We have a strong city;
God makes salvation
its walls and ramparts.
Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
You will keep in perfect peace
him whose mind is steadfast,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.
He humbles those who dwell on high,
he lays the lofty city low;
he levels it to the ground
and casts it down to the dust.
Feet trample it down –
the feet of the oppressed,
the footsteps of the poor.
Isaiah 26:1-6

This just keeps on happening, doesn’t it? Lofty cities are laid low.

I have to admit, I kind of long for the day when the feet of the oppressed walk freely over the rubble the high flyers have made of the world on their way to God’s city. I am not sure at all that God will give me my vengeance (or that my true self truly cares about it). It doesn’t matter, anyway, because right now the rubble is piling on the oppressed and I am wondering if I have any equipment at all to dig them out. There is not a lot of time to care about how to get even with who did this to us!!

Parker Palmer was on Bill Moyer’s Journal (old men saying wise things) this week. One of our friends told Gwen to record it. He said his personal depression was mirrored in and mirroring the depression of our financial system. It made me kind of alarmed. I know a lot of depressed and distressed people right now, and the number seems to be growing. Plus, so many bad things happened to the church this week – sexual immorality is uncovered, financial ineptitude discovered, a former lease goes to collection, weak people raise alarm (as they do when things are generally bad – they soak up and channel the feelings), people lose jobs, people hole up and act scared. I really began to think we are under general attack.

When Isaiah’s city was being brought low, God gave him a vision of the city whose walls are God’s salvation. I also began to think that a wonderful change must be about to happen. I’m not so old yet, but I am old enough to know that supposedly bad times (like your personal depression) are often the beginnings of the next great time. Now if we can just keep our minds on what God (who makes something out of nothing) is going to do, so we can have some peace in the midst of this mess!