Tonight we are once again turning back to the Psalms and specifically Psalm 31:9-16
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.
My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.
Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbours
and an object of dread to my closest friends - those who see me on the street flee from me.
I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery.
For I hear many whispering, “Terror on every side!”
They conspire against me and plot to take my life.
But I trust in you, Lord; I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in your hands; deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me.
Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.
Psalm 31:9-16 (NIV)
Although the Psalmist’s problem here seems to be a combination of human enemies, together with age and infirmity, so many of the statements in this Psalm could easily be written in these days where people can even be an “object of dread to my closest friends - those who see me on the street flee from me.” It is all to easy to hear and see “Terror on every side!” Indeed I’ve taken to rationing my daily “coronavirus news intake”.
But whilst the psalmist cannot look to his friends and neighbours for help because they are engaging in “radical social distancing” fleeing from him in the street, he can turn to God, acknowledging that his time, his very life is in God’s hands…
And that is where today’s #LentArt post of Clotho comes in. Clotho was one of the 3 Moirae, or “Fates” in Greek mythology… She and her sisters Lachesis and Atropos were said in some forms of the legends to be daughters Zeus and Themis, but in older stories they were said to be primaeval deities, daughters of Night or Necessity, who held the destinies even of the gods in their hands, spinning, measuring and then cutting the thread of life. Clotho was the spinner, drawing out the thread of life from the spindle with her hand… All across the Indo-European traditions there are similar stories, ranging from the Hurrian Hutena, to the Norse Norns… actually given that this mural is in Ostia then maybe this figure should real be called Nona, one of the three Latin Parcae. There are suggestions that the same idea is behind Macbeth’s 3 Witches.
Most Greek deities were relatively self-seeking, caring little for the fate of mere mortals, indeed treating them cruelly at times. But whilst the Moirae are not described as having the same capricious cruelty of many other Greek gods, they are seen as relatively implacable. With Clotho, our time may be in her hands, but she doesn’t actually care. Supplication to such a goddess is pointless. And the reason I posted this particular image of Clotho, from a mural in the Museum of Antiquities in Ostia, is that for some reason she doesn’t have a face… It’s probably been worn away, rather than originally being painted that way, but there is no point in asking such a deity to “shine her face” on you, because she has no face to shine.
And whilst at this time it may be hard to discern the hand or the face of God, we can still turn to him in prayer knowing that he listens and he cares…
And the lives of countless thousands are in his hands… Hands that are working through the gloved hands of doctors, nurses and other health care workers at this time…
May they and we know God’s unfailing love.
PRAYER
Our time, our lives are in your hands, O Lord
May we know there is no safer place for them to be.
We pray for those using their hands to reach out
And touch and care and treat
When a touch can bring risk to both parties.
We pray for those who long for human touch
For a friendly face
But who are absolutely, and utterly alone.
May they know your touch
See your face
And where we might be your hands
Your face
Show us how.
AMEN
Shalom
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