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Home – Lent Devotion 24

[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. 

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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.

Lent Devotion Nineteen — Blown Away

Each day every one of our lives is filled with happenings and activities and news and drama.   We are curious people.  We are engaged and active.  We make things.  Invent things.  Do things. We create roads and cities in the wilderness.   We make beautiful art and music.  We send vehicles into space.  We have incredible capabilities.  We are just a little less than gods, the Bible tells us.  

Ah, but sometimes our ideas and plans get away from us.  This is why we have global warming.  And war.  The possibilities, the greed.  But no worries.  We’ll figure a way out of it, so some think.  We have amazing capabilities.  

Maybe there is something to be said for accepting our humble place in the scheme of things on Earth.  Taking pleasure in the world around us, the wonders of nature, our mortality, the cycle of life.  Instead of trying to remake the Earth to our desires, we could learn to accept the Earth and all that it is giving us.  All that we are receiving.  

in Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital, we are reminded:  “We think we’re the wind, but we’re just the leaf.”  [p. 161]   Now a leaf does not have much initiative or agency.  It is limited by its function and identity.  But a leaf provides oxygen for us to breathe so that we can stay alive.  It keeps the tree alive to provide not only oxygen but food for people and animals.  A leaf is part of creating a habitat for animal dwellings.  A leaf creates beauty when it changes color.  A leaf provides shade.  A leaf falls to the ground and decomposes making soil for other plants to grow.

“We think we’re the wind, but we’re just the leaf.”  A leaf is useful providing sustenance and comfort and safety as well as beauty.  Can we be content with being a leaf?  Realizing our limits.  Restraining our hubris.  Extending ourselves for the benefit of others.  Accepting what we are called to do and be?  

Prayer:   May we be content to be who we were created to be in a much larger scheme that extends beyond our planet to the cosmos.  May we be grateful for our brief span on this Earth and relish our place in the circle of life.  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.

Devotion Eighteen — Lists

Are you a list maker?  I know I am.  I make lists of things to get at the grocery store.  I make lists of things to do at church.  I make lists of things to take care of at home.  I make lists of people I need to contact.  I make lists of many things.  And it usually is some kind of ‘to do’ list.

In the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey, every so often there is a list made by one of the astronauts, Chie, from Japan.  The first list comes after a beautiful paragraph about the astronauts bonding over their situation together:  “Their loyal, monogamous circling which struck them last night as humbly beautiful.  A sense of attention and servitude, a sort of worship.  And though they looked out before going to bed. . . it wasn’t the moon that entered their dreams, but their own wild garden of space outside the spacecraft – the garden they’d all at some point walked in.  And the ever-electric blue pull of the earth.”  [p. 47].

You turn the page and there is a list:

Irritating Things

Tailgaters

Tired children

Wanting to go for a run

Lumpy pillows

Peeing in space when in a hurry

Stuck zips

Whispering people

The Kennedys

It’s somewhat random.  And later on the page another list:  Reassuring things.  This list includes pumpkins.  [pp.48-49]  On page 86 there is a list of Surprising things including Green clouds and Children in bow ties.  Later in the book there is a list of Maddening things.  This list includes Church bells that ring every quarter-hour and Blocked noses.  [p. 145]  The final list in the book is Anticipated things including Need of a winter coat, Plums, Slamming a door in anger.  And finally after this last list, an explanation of the lists.  Apparently, the astronaut, Chie, from Japan, used to make lists as a child when she was anxious or disturbed.  It was a way to help her express and control her feelings.  And she kept it up when she faced challenging circumstances in her life.  The lists are calming, insightful, and illuminating.  

I am wondering about making some lists like these, especially in our trying times.  We could even start with Chie’s subjects:  Irritating things.  Reassuring things.  Surprising things.  Maddening things.  Anticipated things.  You are encouraged to try make such a list this week.  What do you learn about yourself and your feelings in the process?

Prayer:  In this Lenten season, we seek to know ourselves more deeply so that we can be honest about who we are.  And how we feel.  And what we can do to be more loving like Jesus.  Maybe making a list will help prevent us from “Slamming a door in anger.” Amen.  

No devotion tomorrow, Sunday.

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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.

Lent devotion Seventeen — Powerless

We have watched, especially in recent days and months, many things go on that we feel are harmful – to us, to our children, to our state, to our country, to other countries, to other peoples, to the Earth.  We see so much violence and death.  Wars and rumors of wars.  The situation in the Middle East was once a powder keg, and now it has gone from smoldering to flaming.  Sometimes you just feel powerless in the face of it all.

The travelers in the space ship in the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey orbit Earth 16 times a day.  And in the course of of their observations, they watch an amassing typhoon.  Meteorologists on Earth want the astronauts to verify projections and speed from their unique perspective in space.  And indeed the astronauts watch the typhoon gathering in strength, size, and speed.  They know that there are people and cities in its path.  One astronaut has friends in the Philippines who will likely be wiped out by the storm.  Harvey tells us of the perspective of the astronauts as they observe the gathering typhoon:  “They have no power — they have only their cameras and a privileged anxious view of its building magnificence.  They watch it come.”  [p. 35]

Of course, in a space ship orbiting Earth, they can do nothing to influence the typhoon or its impact.  

Let’s circle back to our situation here on Earth.  We are not encapsulated in a spaceship far from Earth.  We are here on Earth.  And as long as we have breath in our bodies, and even after, we have power.  We can have influence.  We can make a difference.  We can impact what goes on here on this precious plant.  

The people of this country forced and end to the Vietnam War.  Regular everyday people.  Who used whatever power they could.  In this day of social media and internet communication accessible to virtually everyone, we have even more power.  What will we do with it?  

That is a question for Lent.  What to do with all of the power we have been given?  Use it?  For good?  For others?  For the world?  For our own selfish purposes?  For harming others?  For nothing – let it go to waste?  This is the question Jesus faced in the 40 days in the wilderness.  What was he going to do with all of his power.  It’s something to think about in this holy season of realigning ourselves with the purposes of Divine Love.

Prayer:  May we be aware of all of the power we have to influence everything from interpersonal relationships to international relationships.  May we devote our power to peace.  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.

Lent devotion Sixteen — Safety Hazard

The novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey tells the story of 4 astronauts and 2 cosmonauts orbiting the earth 16 times a day at seventeen and a half thousand miles an hour in a spaceship made of 17 modules. [p. 3]  It is a well designed life support system.  They are confined and carefully monitored but it is perilous nonetheless.  One little thing could go wrong and they could all die.    

In contrast, Harvey reflects on the hazards of life on Earth. “Not the multiple perils of earthly freedom where you roam about quite unmonitored, quite unbounded, beset by ledges and heights and roads and guns and mosquitoes and contagion and crevasses and the hapless criss-cross of eight million species all vying to survive.”  [p.30]  Well, that being said, Earth doesn’t seem very safe either.  It has its perils.

But as I think about the ‘perils of earthly freedom’ it may be that the biggest threat to humans is humans themselves.  It seems far more likely that one would come to harm from another human than from a volcano erupting or a tidal wave or a bug bite.  The biggest threat we may experience, the source of our greatest fears, may be things that are perpetrated by other humans; ones we may know and ones we don’t know.  We are the greatest threat to our own safety.  

Can that be said of any other species?  They are their own greatest threat?  It is something to think about as we seek to re-turn our lives to God in this Lenten season.

Prayer:  May we come to see every other person as our sister, brother, or sibling, as Jesus did.  May we seek to support and protect one another for the perpetuation of our species and the good of the planet.  Let me do something for the good of another today.  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.