2nd Sunday of Lent

Our readings for the 2nd Sunday of Lent are:

1. Genesis 12: 1-41
2. Psalms 33: 4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
3. 2 Timothy 1: 8b-10
4. Matthew 17: 1-9

• Do they have WiFi where we're going?
• Abram, as the patriarch of a prosperous tribe, had to marshal everyone together and get them saddled up for the trip to the Promised Land.  Doubtless caravans had come from Palestine, bringing goods and impressions, but little else.
• When was the last time that you had to venture into something new to you?
• What made you leave what you were familiar with, comfortable with behind?
• Did you feel at all prepared for that move?
• Was it a good idea, to leave all of that behind?

• Hoping against hope
• An old friend used to say "I feel so much better now that I've given up all hope."  That fatalist sentiment certainly has its adherents, but it's fundamentally flawed in its outlook.  It says that the grief, the pain, the vulnerability of hope is not worth it.  Tragically, it's hard for us to realize that the pain, the grief fuel true hope and fan its flames.
• What is it that you most hope for?
• Is there a hope behind that?  For instance, I used to hope for a long life.  Then I shifted and started to merely hope for a healthy life, thinking that good health right up to the very end is a very good thing.  Now, I hope that I have the strength to persevere in my faith on through my dying breath and beyond.  Is that progression merely settling, or is it maturing?
• Is that process of transforming what I hope for done?
• Where do you think that process of transforming hope is headed?

• Finding holiness
• Thinking of the holy men and women who have graced history with their lives, shat are the marks of holiness?
• How do the holy ones achieve holiness in their lives?
• What made them do it?  Do you think they were transported in and by their prayer, that they saw visions and dreamed dreams of the Divine because of their holiness?
• What do the holy ones have to deny themselves?
• Is it worth it?

• Perspective
• Jesus is a complex character at best.  Past heresies asserted that Jesus' human form was merely a disguise.  If that be the case, then He lifted that disguise briefly in today's Gospel.  But I prefer to think if the transfiguration more as an opening of the disciples' eyes to the greater wonders beyond what they customarily saw, heard, felt, apprehended.
• What does the term "revelation" mean to you?
• How is God revealing to you today?
• What part do you have in that Divine revelation?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. What might God be calling me out of?
2. Where is God calling me to greater hope?
3. Where is God calling me to holiness today?
4. Do I really trust God to reveal Himself in me?

Comfort Zone

It used to be easier.
Back when we thought that there was only so much to go around.
There was almost a nobility to being poor.
Because that meant that someone else must be rich.

But now, people far smarter than I am,
Tell me that there is no limit to the expanding economy.
That one person achieving prosperity and success,
Does nothing to diminish someone else's achievements.

So, it would seem, that there is no reason not to be a stunning success
At whatever it is that life calls us.
The only trouble is, how do you measure success?
No one wants to just be a legend in their own mind.

Is success measured by how many lives we touch?
Maybe by how long others remember us?
Or the time it takes before anyone realizes what we've accomplished?
How deeply we have loved?

Perhaps success is a measure of how faithfully we share of ourselves,
And only ourselves.
Not some expectation of us, or who we would prefer to be.
But who we were born to be.

But how to find that person?
Do I wander far from home to find him?
Is he lurking in lessons of my past that I have yet to learn?
Is he waiting for the right time to reveal himself?

Or, maybe that true self waits for some attention
In the moments between the busyness of all the business.
Waiting for some silence
Into which he can speak softly

I love you.
I have known you from eternity into eternity
You are mine and I dwell within you
Be still and know that I am God.

Shalom!