13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Wisdom 1: 13-15, 2: 23-24
   
2. Psalms 30: 2, 4, 5-6, 11, 12, 13
   
3. 2 Corinthians 8: 7, 9, 13-15
   
4. Mark 5: 21-43
   

• Imago Dei
  
• Every one of us in in the image and likeness of God.  At its core, there is nothing greater that can be said of any of us, nothing higher to aspire to than the fulfillment of the luminous destiny named in that phrase.
• Who are some folks who have been that image of God to you, and for you?
• What aspect of God have they illustrated for you?
• Have you ever celebrated that in them, with them?
• How have they taught you to be the image and likeness of God?
  

• Dancing on thin ice
  
• There used to be a little placard in the parish office that read something like: "if you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance."  I always liked that sentiment.  It spoke of boldness, trust, and freedom to me.
• What are some reasons that you have gotten out of your comfort zone?
• Was it worth it?
• Was there a lasting change in you from that experience, or did you dive back into your comfort zone once the crisis was over?
• How might you handle that same challenge in your life today?
  

• Giving until it hurts?
  
• Development campaigns are as old as organized religion.  Our world is a web of needs, some urgent and life-threatening, others less so.  But all of them clamor to be met.  And God meets the needs of His children through His children.
• What are some of the ministries that you support with time, talent, or treasure?
• How often do you help others outside of those ministries.  Lending a helping hand to some other on the spur of the moment.
• Do you think that your organized ministerial life supports these random acts of kindness in any way?
• Do you think that the random acts of kindness in your life in any way support and sustain the ministries that you are part of?
• Do you think that random acts of kindness are harder to do than a regularly scheduled ministry?
  

• Rolling with the punches
  
• It can be easy to identify with Job.  One thing after another comes at us in life until we feel as though we are drowning in a sea of crisis, large and small.  I wonder at Jesus' grace in the face of getting one healing interrupted by another healing.  Jairus' daughter's need was urgent.  Yet Jesus had the time, and patience for the woman with the hemorrhage.  For my part, I like things linear.  Tackle the challenges one at a time.
• Think of a time, or a season, in your life when you felt that you were juggling too many things at once.
• Did you really need to attend to all of those things at the same time?
• How did you find the grace to be where you needed to be and be who you needed to be for all of those demands on your life?
• Do you feel that you are better able to handle such demanding times in your life?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Who might God be calling me to show His Presence to?
2. Where might God be calling me to more trust, deeper peace?
   
3. Where might I might be more spontaneous in my giving to others?
   
4. What is the next good thing that God is calling me to?
   

Just in case

Some days, I don't know what to do with my plans.

I start with the things that I know have to get done.

Estimate the time and resources that they will take.

And (maybe foolishly) conclude that the rest of the day is open.

 

Yet, it seldom works out that way in practice.

Things take longer than I would have imagined.

Needs surface that I didn't see coming.

And every once in a while, inspiration hits.

 

And my day takes off in a direction I hadn't planned.

I end up pouring myself, my energies, my time

Into something that I had no idea was going to be a priority.

And when the day is done, I'm grateful that the unexpected happened.

 

But wondering how I'm going to get around -

To all of the things that I thought were so important today.

They are still on my "to do" list.

And maybe even more urgent now than they were originally.

 

Sometimes, my roadmap of "shoulds"

The stuff that seemingly needed to get done -

Shifts on me.  The destination changes in the walking toward it.

And I find deep satisfaction in the unplanned.

Other times, those shoulds turn out to far smaller than I thought -

Melting gently into a task far more manageable than I could have imagined.

Transforming along the way, into an effort

Fitting easily into the crumbs of my day.

And I wonder whether those shoulds would have been at all possible -

Had I insisted on working them when I originally wanted to.

That exercising trust brought what I needed where and when I needed it.

And what I needed to remember is that timing is everything.

Which makes me wonder whether I'm alone in this seeming chaos.

And whether there is a much larger picture in all of this.

Some vast symphony of disciples all striving to be attuned

To the delicate web that sustains each of us and all of us.

Which makes me wonder how God somehow continues 

Continues to pull that symphony off

In spite of various ones of us missing our cues

Stumbling off into uncharted territory.

Tell me.

How can I help you step into your destiny?

