Next In-person walk: Saturday, July 11, 9-10 a.m.
Covenant Presbyterian Church back parking lot, 2222 at Mo-Pac, Austin
Next Zoom discussion: Jul 11, 2026, 10:30 AM Central Time (US and Canada), Zoom link is here.
By Janet Davis
Walk In: Losing our Lives by by Seeking Shelter
One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock
Psalm 27: 4
Questions
What trouble (inner or outer) do you need shelter from today?
Try, without judgment, to make a list of people, places, thoughts, possibilities, or circumstances around you that cause you alarm or create a sense of danger within you. It is often “younger parts” within us that feel such things most intensely so try to let yourself honor those fears even if they don’t seem “rational” or “proportionate.”
What places or people or prayer practices help you feel the comfort, care, safety, security, and shelter of God’s love?
From that place of safety, how might your life look differently?
Center: Meeting the Holy One in the Shelter of the Sky
Where I grew up there was more
blue than green
You learned to like the spaces in between
Everywhere you go, there you are
No matter how surprising or how
far
Some things I will never understand
How a weary heart can open and
expand…
I don’t know how, I don’t know why
I’ve always felt so at home
Beneath the sheltеr of the sky
I don’t know what it might imply
I’ve always felt so at homе
Beneath the shelter of the sky
Shelter of the Sky by Carrie Newcomer
Questions
We often mistakenly believe that making our individual storehouses larger and our lives smaller, and less connected is the only path to safety. However, in the wisdom of God, connection with The Divine, creation, and community are often the nature of true shelter.
Where in your life are you temped to rely on store houses, smallness, or isolation?
What might help your heart open and expand under the big sky of God’s care and provision?
What new kinds of connection might offer you a new kind of safety and shelter?
Walk Out: Saving Our Lives by Sheltering Refugees like God
Mold
God won’t suddenly jump in and fix the world
any more than this poem will. But listen.
God is the mustard seed of goodness
that slips down between the cracks, and roots.
God is at it, in infinite small ways,
like a virus spreading, like radioactive waste,
like knotweed you can’t get rid of.
God crawls down into the lowest places,
creeping deeper and deeper, under stuff, behind things,
always the dirtiest places, the poorest, most ignored.
God is the mold in the basement of the Fortress,
spreading the love that rots the timbers of cruelty.
The Empire won’t suddenly turn generous,
the Presidential Palace sheltering refugees.
But it can’t seal itself against spring,
against the fragrance of mercy.
The realm of God is like an infection
for which there is no cure.
The world won’t soon be fixed,
but it can never be purified of love.
Questions
Our individual temptations to storehouses and smallness and isolation can show up in our communities as well. Think of the individuals, families, neighbors, organizations, church groups or communities of any kind you tend to spend time with.
Which feel closed or open?
Focused on storehouses or sharing so that there is enough for all?
Connecting or isolating? How might you be a force for God’s infective, generous, spacious and sheltering love in each space?