Psalm 1 is a prayer that every person and community would see themselves in that thriving, healing tree, growing by the water. 

“…What draws me into the story is the relationship between Naomi and Ruth. What profound love must exist between them that Naomi—who is an immigrant in Ruth’s Moabite land, and knows the danger she faces in solo migration to Judah—insists that Ruth remain. What profound love must exist between them that Ruth, who knows the risks that she—a Moabite woman about to immigrate to Judah, might bear—goes anyway.”

When you center love, as Jesus sure seemed to do in action and when asked about the greatest commandment, a lot of rules fall away.  Or, put another way, rules are revealed for their true purpose.  Not ends in themselves, but structures in service of love and liberation. But I do wonder sometimes about our freedom…

Names, even if we aren’t aware of it, place us in a story.  Sometimes it’s a beautiful story we choose to dedicate our life to.  Sometimes it’s a painful story that calls for repentance and repair.  Sometimes its both.