Author: lakewooducc

It seems that humans are wired to protect that which is fragile or hurt.  People rush to help a dog or cat hit by a car.  A bird falls from the nest and every effort is made to help it.  When it comes to a small child or a vulnerable animal, we just seem to have a built in response to protect and to help.  Well, most of us do. 

That’s when it is one on one.  When it comes to society protecting the vulnerable, it is much more of a mixed bag.  Providing health care for all should be a no brainer yet we still have not resolved that.  Doing all we can to help children thrive is also something that gets complicated.  And so does uplifting the quality of life for our elders.  The church hosts an adult daycare center and the funding was significantly cut in the last federal budget.  This money helped seniors who sit alone at home all day to have a place to go to be with other people and to do things that were of interest and enriching.  This has all kinds of positive health outcomes and is much less expensive than the Medicare funds needed for a health crisis.  Yet we can’t get it done.  So much for our inclination to help those who are vulnerable or injured.  

The view from space offers yet another perspective on protection and taking care of what is vulnerable.  In the novel Orbital, Samantha Harvey shares the feeling of the six astronauts in the spaceship orbiting Earth 16 times a day:  “Before long, for all of them, a desire takes hold.  It’s the desire – no, the need (fuelled by fervour) – to protect this huge yet tiny earth.  This thing of such miraculous and bizarre loveliness.  This thing that is, given the poor choice of alternatives, so unmistakably home.  An unbounded place, a suspended jewel so shockingly bright.  Can humans not find peace with one another?  With the earth?  It’s not a fond wish but a fretful demand.  Can we not stop tyrannizing and destroying and ransacking and squandering this one thing on which our lives depend?”   [p. 108]

There it is.  The issue.  Why are we so concerned about a hurt pet, but so oblivious to the sufferings of Earth?  

Prayer:  May we learn to cherish the planet that keeps us alive and brings us beauty and joy.  Earth is protecting us in so many ways.  Give us the need to protect the precious Earth.  Amen.

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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.

There are so many things about life that are unknown.  We try to create and maintain control but there is so much we cannot influence.  And faith really just adds to the unknown.  We feel called to follow Jesus and we say yes, or we try to, but we have NO idea what that will actually entail.  Following Jesus can feel like a road trip with no GPS and not even a paper map.  

We see this in the gospels as the disciples answer the call to follow Jesus having no idea where they will be going or what they will be doing.  And they certainly have no idea that Jesus will be killed on a cross.  Absolutely no clue.  They simply don’t know what to expect.  And they follow the best they can.  And they are often a bit at sea about what to do.  Not surprisingly.  

So how do they go forward in faith?  How do they follow Jesus into the unknown.  Well, they trust.  They hope.  They accept their lack of control and their lack of a full understanding of what they are part of.  [Side note:  I think it might be much easier for some of us to be part of a rules based religion. . .] 

And what happens?  What happens is amazing!  And beyond their wildest dreams!   And their efforts continue to bear fruit today through us.  We are in the church today, this life-giving community, because of those trusting disciples over 2,000 years ago.

One of the astronauts, Pietro, in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, is trying to come to terms with the unknown:  “It’s probably a childish thought, but he has an idea that if you could get far enough away from the earth you’d be able finally to understand it — to see it with your own eyes as an object, a small blue dot, a cosmic and mysterious thing.  Not to understand its mystery, but to understand that it is mysterious.  To see it as a mathematical swarm.  To see the solidity fall away from it.”  [p. 77]

This is part of our spiritual journey.  To accept, even embrace the mystery, not only of faith but of life itself.  We don’t get all of the answers.  We follow Jesus in faith.  Trusting that Love will prevail.  Though we have no idea how that will unfold.  It is mysterious.  

Prayer:  We like to have the answers.  We like predictability.  And yet faith is mysterious.  Help us to trust in Divine Love and to marvel at what ensues.  Amen.

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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.

We are enticed to want many things.  A new car.  A vacation to an exotic destination.  Designer clothes.  A luxurious house.  All of these things cost money.  Often a lot of money.  And we are enticed to want them so that we will spend our money on them making someone else richer in the process.  This is simply the nature of capitalism.  Create desire for things.  So that people buy them.  So that someone makes a lot money.   A subtext to all of this may be that the thing you are being enticed to want and to buy will make you happy.  Which usually doesn’t happen, so we buy something else, and another thing, and invest in another costly experience, but never seem to find the happiness we may have been seeking all along.  But we are sure making those on top richer than rich in our futile quest.  

It is interesting to me that we really aren’t told about Jesus teaching much about happiness.  We hear about loving and serving and caring for others.  We hear about love of enemy and turn the other cheek.  We hear about being accepted and forgiven and healed.  But there really isn’t a big focus on happiness in the gospels.  Maybe that is because if you are living out your purpose, your role in the greater design, taking delight in the life, if you appreciate the sacredness of life, and the mystery of the cosmos, well then, you will have a beautiful life.  And you will be content.  And filled with joy.  It will be a good life.  Dare we say a happy life?

