Pathways Press.com

MEDITATION:

Written by Alan Goodman from the Village Church.

England was in shambles after WWII. With huge bombed out areas, factories destroyed, and everyone “climbing out” of a national WWII nightmare – my dad told my mom and me that we needed to get out of war-torn England to start a new life.  He moved our small family to Brisbane Australia not knowing anyone and having no job to go to. As a 12 year old, the Brisbane “suburbs” were still outback bush country in the 1940s with everything wild (not urbanized like today). We had mostly the clothes on our backs, little money, and little else in this strange land. I was rapidly introduced to lots of poisonous snakes, crocs, dingoes, large lizards, poisonous spiders, along with wild kangaroos, wallabies, cassowaries, koala bears, kookaburras, malaria-based mosquitoes, etc. – a far cry from my earlier childhood in built-up London.

We lived in a hut initially with no electricity, no water, no windows, and no sewer system in that Bush environment. Our outhouse had to be constantly checked for snakes in this sub-tropical climate to even use that facility. Even opening any outside door would bring in a swarm of insects into our living area. In those early years, I really felt like an exile. I was “out of place” with my early Australian school classmates and never felt “at home” for a long, long time. When reading about Daniel in the Bible, I can really relate to suddenly being thrust into a totally different world where you are that stranger! In looking back on life, that whole life episode was God-given for me to now be tolerant to the strangers among us. It is also what Jesus would want us to do as well. Feeling like an exile myself provided that biblical tolerance.

PRAYER:

Written by Clement of Rome (??-99), bishop of Rome and one of the first Apostolic Fathers of the church.

We beseech You, Master, to be our helper and protector. Save the afflicted among us; have mercy on the lowly; Raise up the fallen; appear to the needy; heal the ungodly; Restore the wanderers of Your people; Feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners; Raise up the sick; comfort the faint-hearted.