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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

On Ash Wednesday we remember our mortality.  Ashes to Ashes.  Dust to dust.  We came from the earth in the Genesis creation story and we will return to the earth.  The Bible also tells us that people are like grass; we wither and die.  We can see how the words ‘humble’ which is related to ‘humus’ which is related to soil connect to our circumstances here on Earth.  In the scope of the cosmos, we are less than a speck of dust.  I think of the movie, “The Grinch,” where the opening shows us that all the drama that is about to take place in Whoville is happening on a snow flake.  

In the book, Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, a group of astronauts is orbiting Earth 16 times every day in a space ship.  Here is a description of one orbit:   “Their transit approaches West Africa just as morning breaks.  The vast spill of day blots out every obvious human landmark to the naked eye.  They pass central Africa, the Caucasus and Caspian Sea, southern Russia, Mongolia, eastern China, the north of Japan in blanching light.  By the time night comes in the Western Pacific there’s no land in sight, no cities to proclaim mankind.  On this orbit the entire night-pass is oceanic and black, stealing down the mid-Pacific between New Zealand and South America, brushing the tip of Patagonia and back up to Africa, and just as the ocean runs out and the coasts of Liberia and Ghana and Sierra Leone creep up, sunrise blasts open the dark and daytime floods in, the entire northern hemisphere once again luminous and humanless.  Seas, lakes, plains, deserts, mountains, estuaries, deltas, forests and ice floes.  

“As they orbit they might as well be intergalactic travellers chancing upon a virgin frontier.  It seems uninhabited Captain, they say when they glance out before breakfast.  We believe it could be the remnants of a collapsed civilization.  Prepare the thrusters for landing.”  [pp. 20-21]

A whole orbit around the entire Earth and there is no evidence of humanity.  No sign of people.  Here we are on this planet, consumed with our drama, our busy schedules, our problems, our challenges and heartbreaks, all of it, and from just orbiting distance away, none of it can be seen.  None of it matters.  

Maybe this gives us some perspective this Lent; to not take ourselves too seriously.  Our problem may not actually be the end of the world.  Maybe in the scheme of things, forgetting your phone at home, losing the permission slip, not paying that bill on time, maybe it is not as cataclysmic as we thought.  

Prayer:  We pray that we can find solace in the majesty of the cosmos around us.  May we try to see our daily struggles and our problems from a more realistic perspective.  This is the day God has made.  May we rejoice and be glad in it!  Amen!

Note:  There will be no devotion tomorrow, Sunday, as Sundays are not counted in the 40 days of Lent.

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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.  

Many of us grew up with the stories of Pooh Bear and his friends, Kanga, Roo, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, Tigger and Eeyore in the Hundred Acre Wood, the domain of Christopher Robin.  These stories by A.A. Milne were later transitioned into animation by Disney.  I remember Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day very well.  The stories were fun, especially for children.  But along the way, Pooh had wisdom to impart.  

Here are some quotes associated with Winnie the Pooh:

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”

“We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.”

“A day without a friend is like a pot without a single drop of honey left inside”

“A hug is always the right size”. 

“The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.”

“I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?”

“Love is taking a few steps backward maybe even more to give way to the happiness of the person you love.”

The Winnie the Pooh stories imparted a reverence for life and friendship and feelings.  

In Samantha Harvey’s book, Orbital, the six astronauts on the spaceship are from different countries:  America, Japan, the UK, Italy, and Russia.  Two are women, four are men.  And one of the things they discover on their journey is that they all grew up with stories of Winnie the Pooh, or Winny-Puh l’orsetto, Pooh-San, Vinny Pukh.  [p. 70]  It turns out this is a children’s story that speaks to many different contexts.  Maybe that is how it is with all true wisdom.  With authentic  experience.  There is something we all recognize in it.  And it brings us together.  

As people of faith, we find wisdom and authentic reflection in the Bible and other teachings of our tradition.  In books and sermons and conversations.  We have a rich heritage to guide us through the living of our days.  

But it is not the only source of wisdom and guidance given to humanity.  There are other teachings and religions that offer guidance and appreciation for life.  How could we restrict God to the voice of Christianity alone?  Maybe we can even see the Wisdom of the ages brining us together by speaking through the stories of a pudgy stuffed bear.

Prayer:  This Lenten season may we listen for words of wisdom especially from unexpected sources.  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.