The six astronauts who are circling the earth in a spaceship in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, have spent their lives wanting to get to space.  And now they are orbiting earth 16 times a day and stunned by its beauty.  But their situation involves facing so many limitations and restrictions and potential dangers.  Yet they come to this awareness:  “At some point in their stay in orbit there comes for each of them a powerful desire that sets in — a desire never to leave.  A sudden ambushing by happiness.  They find it everywhere, this happiness, springing forth from the blandest places . . . Everything that speaks of being in space — which is everything — ambushes them with happiness. . .”  [pp. 17-18]

Maybe when we are doing what we love, what we care about, maybe then we are happy.  Not buying the latest thing that pops up in the ad on our social media feed.  

Prayer:  In these calm and quiet days of Lent, may we pay attention to our call to serve.  May we be aware of the needs of others.  May we seek opportunities to love others by our deeds.  And so find our way to our happy place.  Amen.

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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.

Often it seems like we are surrounded by inflammation.  Not necessarily physical infection, but inflammatory words.  Inflammatory behavior.  Inflammatory gestures.  Inflammatory opinions.  Like, larger than life.  Is this because it is hard to get anyone’s attention in this distracted world?   Evidently, it is not just young people who are on their phones all the time but older people as well.  Following everything, caught up in all the drama on the news or on social media.  Maybe we know little about what is actually going on around us let alone within us.  It’s all out there in the land of pixels.

Lent is a time to be more reflective.  Quiet.  Engage in meditation.  Prayer.  It is a time to try to get to know ourselves better and to grow closer to the Divine Love that is at the core of who we are.  

One year during Lent, we included a two minute period of silence in each service.  The first Sunday one person got up and walked out during the period of silence.  I spoke with the person after the service by phone.  They said, I just couldn’t stand it.  I could not take the silence for that long.  I just had to get out of there.  

For one thing, when we engage in quiet reflection and prayer, we don’t know what is going to come up.  We don’t know what thoughts may arise.  We don’t know what will enter our minds.  We give up control.  But what comes may be something good, beautiful, healing even.  

In Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital, we are told about what arises for one of the astronauts, Pietro, from Italy.  “In orbit his sense of life is simpler and gentler and more forgiving, not that his thoughts are different but that his thoughts are fewer and more distinct.  They don’t avalanche like they used to.  They come and they interest him for as long as they need to and then they go.” [p. 121]

I think this is how we can look at Lent.  A time for life to be simpler, gentler and more forgiving.  Thoughts that are fewer and more distinct.  And maybe we will want to bring this calmer introspection into the rest of the year, not just Lent, because we find ourselves feeling closer to our essence, Love.

Prayer:  May I seek what is simple, gentle, and forgiving and so find my true self.  Amen

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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.

Why do people go to church? For many it is social. To see friends. For

many it is to feed their spiritual lives. Sometimes it’s church that helps us

get through some difficult situation. For some it is simply habit. They

grew up going to church on Sundays and still do. For some, church helps

keep hope alive in the face of societal challenges. Some people like the

music and the chance to sing. I know some parents of young children

who go to church to have an hour of adult time to themselves while the

kids are in the nursery at church. There are all kinds of reasons to go to

church.

I think for all the answers you might get when you ask people why they go

to church, one answer you probably won’t here is: “I got to church to save

my life.” And I certainly don’t think people go to church to escape going

to hell after they die. That might have been the case years ago, but not

any more.

In the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey, the astronauts in their space ship

witness a typhoon occurring on Earth. And we learn about one of the

areas struck by the storm: “Forty or fifty bodies are sheltered behind the

altar of a chapel which squats low among trees. Floodwater reaches to its

roof. The mile of coconut plantation between here and the coast is

submerged completely by the tidal surge, but the buffering of the trees has

saved the chapel; by design it has no windows along its east elevation

which is toward the ocean and those elsewhere are so far spared. The

chapel door strains but holds under the burden of water. The concrete

walls crack, but they hold too. Hunks of plaster fall from the ceiling under

the stooping timbers. A dead shark tumbles past the front window. The

wind is ebbing. The people inside no longer hear it slamming against the

roof. If the building can withstand the flood for another few hours until the

water recedes they’ll make it. They pray.” [p. 204]

In this vignette, the church, the chapel, actually, is saving the lives of the

people while the world storms around them. Though the chapel strains

and cracks, yet it stands. And it protects the people within. It is saving

their lives.

We know about the straining of the church in our time. Attendance and

finances down. Churches closing. Attendance dwindling. And we know

about being assaulted by the storms around us – banning of books, raids

by ICE, abortion illegal, funding for life saving programs eliminated, fears

of mass shootings, international bullying that has repercussions here at

home, and on and on. We are buffeted daily.

And the church is a place where we can seek solace. Where we can come

once a week to experience safety and sanity. Reality based in love not

fear. Where we can experience joy and wonder instead of dread and

doom. When we are buffeted by a divorce, or a life threatening diagnosis,

or a death, we know we can come to church to be tended and cared for as

we seek to go on. Yes, church is life giving and it is life saving.

That is why we are here. To save one another.

Prayer: Life can be hard. It can be confusing. It can be a struggle. We

give thanks that the church provides a community of support that is life-

saving here and now. Amen.

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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.