How can we, together, bring the Kingdom

More deeply today than ever before?

Shalom!

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Job 38: 1, 8-11
   
2. Psalms 107: 23-24, 25-26, 28-29, 30-31
   
3. 2 Corinthians 5: 14-17
   
4. Mark 4: 35-41
   

• Part of God's revelation
  
• Every one of our experiences can reveal God to us, if we let it.  Sometimes, we don't get the answer that we want from our questions and our prayers because we are asking the wrong question.  Rather than ask "when will this trial be over?" the better question is "how can I use this experience to draw me closer to God?"
• Think of a trying time in your life, particularly one that you thought was more than you could handle.
• What was your prayer at that time?
• Did your prayer change as you moved through that experience?
• Why did your prayer change?
• If you went through something that difficult today, would you be any different in how you responded?
  

• The storm within
  
• Chaos around you, loss of control, nothing is predictable, plans lie in rubble at your feet, all seems senseless and hope begins to flicker.  The storm outside of us: our circumstances often threaten our peace within.  It is that peace within that must be tended, even in the most dire of moments.
• Have you ever lost your faith in God?
• Was it God God's self that you were losing faith in, or your faith that God would come through for you, or your faith that God really cared, or your faith that you really mattered to God, or your faith that any of it really matters, or ...?
• Do you feel that God failed you at that moment?
• Did you feel that way at the time?
• What's changed?
• Why?
  

• Paradigm shift
  
• Your paradigm is an organizing principle, the lens through which you view the world.  Fr. Peter would often term this your theology.  If we truly embrace the paradigm that the highest  everything in life is to bring about the Kingdom of God, it changes everything.
• Think of some people who have made a profound impact in your life.
• What sort of relationship did you have with them?
• How did that relationship enable them to be so influential in your life?
• How are they (even if they are gone from our midst) still blessing you today?
• When was the last time that you thanked God for them?
  

• At least panic with me!
  
• God can seem distant if we let ourselves get distracted.  It's easy to believe the lie that He has no skin in the game.  That God is somehow above our petty disasters, our minuscule mishaps, even our moments of deeply dire prospects.
• Think of a time that you saw no way out, that looked as though certain ruin was going to come your way.
• Where did you look for counsel, comfort, advice, support?
• Did you feel lonely in that moment, that you had been abandoned?
• Were you?
• How do you know?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. What are the things in my life that threaten to bring me to despair?
   
2. Where might God be showing me how to trust?
   
3. Is God calling me to be His Presence to another?
   
4. Where can I be more open to God's presence in my life?

Just in Case

My father always told me that the bad mistakes were the ones we didn't learn from.

So Jesus, next time we're in a boat with you,

The waves keep crashing over us with no end in sight.

The water keeps rising no matter how fast we bail.

Just what are we supposed to do?

Waking you up doesn't seem to have been the thing to do.

It seems as though you expected us to somehow respond?

Were we supposed to:

Let the waves overwhelm us and send us to the bottom?

Keep bailing until we can do so no longer,

Hoping for a lessening of the storm?

Scream louder, hoping that God will hear us?

 

Smiling, he shook his head at each question.

Finally I ran out of questions.

He gently asked "are you ready to listen now?"

I mutely nodded. Exhausted.

There is no single answer to your question.

What's called for from you might be very different in the next storm.

Every catastrophe ahead of you has its own lesson to impart,

Its own blessing to bestow.

The virtue required by calamity is peace and trust.

Peace is not the absence of chaos.

Rather peace springs from deep commitment,

Discernment of our Father in all things.

 

Peace is the fruit of connection.

It is watered by seeing the world through my Father's eyes.

Feeling His touch in all that is.

Celebrating His longing intimacy in every touch.

 

Trust affirms that peace.

Gives it strength, courage, perseverance.

So that, in the stillness at your center,

You don't shut out the loud clamor around you.

 

You hear our Father whispering to you through all that is coming at you.

And when you get there, you will know what to do.

So begin now, by celebrating our Father in all things.

So that you are ready to see him clearly at all times.

 

Shalom!

