{"id":1118,"date":"2020-10-05T07:14:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T07:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/warapungamonday.wordpress.com\/?p=1118"},"modified":"2020-10-05T07:14:42","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T07:14:42","slug":"grace-in-god-forsaken-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/?p=1118","title":{"rendered":"Grace in God-forsaken places"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chapter 40 <\/strong>

Good Monday Morning to this week 41 of 2020

Last week I got a message with some very disturbing lines of hardship and trouble. Ending the message the question was raised and ended the conversation abruptly:

Has God forgotten us?

Why,\u00a0Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself\u00a0in times of trouble?
Psalm 10.1 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do You stand afar off, O LORD?\u00a0 Here, the psalmist asked a question well known to those who follow God: the concern, the anxiety, over the seeming inactivity of God. The psalmist felt that God was\u00a0afar off\u00a0and did even\u00a0hide in times of trouble. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

or in Mark 5: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we ever wonder how bad it can get, how lonely, how divided, how isolated and separated we can become, this passage in Mark\u2019s gospel paints the picture in haunting detail:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brendan Busse, an Jesuite writes: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poorest places of our world are never so poor as to be truly God-forsaken, but they have certainly been desecrated. The real scourge of poverty is not about being God-forsaken as much as having been desecrated by systems and structures, personal and social sins of violence, exclusion, and exploitation. The sanctity of life is damaged or denied by a lack of compassion and care. What God created in his goodness we have desecrated in callousness and cruelty.

In Mark 5.9: Jesus asked him,\u00a0\u201cWhat is your name?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God-forsaken places don\u2019t exist and God-forsaken people even less so. You only have to visit to know that this is true. Walk into those places and up to those people and simply ask, \u201cWhat is your name?\u201d And the forsaken will be returned to themselves, the human family made a little more like what God intended. The many become one, with not a single person abandoned in self-harm or isolation, but rather something more like a family reunited, like a lost child returned home.

One way to walk out of the “God forsaken places” he further writes:
In God-forsaken place\u2019 we do simple things – simple verbs are the heart of the matter: We share, we accompany, we collaborate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish you a week full of hope and care for those feeling “God forsaken”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Philemon <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 40 Good Monday Morning to this week 41 of 2020 Last week I got a message with some very disturbing lines of hardship and trouble. Ending the message the question was raised and ended the conversation abruptly: Has God forgotten us? Why,\u00a0Lord, do you stand far off?Why do you hide yourself\u00a0in times of trouble?Psalm … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Grace in God-forsaken places”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/warapunga.ch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}