[Uucf-bible] The Fork in the Wilderness: UUCF Virtual Monastery weekly reflection

[RevRonRobinson at aol.com]

_http://www.uuchristian.org/M_VirtualMonastery.html#weekly_ 
(http://www.uuchristian.org/M_VirtualMonastery.html#weekly)  
Go read, reflect, respond to this coming week's lectionary biblical  
reflection commentary by the Rev. Naomi King. For more on the lectionary go to  
_www.textweek.com_ (http://www.textweek.com)  and also to 
_www.commontexts.org_ (http://www.commontexts.org) . Thank you Naomi for  these recent September 
reflections. The Rev. Marguerite Sheehan will be bringing  them to us 
throughout the October weeks. The reflections are also archived. They  would be 
great to use for bible discussion in small groups.  
An excerpt from the reflection by Naomi: 
I would really like to ignore all the times I tumble into unrighteousness.  
But if I’m truly going to live into the pledge of Micah 6:8 (Love the Lord 
your  God, live humbly and work for merciful justice) or the five practices 
of love  (God, neighbor/kin, alien, enemy, self) – the kind of living that 
can be called  a righteous path – then I have to wrestle with being wrong and 
unrighteous,  commonly signaled by either guilt or the bright flag of 
self-righteous  indignation. I’d really rather focus on the wrestling other 
people have to do –  people distant from me like politicians and corporate boards 
– than on my own.  But then, that’s another topic for another day, when 
Jesus talks about the  splinter in my neighbor’s eye and the Sequoia in my 
own. Today, every day, each  of us have a chance to meet the risk of traveling 
the unrighteous path. 
The risk of the unrighteous path is where all the tension comes in the 
heroic  stories we tell and watch. One of the requirements for film box office 
success  is that tension, and if we really want a blockbuster, then at least 
one person  will change everything by doing the difficult thing and dragging 
along the rest  of us back to the path of righteousness. Yet how many of us 
really love living  that tension in every moment of every day?...." 
blessings, Ron