Lenten Devotions in Hard Economic Times

SIXTEENTH DAY OF LENT 
                 MARCH 6
  
 Isaiah 55: 1, 2, 3, 8
 
 
It’s all about assimilation,
Converting nutrients into living tissue,
Eat what is good.
 
It’s all about resisting assimilation,
Into a state of being where you
Spend your money for that
Which is not bread,
And your labor for that
Which does not satisfy.
 
"My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are my ways your ways," says the Holy One.
 
At the heavenly table, a banquet is spread,
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
 
Incline your ear and come to me;
Listen, so that you may live.
 
Do not heed the enslaving rubric
That equates your worth
With your income,
Your happiness
With the bulk of your possessions.
 
Hearken instead to the genial illogic
Of the Most High, Whose
Ways are way beyond those
Of enslavement to greed,
Or the enshrinement of temporal riches,
Whose thoughts are permeated with compassion
And profuse with possibility
For all creation.
 
Assimilate the words of Life
With creative metabolism.
Fend off  the slow suffocation  
Of assimilation into
The culture of futility. 
 

 
Isaiah cited from New Revised Standard Version
commentary in italics