This week someone said to me, “With all this covid stuff, all the anxiety of “what next?” in politics and economics, all my friends, family and me isolated! I feel like a refugee who doesn’t know the rules or what is coming next; whose belongings and sense-of-belonging are scattered-out along a journey to an unknown.”
What a description! Being scattered. Forced out into somewhere unknown. Dispersed in a haphazard way. Broken in small pieces, dropped in an unruly manner; tossed about at uneven intervals; thrown about in an unplanned, aimless manner— without consideration of result.
Even writing those strings of words unsettles, unnerves, delivers an inner dishevelment and uncertainty.
Scattered. One thing when I am scatter-er of seed for birds, seed to plant grass, small stuffed animals from a Fisherman’s Picnic parade float. Those scatterings are purposeful, useful, joyful. But when being scattered is about peoples from nations at war or individuals forced away from inner security? Then scattered has an indiscriminate harshness, which doubles the damaging impact.
So here we humans are, in most corners of the planet we call Earth—on all continents, in all cities, in most towns and villages, experiencing the same sense of being indiscriminately and harshly scattered from what-was-known into an unknown. And so, we all have a common experience.
And within that is another common experience: the need for being able to have hope of Being Rescued. Which is, perhaps, an even more prevalent human experience. For we all, “pandemic” or not, know the fear of being found wanting, of losing control of resources, of not being given a fighting chance to improve life, of feeling our life may have no purpose, of feeling lost, scattered away from all that is familiar. And most, if not all of us, know the deep human wondering: When being scattered aimlessly— physically, emotionally, spiritually—where can hope lie?
Where? In calming, healing, delivering words that for thousands of years have instilled hope, brought relief, brought “knowing hope is real,” one generation telling the next of being gathered-in, together:
You are being sought after; you will be rescued from the thick darkness, gathered into security. You will be fed and, given flowing streams and gentle pastures. You will be delivered into a place of rest where the sense of being scattered, lost, and forgotten, is removed.
You will know rescue, and be restored, no matter how you ended up scattered. You will find injuries being healed in a place of safety where clashes wane and being at ease together flourishes. You will find yourself where Being Rescued mends the ravages of having been scattered.
These words, shared from generation to generation (from Ezekiel 34 in the Bible), make room for Rescue’s promise to untie cords of fear; for seeds of Goodness and Provision to replace loss and anxiousness. Rescue takes hold within us. Strength is nurtured, sustained, allowing us, in turn, to encourage one another as we scatter God’s seeds of hope, one to another.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
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