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Ezekiel 17: 22-24
   
2. Psalms 92: 2-3, 13-14, 15-16
   
3. 2 Corinthians 5: 6-10
   
4. Mark 4: 26-34
   

• Part of God's revelation
  
• God reveals Himself, His nature, His priorities to us every day.  By using easily dismissed people like Dorothy Day and Mahatma Gandhi, God reveals His love for all of us, no matter what our station in life is.  He reveals that riches in this world are not what brings power in the truest sense, but humility.
• Who is someone in your life who has helped your relationship with God deepen?  Maybe that's your spouse, or some other family member who has shown you what God is like.
• What was it about them that revealed God's true nature to you?
• Have you ever thanked them for that gift?
  

• Bearing fruit in old age
  
• As I age (and not very gracefully mind you) I have become more and more aware that things that I can do now I will not be able to do forever.  So I need to prepare myself for losing one ability after another, perhaps (if I'm lucky) discovering other ways to contribute along the way.  It would be hard to bear not being able to bear fruit in old age.  Aging is enough of a bear as it is.
• What are the ways that you are bearing fruit for God today?
• How much longer do you think that you'll be able to keep doing that?
• What are some new ministries that you might see opening up for you in the future?
• Or, some ministries that you will be able to emphasize more in the future?
• How will you know when it's time to make those transitions?
• How can you make that process easier?
  

• Pleasing to God
  
• At least in principle, all of us want to please God.  Sometimes though, figuring out whether we're getting it right can be a challenge.
• How do you know when you're pleasing God in any particular thought, word, or deed of yours?
• How, and how often, do you check in with God to find out His reaction to are thinking, saying, doing?
• In those times when you come to realize that you acted out of fear, selfishness, or some other vice, what have you done to get things right again?
• Are you getting any better at this?  Do you feel that your conscience is becoming more finely tuned, that you are more sensitive to God's will in your life?
  

• Come Holy Spirit
  
• No matter how scientific you get about your farming, I'm sure that there will always be room for divine intervention, mystery, wonder about growing things.  We do our part to prepare the soil, sow the seed, irrigate, maintain the land, harvest the results, but in the end, without God's intervention, nothing would come of our efforts.
• What is a case in your life in which God took work that you had done, and blessed it, made it into something much greater than you could ever achieve on your own?
• Were you expecting that?
• Would your work have succeeded without God's intervention?
• Define success.
• How can we be more open to that gift of God in our work, our prayer, our lives?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where is God calling me to reveal Him to others?
   
2. Where might God be showing me how to age?
   
3. Is my life, right here, right now, pleasing to God?
   
4. Where can I be more open to God's presence in my life?

Deep Down

The earthen farrows lie expectant under the April sun.

Moistened with just enough water to help the seeds to take root.

Carefully fertilized for maximum effect.

Ready to receive the final ingredient needed

To bring in the next harvest.

 

The old farmer blessed himself and his tractor before climbing in.

His neighbors had seen him start his sowing thus for many years.

They used to kid him about his unscientific methods.

He only smiled and said

It's not just about me and my work.  Now I hand it off to God.

 

The old farmer's luck with his crops wasn't especially better

Nor was his luck with his crops especially worse than his neighbors either.

But when the hard years came, and they always did,

He seemed to always weather those trials better than anyone.

In spite of blight, blizzard, and destroying insects, he never lost hope.

A longtime friend once asked him

"When all seems lost, your land forlorn, the banks after you, do you hope for abundant yields?"

"Nope", the old farmer would answer.

"Well then, do you think that God will somehow make it all better, even without good crops?"

"No necessarily" the old farmer shook his head.

"What then, do you hope that God will do for you?"

"Be faithful to me His servant.

Reward my faithfulness with His Presence.

I believe that serving Him, in whatever capacity He calls me to,

Makes this world a better place.  Maybe in ways I'll never know.

And that's all I know, all I ask for, all I care about.

Maybe this family farm will someday go under.

Maybe me and my family will have to endure poverty.

Maybe we'll all be forgotten before we're even cold in the grave.

But none of that matters, but one thing.

At each turn in the road of my life, was I where God called me,

Doing what He was calling me to at that time?

Every time I can say yes to that question,

I know I'm a success.  I know I've planted a seed that will yield now and forever.

No matter what the rest of the world thinks of me or my life.

When you see me bless myself each Spring,

It's a prayer to God, rededicating myself, my strength, my all

To His service, whatever that might be, wherever it might lead.

