Tuesday, March 17, 2026
St. Patrick’s Day
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Providing conditions
Wherever this water comes, the sea shall be made fresh.
In Louise Penny’s books, Inspector Armand Gamache insists that his protegés remember four “I-messages” which allow them space for mistakes and permission to acknowledge uncertainty as they sift through suspects and solutions to one murder case after another.
Those solutions take their own sweet time to appear. In this detective work logic and experience matter, but patience, curiosity, observation and vulnerability matter even more. Here are the messages:
- I don’t know
- I need help
- I’m sorry
- I was wrong
These permissions give this French-Canadian renaissance-man-detective space and time to get to know himself more deeply. Shadows of fear and self-doubt do not disappear, even though they can be ignored or denied. But when Gamache names them, they are no longer a threat to burn him alive. The evil he encounters in the world outside and then within himself backs away, for the moment toothless and paralyzed. Not tamed, but caged. And while the monster cowers in a corner, Gamache breathes again. In this renewed time and space, clarity returns to his thinking. In the sudden stillness, answers appear, and healing follows.
God is our refuge and our strength,
an ever-present help in distress.
Therefore we fear not, though the earth be shaken
and mountains plunge into the depths of the sea.
For Ezekiel the salt water became fresh. Its appearance no longer deceived; this sweet water brought life. In this water he could bathe, at his meals he could drink it. No desert alkali, no sea salt would deny his thirst. He could brush his brow with a wet cloth and rest. O! Taste and see that the Lord is good.
So Armand Gamache and Ezekiel seek ways away from the salt, out of the blizzard and wind, out of confusion and doubt, and when they sit still long enough, those ways come to them. During our centering prayer meeting last night, we read Richard Rohr and Richard Hauser’s thinking about “providing conditions in our lives” to make space to receive the gifts God wants to share with us.
Those conditions can be defined many ways, but it all comes down to the same thing. Get out of the way. Stop “trying” to receive. Be here now. Notice that God has given us all we need, and that it is ours for always.
For me right now the “conditions” include doing less and sitting more. Eating when I’m hungry. Spending time being aware of and inviting others, strangers and friends and family, into joy. Using fewer big words and more small ones. Relaxing my shoulders. Smiling at others, and even just into the air when I’m alone.
And then in my briefcase there are the 42 laminated 3×5 cards covered front and back with the Book of Romans, each verse highlighted in a different color, punched and kept on a ring, waiting for me to renew my mind. I got through chapter three 40 years ago, walking through cornfields and driving and walking and memorizing verse after verse. It was wonderful then and will be again. Seems like its tough to get started actually doing it, though.
A Bible professor at Tulane brought her class to a counselor convention, where Margaret and I sat in an auditorium with several hundred others. The class stood around the stage and recited Philippians 4 together. We loved it, we gave them a standing ovation. Their teacher offered this set of analogies: memorizing a verse is like lighting a candle. Various verses light several candles. Memorizing a chapter is like turning on bright headlights. And memorizing a book? That’s like turning on the banks of lights at a football stadium, bank by bank by bank.
Darkness doesn’t stand a chance.
Along both banks of the river, fruit trees of every kind shall grow;
their leaves shall not fade, nor their fruit fail.
(Ezekiel 47, Psalm 46, Psalm 51, John 5)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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