Writing

Yesterday was World AIDS Day, there was a big display at the university. HIV testing, statistics broken out by continent, donations, red ribbons, the whole nine yards. I'm so pleased that this new generation of college students shows compassion for others.

It's writing week, and I'm stuck down into my papers. With each page I give thanks for the opportunity to study and write. It's hard, and I do struggle, but it's worth it. Renews my faith in humanity and God a little each day.

Writing this time is a bit like making a quilt. Scraps of fabric, scattered and seeming not to match or coordinate in any way. Finding ways of stitching them together to make a useful and coherent whole.

Or at least, that's what I imagine quilting is like! (so says the non-sewer)

As usual though, real life intervenes into the academic life. Laundry, a sick child, and a million other details to remember. It is hard to focus. What motivates me to keep at it in part is one of today's daily lectionary readings.

Isaiah 1:10-20 is the whole reading, God calling to the people of Israel, refusing their multitude of prayers and offerings. What God desires is found in verse sixteen: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.

Thanksgiving and World AIDS Day remind me to keep God's priorities as my priorities. Seek justice. Rescue the oppressed. Defend the orphan and widow. It is imperative that each of us do something, no matter how small, to work for justice and mercy in this world.