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September 23, 2020 Daily Devotional

"When Israel came out of Egypt—

when the house of Jacob came out

from a people who spoke a different language.."

Psalm 114: 1

"A different language..."

Sometimes we speak a different language than our neighbour speaks - they may speak Spanish, Russian, Mandarin...and we may speak English.

Sometimes we speak a different language than our neighbour speaks - we both speak English, but how we talk about something, the words we use, we might as well be speaking a different language.

This happens a lot where I am from. When someone asks me the question, "Where did you grow up?" I often respond "Oh, across the ocean, just north of Belfast." Because, the land I grew up on is known by a variety of names - each of them with their own loadedness. Some say, Ireland. Others say, Northern Ireland. Some say, the north of Ireland.

May this poem about my homeland cause you to pause on this day and ask how it is that we go forward in the United States in these days? How do we "take this troubled beauty forward?"

And as you ponder these questions, let us pause and remember the people of Louisville, KY in particular the family of Breonna Taylor. Black Lives Matter.


https://onbeing.org/poetry/the-northern-of-ireland/?fbclid=IwAR0v4ZW7KRO10uwRO6T-0KsTtoTgMBLbYYeL5Vm0eJI6Z5EfVljW9cSwLOA

“[the] north[ern] [of] ireland”

It is both a dignity and

a difficulty

to live between these

names,

perceiving politics

in the syntax of

the state.

And at the end of the day,

the reality is

that whether we

change

or whether we stay

the same

these questions will

remain.

Who are we

to be

with one

another?

and

How are we

to be

with one

another?

and

What to do

with all those memories

of all of those funerals?

and

What about those present

whose past was blasted

far beyond their

future?

I wake.

You wake.

She wakes.

He wakes.

They wake.

We Wake

and take

this troubled beauty forward.

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