Pastor’s Corner: Devotionals

May 1, 2019

It’s a funny thing.

I write “devotional works” fairly often. I write sermons every week. I contributed to our Lenten Devotional, Open the Heart, and our Advent Devotional, An Advent of Giving. I think about things in front of a camera each week for What I’m Thinking. Then there’s the Pastor’s Corner in The Messenger.

I don’t read a lot of other people’s devotionals, however. Relatively few of them engage my soul, and the entire point of reading a devotional is to get my soul engaged with God.

I regularly read the UCC’s Daily Devotional, and many times my heart leaps, or my mind steps sideways, or my breath catches. Those are ways that I know my soul has engaged. There are a few days that doesn’t happen, but they don’t discourage me. I’ll be back.

Other devotionals, well… they don’t engage me often enough. I haven’t been back.

There are writers to whom I go back time after time. These tend to be poetic writers. They rarely make a single coherent point, but there is a richness in the words that moves me in some place deeper than between my ears. Maren Tirabassi, Rachel Hackenberg, the authors at RevGalBlogPals, are among those I return to time and time again.

Where do you go?

I’m extraordinarily proud of the work we did producing two seasonal devotionals in four months. I also know that they didn’t engage everyone who read them. They couldn’t possibly.

What did you learn about yourself from these booklets, and from the other things you’ve read? What simply passed before your eyes without engaging you? What stirred something deep?

Keep returning to those deep wells, my friends, and don’t worry about offending me or anybody else. Find the wellsprings of the spirit that are yours alone. Go there, and drink deep.

With aloha,

Pastor Eric