Tap Here for a video meditation on Psalm 95.

[From the version for families with children]

Can you imagine this psalm being prayed in the middle of the night for centuries—about a 2 AM?  How’s that for getting up early!  There are religious communities who live to praise God, work and pray in God’s presence all the time.  They even promise to stay in the same place all the days of their life, challenging us to be careful about all the traveling that we want to do.  Jesus never went beyond the Lands that became holy by his presence.

Pray this psalm in the spirit of those who begin their day in the middle of the night.  While everyone is sleeping the prayer is sung out for the whole earth, inviting all the peoples to return to the basics of life and praise God.

The middle of the night….quiet, peaceful—a good time for prayer…for you too, if you find yourself awake for awhile at that time.  It’s soon to be the middle of the season when nights are much longer than days—winter.   It’s in this setting that we celebrate Advent—the season to become awakened to God and God’s love in our lives.

 Psalm 95

What are Bible Breaths? Learn More

We follow a reading of the Psalms in numerical order.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information

[From the original version]

What future is there for a eunuch? No progeny—only endless cycles of boring chores, as worker bees in a hive, unable to make the queen fertile. However, the miracle of children and a future will come even for them, if they keep Sabbath sacred space—wombs of time, fertilized by fidelity to God’s Word.

The first Advent candle is lit, sowing a seed of light into the dark womb of night. Place yourself before the candle at the center of those places within where there is anything like despairing darkness. Resist the smugness of those beastly types with their vain feelings of power. Each of their tomorrows will become darker and darker. Take hope. It is Advent. Jesus the light longs to make your heart fertile. Will you let him?

Isaiah 56

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In the season of Advent this year, we continue to read Isaiahl.

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

[From the original version]

A shrill blast pierces the silence of the descending darkness of an autumn evening. It is the shofar, the ram’s horn, summoning the people to a sobering awareness of the end times as the Jewish New Year begins in autumn.

Today the New Year for the Church begins. The voice of Jesus sounds the call for readiness, awareness, sobriety, watchfulness—in short, for prayer. The message shakes us to our roots, loosening those places within where we are bound to a world passing away.

What the shofar is to the silence, the first Advent candle is to the darkness. Enter the beauty of the darkness of this season and the way in which tiny particles of light pierce the night with an expanding joy. Jesus is coming.

Luke 21:25–36

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
In year C, we give a special focus to the Gospel of Luke.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.