Knowing that I and my kin are but sojourners in this place.

Knowing that this is just a stopping place in our journey."

Shalom!

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Genesis 3: 9-15
   
2. Psalms 130: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
   
3. 2 Corinthians 4: 13 - 5:1
   
4. Mark 3: 25-35
   

• Where are you?
  
• Most of us have at times longed to hear God in our lives as an audible voice, speaking bold and true, bringing consolation, peace, direction.  Be careful what you wish for.  Anyone who has that close a relationship to God is also going to hear the heartbreak, the agony of God when His children, lost and alone, cry out and they don't even know who to call upon anymore.
• If Jesus were available to you visibly, audibly, for one hour each day at a set time and place, would you show up?
• What would you want to discuss with Him?
• How do you think that conversation would evolve over time?  Do you think that you would bring up the same things over and over again?
• How about Jesus?  How do you think His conversation might change with you over time?
• How would you see your life changing in the wake of such an experience over time?
• What's stopping you?
  

• Saving from error
  
• Sometimes, our actions are driven by beliefs that are very deep within us, but which we can hardly articulate in words.  Sometimes these beliefs can only be expressed in pictures, or other media.  But they are just as real, and when they are wrong, they are just as devastating.
• How would you define God's mercy?
• When, in particular, has God been merciful to you?
• Did you have any trouble trusting God for that mercy?
• Is mercy ever easy or cheap?  Is it just some sort of easy excuse from the true consequences of our actions?
• If not, why not?
  

• Will we wear name tags in heaven?
  
• I'm really bad with putting names to faces.  If I go before Mary does, I'm in trouble because I'm afraid I'll keep bumping into people in heaven who remember me very well, and whom I cannot recall to save me.  Mary is much better at that.
• What of our time here on earth will carry over into Eternity?  Would it be the trust that we have in Jesus, our awe of the world around us, the relationships that we have here on earth, our sense of humor, ...?
• Given that, how can you better concentrate on the things that last.
• How can you use the things that don't last to build things in your life that do last?
• How do you tell the difference between them?
  

• Work/life balance
  
• Once word got around about Jesus, His preaching of hope, His healings, His mercy, it always seemed as though there was not enough of Jesus and His disciples to go around, to meet all of the clamoring needs that rushed Him.  His family feared burnout.
• How do you think that Jesus protected/protects His disciples from burnout?
• How can we be better at at bringing more of God's people into active ministry?
• Every year we confirm a batch of young people.  Many of them disappear.  What's with that?
• What can we do to make our parish more vibrant and alive?
• Where can we start?
  

• Preparation for Reconciliation
  

1. Where is God calling me to deeper prayer life?
   
2. Where might God be showing me His mercy right now?
   
3. Where are my priorities?  Where do I spend my time?
   
4. Where can I be more inviting to others?

Where Are You?

I gave you a hug this morning from your four year old daughter.
You seemed more aware of the pizza sauce on her little hands that made you change your shirt.

I kissed you on the cheek this morning at sunrise when you were on your way to work.
You thought it was just a wisp of a breeze caused by the sun's heat on the dewy grass.

I called you to prayer in the rainbow.
But all that you saw was the slowdown on the freeway caused by the unseasonable rain.

I tried to comfort you when your boss laid his hand on your shoulder.

But you were too afraid of what he wanted of you to feel me.

I showed you my love in the lunch that your wife packed for you.

All that you remember is that she gave you one of the kid's spoons by mistake.

I tried to call you to prayer when you had some time left over after your lunch.

But all that you could think of was getting back to that that quarterly report due tomorrow.

You cry out without lifting your eyes to me.

You don't want to be disappointed yet again by silence from me.

But I'm calling you night and day.  But your worry and insecurity has made you blind and deaf.

I have so much to share with you if you will only open your heart to me.

You scatter your energy before rapacious strangers who only want to take advantage of you.

And you miss my breath, my caress, my consolation when I offer them over and and over again.

Come with me and find beauty in all of the places that I have hidden it in plain sight.

Let my out poured love for you give you peace.

Then you will hear the choirs of angels,

Hear them, and join in.

Join in and find your place in the grand orchestra that you you are in -

And find your one true purpose in this life -

And the next.

Shalom!