Dear Friends,

 We hope that you are safe and well.

 Today's Meditation features Rev. Vicki Kemper, recalling her childhood memory of God speaking in sunbeams: "Of Cartoons, Children and Still-speaking God." How is God speaking to you? Where do you perceive God best?

 We invite you to join us as we commit ourselves to working tirelessly to end systemic and structural racism in our society, in the church, in healthcare, in the workplace--wherever it shows up so that everyone may come to have more abundant life. May this meditation nourish our contemplative-active hearts and sustain all of us in action.

In the spirit of our philosophy of co-creating community and our awareness that the Spirit speaks through each of us, we invite you to share your meditations with us as well. We truly believe that it is God's economy of abundance: when we share our blessings, our thoughts, our feelings, we are all made richer.

We hope and pray that you find peace, healing, hope and the infusion of joy in your life!

With our love and care,

Ron and Jean

MEDITATION 447: Rev. Vicki Kemper: "Of Cartoons, Children and a Still-speaking God"

Daily Devotional

August 21, 2021

Of Cartoons, Children, and a Still-Speaking God

Vicki Kemper

Then the Lord said to Noah… - Genesis 7:1 (NRSV)

When I was about six years old, I watched a cartoon about Noah’s ark in which God’s voice was represented by a sunbeam. Whenever the sunbeam shone on Noah, he would hear God telling him what to do.

I remember riding in the back seat of the family car around that time, my short legs hanging over the edge of the seat, and the sky the only thing my wide eyes could see through the window.

Whenever I glimpsed a sunbeam, I would think, “God is talking to somebody!” I wondered if God would ever speak to me.

That memory has never left me. Neither has my sense of a God who speaks to us – not in words, necessarily, but with love and tenderness.

Sometimes, I’ve longed desperately for a word from God and heard nothing. Other times I’m sure God was clamoring for my attention but I wasn’t listening. When a holy word has come, in whatever form, it has left me both grateful and hungering for more.

These days I have a divinity degree, a ministry, a spiritual director, and my own spiritual practices. Yet sometimes I must still remind myself that if God really speaks through sunbeams, suffering, nature, prayer, the poor, music, my neighbor, and who knows what else, I’d best go stand in a ray of filtered light – or wherever the Spirit of Love might be.

Where do you perceive God best? What are the memories, images, sounds, and situations that serve as spiritual gateways for you? How might you put yourself in their path today?

Prayer

For sunbeams, cartoons, and every little thing that opens our hearts to your tender word, we give you thanks and praise.

John Edgerton

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vicki Kemper is the Pastor of First Congregational, UCC, of Amherst, Massachusetts.