The world needs more reminders.
Guns need not just one safety lock but five safety reminders, plus a mandatory essay about violence, before each firing of a single bullet. Bombs need civilian ballot measures that pass by majority vote before being detonated against an enemy. Our emails should come with a tone-check, in addition to a spell-check, that we must review and approve before sending.
“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between [me] and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” – Genesis 9:16 (NRSV)
Our picket fences should be engraved with “borders are a social construct” on every post, lest we forget that no one really “owns” the property on which they live.
We need more reminders that we are interrelated, fewer indicators that we are islands. We need more prompts to slow us down before we cause harm, and fewer restraints that limit us from love.
Make it a bow around the finger or a bow in the sky, but make it something that effectively deters us from destruction. Even God needed such a reminder. How much more humanity?
God set a reminder in the clouds to never again allow flood waters to separate living creatures from God’s presence. Paul expanded the list: It’s not only flood waters that cannot separate us from God; neither can angels or empires, histories or futures, perils or threats, nor anything else imaginable separate us from God.
With this assurance, we must remind ourselves constantly not to be separated from one another either.
Prayer ~ You remember, O Eternal God, what I too easily forget: that I am not my own, that I am inherently caught up in and bound to all others. Remind me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rachel Hackenberg is the publisher for The Pilgrim Press.