Living in the Spirit

August 23, 2021

Scripture Reading: Song of Solomon 2:8-13  
The voice of my beloved!
   Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
   bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
   or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
   behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
   looking through the lattice.

My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away;

for now the winter is past,
   the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
   the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
   is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,

   and the vines are in blossom;
   they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away.

While reading this scripture, I was reminded of the works of Victor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz who taught us how to find the meaning of life drawn from his experience in the very depths of desperation.  He longed for the end of the winter in which he found himself. Two of his thoughts particularly struck me as relevant for a people striving to deal with loving our neighbors as we love ourselves amid a pandemic that does not discriminate who it attacks.

Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.

We face nothing as atrocious as the Holocaust. Yet, we serve the same God that Frankl and many others turned to from the hell of the camps. We can learn from their knowledge and recognize that our calling is to be responsible and love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Prayer: Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.