Generosity: Week 12 of Ordinary Time
Look: Interactive map of Native Lands - Source; Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America, University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab via An American Lament - Source
About the Mapping Inequality interactive map, via NPR:
“In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the U.S. government set out to evaluate the riskiness of mortgages — and left behind a stunning portrait of the racism and discrimination that has shaped American housing policy.
Now a new digital tool makes it easier than ever to see that history in high-resolution.
The project features the infamous redlining maps from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation. In the late 1930s, the HOLC "graded" neighborhoods into four categories, based in large part on their racial makeup. Neighborhoods with minority occupants were marked in red — hence "redlining — and considered high-risk for mortgage lenders.” (Read the rest here.)
Listen: The Zaccheaus Song, The Porter’s Gate, feat. Sandra McCracken & Paul Zach -Spotify | YouTube w/ lyrics
I made us a new playlist! Listen here: Ordinary Time, pt. 2: Love My Neighbor & Myself
Read: (Sunday) Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 147; Ephesians 5:3-14; John 6:53-59
Readings for the rest of the week*: Psalm 112; Genesis 13; Matthew 20:1-16; Luke 21:1-4; Romans 12:1-13
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Twelfth Week After Pentecost
Keep your Church, O Lord, by your perpetual mercy; and because without you the frailty of our nature causes us to fall, keep us from all things hurtful, and lead us to all things profitable for our salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Do: For this middle seven weeks of Ordinary Time, we’ll consider a cycle of God’s love that alternates between permission to love ourselves and the imperative to love our neighbor.
This week, consider how one response to God’s incalculable grace is to extend that bounty to our neighbors.
In the lavish generosity of God’s presence with you, consider the following question: Where do you have an opportunity to be generous this week with your money, time, or God-given abilities?
Register for the second virtual retreat in the Rhythms of Grace Retreat Series for Ordinary Time.
On August 26, I’m hosting Love My Neighbor & Myself. You can read all of the details and register at this link.
*During Ordinary Time this year, I’ll be sharing readings from the excellent devotional guide, Living the Christain Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross. While it’s not necessary to purchase the book to follow along with us, it’s an excellent resource we’ve dog-eared so often the pages are falling out of our copy!