief as 70 seconds.  Maybe an occurrence of 70 seconds that will change our lives completely awaits us.  

Who is to say how the power of Divine Love might impact our lives.  Our world.  Perhaps – in just 10 seconds. 

Prayer:  In these days of Lent, may we be open to the impact of the Spirit.  May we reflect upon the movement of the Spirit in our lives and be open to its transforming power today and all of our tomorrows.  Amen.  

_______________________________________

Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

Who are you?  What matters to you?  What do you care about?  What is the meaning of life?  Are these things you think about?  Once in a while?  a lot?  Not at all?  Much of what makes us who we are is in our heads.  It’s our ideas.   The impressions we have absorbed.   What we like and dislike.  Who we like and dislike.  Why we do what we do.  It stems from what is in our heads.  

And if we want change, in our lives, in the world, well, the power to make that happen is largely in our heads.  Change your mind, change the world.

And there may be more to this.  In Samantha Harvey’s book, Orbital, we hear an insight from the astronauts who are on the spaceship orbiting Earth:  “You get here and your life starts anew and everything you brought along you brought in your head, and unless it’s needed it stays in your head because this is it now.  This is home.”  [p. 70]  

I am thinking about the idea “it stays in your head.”  Maybe it’s not just about changing our minds.  Maybe we can make a difference simply by keeping some of our ideas to ourselves.  Leaving them in our heads.  Not expressing what might not be helpful.  I can think of many times that I should have left my ideas in my head and not let them out of my mouth.   As Jesus says in the gospel of Matthew, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”  [15:11] 

This Lenten season is a good time to think about what we need to keep in our heads, and what we need to let out of our mouths because it is needed, helpful, and loving.  

Prayer:  Our minds are often full to overflowing.  May we let go of what is not serving us well.  Let go of what is not helpful to the world.  Let go of what is not an expression of love.  And may we not be afraid to open our mouths when needed.  Amen.

___________________________________

Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

In the novel, Orbital, Samantha Harvey tells us about a group of astronauts headed for the moon:  “When they got a first glimpse of their rocket high on its staging, its three boosters, twenty-seven engines, five million pounds of thrust, the look on their faces was the besotted sharp look of a street dog when it catches the scent of meat.”  [p. 135]

To be an astronaut is an extreme commitment.  It takes a lot of training.  The rigors involved are severe.  It is all consuming.  It takes many years.  The people who want to be astronauts do not balk at the excessive training and commitment involved.  Their attitude seems to be ‘Bring it on!’

They are so enthusiastic and committed to the endeavor,

Frankly, while I have no desire to go into outer space, I do love hearing about the commitment of the astronauts.  Their passion and sense of purpose.  To me, it seems like we see less of that these days.  So many people are just trying to get by, make a living, holding themselves and their families together.  They don’t seem to have the bandwidth to be passionate about something.  To do something with their lives that they are stoked about.  And do we see people encouraged to find what they are passionate about and pursue it?   Are young people coached in recognizing what gets them fired up, what brings them joy, what excites them?  Or is it just about what jobs there are and what sectors of the economy need workers?  

I think that the arts help to keep passion alive in our society.  People involved in the creative arts, music, visual art, dance, theater, can be passionate about what they are creating.  What they are doing.  But of course the arts are suffering from a severe lack of funding so that passion is often quelled by lack of financial resources.  

Human beings are created to be passionate.  About life.  About love.  About a hobby or an issue or a career or nature or a sport.  Certainly the Olympic athletes showed passion for their endeavors.  Passion makes us human.  Being human is about having passion about something.  

This Lenten season is a time to consider the passion in our lives.  What do you get excited about?  What are you passionate about?  What do you make a sacrifice to do or be part of?  What stirs your spirit and gets you energized?  

Prayer:  May we be people of passion not just for an endeavor but for life and the wellbeing of Creation.  Amen.

________________________________

Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine going round and round the earth in a small spaceship with the same small group of people for days on end.  Nowhere to ‘hide.’  Nowhere to get ‘away.’  I don’t have a tendency toward claustrophobia, but still, I can’t imagine it.

But in the book, Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, the crew talks about how being confined together in those close quarters ‘works’ on them.  We’re told:  “They have talked before about a feeling they often have, a feeling of merging.  That they are not quite distinct from one another, nor from the spaceship. . . 

Then they agree that it’s idiotic, this metaphor.  Nonsensical.  But unshakeable all the same.  There’s something about hurtling in low earth orbit that makes them think this way, as a unit, where the unit itself, their sprawling ship, becomes alive and part of them.”  [pp.28-29]

The group feels that they have become one with each other and with the spaceship that supports them.  A unit.  One whole.  Functioning completely interdependently.   An organic union.  The spaceship needs them to function.  They need the ship to contain them in an atmosphere that allows their survival in space.  And they need each other to keep everything going – physically and emotionally.  So they feel they have become a unit that is mutually sustaining.  

This image of a unit, spaceship and crew, is a good image for the relationship between human beings and Earth.  The Earth is the environment that provides for us and keeps us alive.  We need the Earth to survive.  And we need to take care of the Earth so it can support our species.  We cannot exist without Earth.  And we cannot exist without each other.  We need each other for physical as well as emotional support.  We are needed to work together not just to support each other but to take care of the Earth so it can continue to take care of us.  Of course we keep in mind that the Earth can thrive without humanity and did so for eons before our evolution.  And may do so again in the future.

While Lent may be a time to spend time alone in quiet reflection, we are reminded that we are entwined with one another and the planet as a unit.  What is good for Earth is good for us.  What is good for someone else, to help them survive and thrive, is good for us.  What is good for us is truly good if it is also good for others and the Earth.  

Our faith moves us to decenter ourselves.  To see the complex unit of which we are apart.  And to invest ourselves in the wellbeing of the whole enterprise not just our individual interests.  

Prayer:  In Genesis we are told of the creation of an interdependent web meant to support all forms of life.  God creates a unit – a cosmos, a planet, a people – mutually sustaining so that all of it may thrive.  May we see how blessed we are to part of such an amazing reality.   Amen.

_______________________________

Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.