March 10
Scripture: Psalm 118:24
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
When you say these words aloud, you may remember a familiar call and response that opened worship at Trinity in the 1980’s and 90’s. You may also hear the melody of a Trinity favorite hymn using this passage with the recurring echo phrase of “Rejoice and be glad in it”. This passage is not only reserved for Sabbath celebrations, it should be in our thoughts, and on our lips every day.
God is good all the time, All the time God is good.
My Story: “Into the Woods”
I grew up in a rural farming town in Niagara County, NY (very similar to where I live now) with a neighborhood of close houses, but 100s of acres of farm lands and woods behind our houses. Across the street was an untouched forest that was a mile thick with a seldom used railroad line that ran through the middle of it for easy access when the woods were wet, or to thick with snow. My neighborhood friends and I spent a lot of time exploring and playing in those woods after school, during the summer break, and playing hockey on a frozen pond during the cold/frigid winters that we thought were only in our memories, until this winter. My grandparents (my mother’s parents) had a log cabin summer home in very rural Wyoming County, NY, and my cousins and I spent a lot of time exploring and making new trails in that forest, which didn’t end until the next road several miles away. Needless to say, I spent a lot of my youth hiking, exploring, climbing, and loving the woods. Fast forward to adulthood: I won the genetic lottery of having great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents that were/are diabetic. I am also a diabetic who must maintain my health with diet, medications and exercise. I rediscovered the ‘woods’ as part of a new hiking/exercise regimen with my dog (Nova). I trained him diligently to have full recall (return on gesture or whistle call) so that we could walk safely off leash. We walk several miles every morning in the fields and woods around my ‘neck of the woods’, and try to travel to different forests during the week. We’ve even started hiking/camping, and plan on finding new trails to explore around the state and country. I find myself euphoric on these walks, either from the positive effects of hormones stimulated through exercise, or the good feeling of being in God’s realm. It is when I first started doing these walks, and Nova would do something that would make me laugh (which happens almost every day), I found myself saying and sometimes singing in my head, and sometimes aloud: ”This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”It is now a prayer I offer up every day when I am on a walk. I am so thankful for the people and organizations that have preserved these sanctuaries, so we can be in a natural cathedral and experience God’s creation and gifts any day of the week, and any time of the year. I recently ran across a church sign on my travels, and I invite you to join me in the woods anytime: Exercise daily, Walk with God.
Truly: God is good all the time, All the time God is good.
C David Lueschen
Prayer:
Thank you God for the comforting words from the words of the Songs of David as written in Psalms. May we rejoice in the knowledge you are always there for us, and celebrate that joy with happiness of spirit, expressed in private prayer and reflection, and a loud song in public. Amen
“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
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