All posts tagged bible

I will sing to the Lord, for he is lofty and uplifted;
    the plane and its hijackers has he hurled into the ground.

The Lord is my strength and my refuge;
   the Lord has become my Savior.

This is my God and I will praise him,
    the God of my people and I will exalt him.

The Lord is a mighty warrior;
    YHWH is his Name.

The jet planes of bin Laden and his army has he hurled into the ground;
    the finest of those who bear weapons have been crushed into the earth.

The Pentagon walls have embraced them;
   they plunged into the towers like a bomb.

Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in might;
    your right hand, O Lord, has overthrown the enemy.

Who can be compared with you, O Lord, among the gods?
    who is like you, glorious in holiness,
       awesome in renown, and worker of wonders?

You stretched forth your right hand;
   the passengers stole their victory.

With your constant love you redeemed the children of your heart;
    with your might you brought them in peace to your holy dwelling.

You will bring them in and plant them
    on the mount of your possession,

The resting-place you have made for yourself, O Lord,
    the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hand has established.

The Lord shall reign
    for ever and for ever.

(Sister Heather Rollins, OPA, September 5, 2011)

(Source: undercovernun.net)

This Sunday is the Jewish festival of Purim, which celebrates a deliverance of the Jewish people from persecution and genocide, around 470 BCE.  You can read the story in the Book of Esther, which is a quick and fairly exciting read.

Once I discovered Esther’s story, I very quickly fell in love with her.  Her story takes place in a time when women had very little power, and minority women had even less.  Esther used what power and influence she had to change the mind of the king, so that her people would be saved. 

To imagine this today, assume that we have an unmarried Presbyterian President in the White House, and that he falls in love with a Muslim woman and marries her.  She learns that the Congressional hearings on Islam are starting to result in peaceful Muslims being locked up in Guantanamo as “detainees,” denied their civil rights, and destined for deportation and/or death.  As a result of her impassioned pleading for the freedom and dignity of her Muslim sisters and brothers, the President issues an Executive Order causing all detained Muslims to be freed and restitution paid to them.  This woman would be a great hero to American Muslims, and would be an inspiration to many of us from other faith traditions, for her courage to stand up for what is right.

***

Three years ago, my (now-husband, then-)fiance spent a monthlong visit here from Canada.  While he was here, I’d gone into the office for a few hours and found a surprise when I left.  An itsy-bitsy teeny-weenie little black kitten was meowing at me, loudly.  I looked around, remembering a black feral cat that spent her days in the office park, then shrugged and followed her.  She led me back to her momma’s nest under the bushes, where her three siblings lay.  They were malnourished, dehydrated, barely able to move, unable to cry.  My hand flew to my mouth as tears welled up in my eyes.

I went inside to ask receptionists if anyone had seen that black feral cat in the last few days.  It turns out that she’d been struck by a car a few days before, and had died.  I went to my car, grabbed a reusable grocery bag, and carefully placed the ailing kittens into it.  All the while, the itsy-bitsy teeny-weenie little black kitten mewed at me plaintively, rubbing against my legs and arms as I picked up her wee siblings.  I started addressing her as Kittenpants.  “C’mon, little Kittenpants, into the bag.”  The Kittenpants would go into the bag and immediately climb back out.  She wasn’t going to be trapped in there, nuh-uh, no way, no how!  On the third or fourth try I put her in and pinched the bag shut before she escaped, so that I could get us all to the car.

Once there, I wasn’t quite sure what to do.  I knew I wasn’t up to the challenge of nursing these little ones back to health, so I sighed and headed for the local animal control facility.  Meanwhile, the Kittenpants climbed out of the bag again, while the sick ones cuddled up together, and she insisted on being with me while I drove.  As a young’un, she didn’t want to stay still, so she would wander from shoulder to chest to shoulder, trying to scale the headrest (pulling her back down, “No, little Kittenpants, stay with me.”) or slip through the gaps in the steering wheel.  She was an adorable thing, barely a handful and bright as a whip.

When we got to animal control, I realized that the Kittenpants had pwned me: there was no way I could leave her behind.  The ladies at intake oohed and aahed over the starving babies, and bustled about preparing kitten formula for them.  With assurances that the little ones would be well cared for, the Kittenpants and I drove home.

It took only a few minutes of discussion for her name to become clear to us, and the itsy-bitsy teeny-weenie little cat became Esther Gabriel Kittenpants.  She was named for Queen Esther, because she rescued her people from death.  Gabriel, angel of the Annunciation, lent her his name for the loud annunciations this wee kitty had made to me.  And Kittenpants, well, that one just stuck.  :-)

So on Sunday, I invite you to remember Queen Esther.  Similar to traditional observances, you can read her story in the bible, have some friends over for dinner while you watch basketball, send your mom a fruit bouquet, and make a donation for relief efforts in Japan, Haiti, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, or wherever your heart is called. 

Because the truth is, even the least powerful and the least influential of us has the opportunity to save the world.