Friday Rest

Friday of the 30th Week of Ordinary Time

Psalm 147

Praise the Lord,

O Jerusalem,

chant praises to your God.

The strength of God is your fortress sure,

and blessed are your children.

God in Psalm 147:

heals

blesses

gathers

binds

calls

fills

Remembering what God does for me…Its Friday...I'll rest in that.

For the Love of God

Thursday of Week 30 in Ordinary Time

Romans 8:31-39

There are those passages that I never get tired of hearing.  

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God is always there, steadfast, and in it for the long haul.  No thing and no person can change that.  But I can forget.  I can become exceedingly distracted.  I can ignore.  Thank God for those who do the whole "imitation of Christ" thing well.  They fill my world with helpful signposts.

Grant me eyes to see the signposts…and the passion to become one.

Don't Wander Off Without Your Keys

Wednesday of Week 30 in Ordinary Time

Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Today we read the neat and tidy conclusion of Paul's persuasive argument to the Ephesians:

…strangers and aliens no longer.  No, now we are part of the building whose capstone is 'Christ Jesus' himself.

Christ Jesus.  He is the interpretive key.

All good and well.  But right now I don't feel like a perfectly placed puzzle piece.  I believe in my head, but my heart is on one of its periodic side trips.  Paul reminds me, "take the key with you and you will always be able to open the next door.”

The human heart has to struggle

between its urges for stability

and its unpredictable restlessness.    

from Seeing and Believing, Frank Kacmarcik and Paul Philibert, p21

Saint Jude,

Patron of lost causes,

intercede for all who plead

on their knees and with quivering faith

for the lost to be found.

Precious Lord

Tuesday of Week 30 in Ordinary Time

Luke 13:18-21

It grew and became a large shrub and birds of the air nested in its branches.

I slept on this text last night.  The kingdom is my home/our home…a place of nesting and safety.  

Yesterday I heard the story of Thomas Dorsey (not Tommy) a musician that got religion and became a great hymn writer and church musician.  He was in St Louis for a week-end church gig when his wife, back home in Chicago gave birth.  The telegram said, "You have a son."  Then the next line, "Your wife has died.  Come home."  Then there was the gathering and the grief.  And more death.  A seemingly healthy son soon dies.

Where does one go when the home is no longer the home?  The story goes that Thomas Dorsey didn't write anything for  a long while until he stopped by a studio where he had recorded many times before.  He stopped and he wrote and he recorded.  He wrote his psalm, Precious Lord.  His walk in the wilderness led him home.  Not triumphant…but tired and weak and worn.

Precious Lord doesn't have answers…just yearning and longing.  But not homeless anymore.  The kingdom of God, a home, a nest, a shelter, where life's troubling questions can be set down; where the questioner can rest even without answers.

Some are kicked into the wilderness by trouble…
Others are pushed and prodded…
Others go kicking and screaming…

But the wilderness seems to be a must?

Seeing from the Underside

Monday of Week 30 of Ordinary Time

Luke 13:10-17

What does life look like seen from a "bent over" stance?  I tried it.  It looks heavy because everything is above.  It looks disproportionate…the closest things are underside things.

What did this woman look like to Jesus?  The text says that he saw her.  I tried that too.  The only way he could have seen her was if he intentionally maneuvered so that he could.  He must have bent over...as she was bent over, so that he could see her face to face.

He set her free by first seeing her and then healing her so that she will see others and others will see her.  But first he sought to see.

I wonder if my own ability to see is being quite underutilized!  I see all that comes across my field of vision.  But do I seek?  Do I bend over?  Do I look under and around?  To think what I am missing!  It will take a Jesus-like effort on my part to see and be seen in such a way that erupts in freedom for both the bent and the unbent.

Filled Up

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Master, I want to see  Mark 10:51

You are my son:  this day I have begotten you  Hebrews 5:5

Of course Bartimaeus wanted to see!  But the sight he was given was so much more than he asked for.

What I’ve been given is so much more than I could think to ask for as well.  I have been begotten.  I love that word…begotten.

I have been brought forth.  Brought forth…it rings with purposefulness.  And that purposefulness has an end…as in goal…as in fulfillment.  That fulfillment is tied up with my sight…with what I see and how I interact with what I see. 

May I see well, and clearly, and with mercy…may I see as Jesus saw Bartimaeus.

The Lord has done great things for us,

filled us with laughter and music!   Psalm 126

…and sight!

Forest & Trees

Friday of the 29^th Week of Ordinary Time

Feast of St. John of Capistrano

(Patron of Military Chaplains) 

Luke 12:54-59

Jesus wonders…

Why is it that you can discern impending weather by watching the sky but you are incapable of discerning the signs of the time all around you?

Good question.  Sounds like the forest from the trees question. 

And then Jesus finally gets back to the question asked by the brothers squabbling over inheritance issues back in verse 13.

I think they go together.  Culturally we are pretty quick to push disputes up the chain.  For some reason we give up, too quickly I believe, on the effort for local and proximate resolution.  The local and proximate resolution demands an intimacy, a facing one another eye to eye, a willingness to let our guard down.  The forest we can’t see is the whole local community.  The health of that community (our home) is strengthened when we deal with our disputes face to face.

But it’s just plain easier to push it up the chain.  Jesus says that even if you do have to appear before an arbitrator, continue your effort to settle the matter on the way.

To you I call;

For you will surely heed me,

O God;

Guard me as the apple of your eye;

In the shadow of you wings protect me. 

Today’s Entrance Antiphon

Psalm 16:6,8

Too Happy-Happy?

Thursday of Week 28 in Ordinary Time

Luke 12:49-53

I wish I could edit this passage out but I'm not on the lectionary committee. It's just troubling.

Jesus seems to be saying that he knows that his life...his words...his way...will cause a lot of division. Even in the most intimate of household relationships. All this from the Prince of Peace!

That must be the point. Love, genuine God-like love is never quite satisfied with the status quo. Choosing to follow Jesus has led so many to very real crosses.  So I'm guessing Jesus thinks it's better to go in with your eyes wide open.

Might my discomfort come from not trusting just how open my eyes really are?  Is my "following Jesus" a little too happy-happy?

What Fell?

Tuesday of the 29^th Week of Ordinary Time

Romans 5:12-19

I’ve read some truly thought provoking interpretations of this passage. 

What was it that “fell” in the “Fall”?  A Girardian read suggests that the Adamic Fall portrays the fall of desire rather than the fall of human nature itself.  And the cool thing is that, with the help of grace, my fallen desire can be re-oriented to its proper/original/eden-esque object…which is God.

The fruit of this interpretation is that it redeems desire.  Desire is good.  Desire is a part of what makes us human.  And it is the holy use of our freedom that will cooperate with grace and orient our desire toward that first, life-giving, 

capital -O-,Other.  God’s way of loving, given human flesh in Jesus, gives us a model to imitate.  Desire is imitative.  We catch it.  Best to catch it from the best of models.  The alternative is a legion of small -o-, others.

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.  God even uses our sin in our favor…is it because sin is a good place to find desire that needs re-orienting?    What wondrous love---never giving-up---love!