Prayer Requests

Please pray for the members of the South Dakota National Guard. More are set to deploy overseas.

Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Please pray for the South Dakota Legislature, in session this month.

O GOD, the fountain of wisdom, whose statutes are good and gracious and whose law is truth; We beseech thee so to guide and bless the Legislature of this State, that it may ordain for our governance only such things as please thee, to the glory of thy Name and the welfare of the people; through Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Ash Wednesday: open up my internet and here's the news...

Lohan: `It's Like, What Was I Thinking?'
NEW YORK (AP) — Hindsight is 20-20 for Lindsay Lohan. "When I look back on this last year, it's like, what was I thinking?" the 21-year-old actress says in the March issue...
Full Story
• Spears Released From LA Hospital
• Paris Hilton Goes to Harvard
• Accidental Pill Overdose Killed Ledger

For he himself knows whereof we are made; *he remembers that we are but dust.

Our days are like the grass; *we flourish like a flower of the field;

When the wind goes over it, it is gone, *and its place shall know it no more.

But the merciful goodness of the LORD endures for ever on those who fear him, *and his righteousness on children's children;

On those who keep his covenant *and remember his commandments and do them.

Psalm 103, appointed for the Ash Wednesday Liturgy

My Lenten Discipline

The Prophet Amos by Gustave Dore

People who follow the church's liturgical calendar are about to enter the season of Lent.

Traditionally, people try to give up some luxury, a normal pleasure or a bad behavior during this season (we usually fail and learn more about what it means to depend upon Christ instead of ourselves.) Alternatively, one can add a discipline during Lent, such as spiritual study (many churches offer a "Lenten Series" for this reason), acts of charity or added times of prayer.

My discipline will be to pray over Amos 7:2 -


When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said,‘O Lord God, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!’

God sent a locust plague on Israel because of national corruption. The rich trampled on the poor, justice was partial and corrupt, and people dabbled in all kinds of false religion instead being true to the One God.

The prophet Amos interceded for the people. Seeing the destruction worked by the locusts, Amos worried that God's people would be annihilated. They (The ancestral name Jacob, like Israel, stands for the whole nation) were too small to withstand God-sized punishment.

The verse has been nagging at me for weeks. I've been more aware than usual of my own distance from God in attitudes and behaviors. My own inflated sense of self is giving way to the realization of how small I am in the scheme of things. Personally, the last few years have seen difficulties multiply and some familiar joys disappear. And beyond my personal challenges, The Episcopal Church is wretched beyond description - and the act of describing it only makes things more toxic.

Somehow, this verse speaks to all that mess. Not sure how, exactly, which is why my intention is to spend Lent with Amos 7:2 in a couple of ways:

Recollection: When I find myself anxious, angry or otherwise revved up, I will call this verse to mind and repeat it to myself.

Contemplation: I will set aside quiet time and space to read this verse, be still and give God my best attention, so He can show me what he wants in these words.

May your Lent be a holy season. May you find the compassion, mercy and help of Christ close at hand.

South Dakota Senate Bill 164

You can look at the bill here.

It contains language such as, "It is the public policy of this state that the interest in freedom from unreasonable government intrusions into the private lives of citizens, and specifically the right of consenting individuals to obtain and use safe and effective methods of contraception without interference by governmental entities, shall be safeguarded and that the laws of this state shall be interpreted and construed to recognize and protect these rights."

Those used to legislative shenanigans know that this kind of language is not about restricting government, but about foisting government mandates on all kinds of people and institutions - pharmacists, Catholic hospitals, empowering bureaucrats against parents where minors are involved, etc.

If you live in South Dakota and want to sound off, there is an automated contact site for State Senators.

Hat tip to The Alpha Center.

Lent is about to settle on the Plains

The Plains are not forgiving. Anything that is shallow - the easy optimism of a homesteader; the false hope that denies geography, climate, history; the tree whose roots don't reach ground water - will dry up and blow away.

Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography

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Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Liturgy of Ash Wednesday

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When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, "Sovereign LORD, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!"

Amos 7:2

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The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit:

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Psalm 51, appointed for Ash Wednesday

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What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God— through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:24-25

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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21, appointed for Ash Wednesday