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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.

If you find a beetle in the bathtub, maybe you grab a couple of squares of toilet paper and remove it to the trashcan.  Or maybe you gently enclose it in your hands and take it outside and release it.  But do you take the time to marvel at the rainbow sheen of its pronutum?  Probably not.  

On the way to school, amidst the traffic and the complaining of the children in the car, do you notice the bougainvillea dripping with fuchsia blossoms?  

On your morning walk, or your drive to the gym, are you absorbed in the motivational music you are listening to or the page turner audio book you’ve got queued up?  Do you notice the colors of dawn and the cloud formations gracing the sky?  

Slowing down and stepping back to consider the environment of the Earth makes it clear that the intention behind our blue marble planet is more than functional.  Yes, the planet is an imaginative design of interdependent parts providing living conditions for so many species.  But there is more than systemic interdependence to the web of life and the planet that sustains it.  

We must also acknowledge that a significant characteristic of the planet is pure and simply beauty.  Beauty that is unnecessary to actual function.  But that exists nonetheless.  Maybe a message here is that we need beauty.  We are designed to appreciate beauty.  The beauty around us is for our benefit.  It meets a need within us that perhaps we did not even know about.  Perhaps all of this beauty is gifted to us out of love.  And for no other functional reason.

One of the astronauts in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, is Nell.  She is from the UK and has dreamed of going into space since childhood.  She has married a man who is a farmer.  Attached to the land of earth.  They exchange pictures every day – she from space, he from Earth.  Harvey shares the husband’s thoughts about going into space:  “Her husband says that Africa from space looks like a late Turner; those near-formless landscapes of thick impasto shot with light.  He’d told her once that if he were ever to be where she is, he’d spend his whole time in tears, helpless in the face of the earth’s bare beauty.”  [p. 125]

Here we are, on Earth everyday, intimately exposed to the beauty of the earth.  But do we see it?  Do we marvel at it?  Does it bring us to tears?  Maybe you could pay attention to the beauty you are being given today.  

Prayer:  For the beauty of the earth, for the splendor of. the skies,

    For the love which from our birth, over and around us lies,

    God of all, to you we raise, this our hymn of grateful praise.    

  For the wonder of each hour of the day and of the night,

          Hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and stars of light,

  God of all, to you we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.  

[Words of the hymn For the Beauty of the Earth by Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1864.]

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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.

[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.