Boiling Over

God,

I see the schools

that are closing up

due to violence

and protests

and the likes–

and I’m reminded

All Behavior is Communication

All of it–You knew God, when

Helen Keller was throwing a tantrum

when Elijah was crying out

when Moses said

don’t call me

when the disciples

woke Jesus in the midst of the storm

terrified…

All behavior is communication.

So, God I’m wondering

as we start to boil over,

what are we trying

to communicate?

As we are forced

to work

and school

and carry on

in the middle of a storm

as though everything is normal

and haven’t even paused to grieve.

Help us–not to behave,

God no.

But to communicate,

because clearly we are crying out,

and boiling over.

Help us, we pray.

Amen.

Please feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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