This Sunday the preacher said faith is the gap between the kingdom of God we only catch faint glimpses of and that which is coming.

I like that.

In days like these, when just about everywhere I turn the shit seems to have hit the fan, in Ukraine, the Holy Land, and close to home, at our borders and in the form of political stalemates, maybe it’s the faith of Christ that makes it possible for us to look around and recognize that what we see cannot be the kingdom of God for which we long (if only unknowingly).  Maybe, too, the bare fact that we long for this wholeness is also the faith of Christ, eager to work itself out in us.

The gap between these two realities, of a kingdom of God that we’ve caught glimmers of and that we believe is real, and the hard, grim facts on the ground—unrest, gridlock, poverty and want, just to name a few ills that make me want to go put my head in a toilet—is where Christ’s faith can work itself out in us when we let it.

Anne Lamott’s reflections this week are therefore especially touching.  Lest I commit blogosphere plagiarism, you can find them on her Facebook page. But here is a taste…

Many mornings I check out the news as soon as I wake up, because if it turns out that the world is coming to an end that day, I am going to eat the frosting off an entire carrot cake; just for a start. Then I will move onto vats of clam dip, pots of crime brûlée, nachos, M & M’s etc. Then I will max out both my credit cards…Read more here.