DAY 241
Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic
A series of daily reflections for people of faith
by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor
Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland
pastorrobert@paxpres.org
Week Thirty-five Tuesday 10 November 2020
A Larger Circle
“The historian Arnold Toynbee once suggested that every civilization reaches a point at which it can neither go forward nor back. The conservatives and progressives both burn with hyped-up fervor: One side thinks that Covid-19 is a hoax and that vaccines are a vast conspiracy, while the other thinks that gun owners are stupid troglodytes and wonders what signs to put on public restrooms. The only way out, Toynbee wrote, is transfiguration: You must draw a larger circle in time…. With that larger view, you suddenly see old things in a new light. Maybe that time has come.” - From a recent newspaper article: “What I saw while I was sick with Covid-19”
She was fifteen years old when he came to Pasadena, California, where in high school she studied, loved, and wrote poetry. Knowing she could buy a signed original, she worked and saved until she had the required 50 cents. Standing in line she met him, purchased the poem in his own hand and signed by him, and years later passed it on to me. She was my mother, and this treasured poem on the wall of my office in our home, one of his most famous, entitled “Outwitted,” reads:
He drew a circle that shut me out -
heretic, rebel a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
we drew a circle that took him in.
Edwin Markham 1852-1940
It is the larger circle of Toynbee in the newspaper article referenced above. Both ‘circle’ references bring to mind the largest circle ever drawn, that of the God of the universe when descending to a virgin’s womb. Within that redemptive circle he encompassed Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free persons, men, women, and every possible category of individuals on the planet.
Reflective question: Will you ask the Holy Spirit to show you someone who has ‘shut you out’ or someone you have ‘shut out,’ and then ask Him to show you how to draw a circle that will include them in a way that heals the relationship between the two of you? You won’t be sorry.
Reflective Scripture: Romans 2:11 – “For God does not show favoritism.”
Reflective hymn: “Help us Accept Each Other” – Fred Kaan (1929-2009)
Teach us, O Lord, your lessons, as in our daily life
We struggle to be human and search for hope and faith.
Teach us to care for people, for all, not just for some,
To love them as we find them, or as they may become.
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