Create a new rhythm in us, O God

This week, I've been given the gift of being at the ocean. As I stare at the waves and listen to them come in and go out, come in and go out, come in and go out, lines from spoken word poet Sarah Kay's poem "B (If I Should Have a Daughter)" keep coming to mind.

They say: "There'll be days like this / There'll be days like this my mama said / When you open your hands to catch, and wind up with only blisters and bruises. / When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly // And the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape / When your boots will fill with rain and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment / and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you // because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop / kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it is sent away."

There is something comforting about repetition. As I write this, I'm sitting in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I think about babies who fall asleep in their mother's or father's arms this way, of how it soothes them when they are crying and everything feels wrong in their world. I think of every country song that daydreams about the future, sitting next to the one you love at 80 years old, on a porch, in rocking chairs. The waves and rocking chairs remind us of steadfastness, faithfulness, presence. An absence of fear if we only ask for the gift of trust to believe in the One who loves us, the One Whose we are.

How many times in life are we afraid of losing things? How many times have we lost things that mean something to us? How many times has that taught us to fear? God gave Jesus everything, and Jesus did not withhold even his own life from us. We are God's. Everything we love is being restored to us.

We can trust the rhythms of our faith, the rhythms of our Church, the rhythms of our God. Our God is the wave who refuses to stop kissing us, his shoreline, the rocking chair that keeps urging us forward and bringing us back, over and over and over again. Let's let this God create a new rhythm in us. A repetition that speaks of love and hope and trust in times full of upheaval. A drawing out of ourselves to acknowledge hurt and to seek to understand. A continual migration toward each other, to comfort and bless and love as we figure out how to be pilgrims together, ushering each other to the One our hearts were made for as we travel throughout this life. Let us assure each other of our steadfastness and faithfulness and presence that points toward God's refusal to abandon us no matter how many times we send him away.