Praying sabbath prayers with sweetcorn...

Today is Sabbath time in our home: a full day given over to deep rest and quiet reflection on God's grace. As the elders have made clear, when we embrace the sacred rhythm of life we find ourselves at peace with the Lord, with our neighbors and also ourselves. Yesterday was given over to finding some solace for Di from her excruciating back pain. It had become debilitating and demanded aggressive relief. 

One of our prayers of gratitude today will surely be for palliative care. Another embodied prayer will also involve eating some fresh, sweetcorn from Hadley. It is one of the true blessings of living in the Berkshires. As a child, we would regularly head up to this area as my family had a cottage on Lake Webster. It was better known Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg an Algonquin/Nipmuc Indian word for "the fishing place at the boundaries." And one of the things I counted on was fresh sweetcorn in abundance.

It was often my job to shuck 24 ears of corn, but it was small price to pay given the feast that would follow. I feel almost childlike again whenever the roadside stand with Hadley corn opens after the Fourth of July. So, today is a time to be still - a time to practice what Rabbi Heschel called trusting God to run the universe so that I don't have to - in the hopes that if I can trust God peacefully for one day, then maybe I can come to trust the Lord more consistently throughout the week.