Category: Harmonizing our lives with our maker’s designs

Orphaned

I was sixty years old when I became an orphan! That’s the year my mother died, my father having died the year before.
   I know, I know—it sounds ridiculous. I wasn’t a relatively helpless small child, but a grown man and a middle-aged one to boot.
   Yet there was a certain truth to it. Those who gave me life, whose love and care nurtured and guided my life, whose presence anchored my life, were gone, leaving me behind.
   It marked a fundamental change in my life. It’s hard to explain, but it made me more aware of the reality of my own limitations, of the prospect of my own death someday, sooner or later.
   Not having my parents alive anymore, that final separation, seemed to be a last step in in the gradual process of becoming a fully independent adult.
   Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean to sound morbid, nor am I. But, it definitely marked a significant change in my self-identity and life.
   As adults, we may at times disagree with our parents, make life decisions against their counsel and concerns, but somehow, in some way, we still remain anchored in them and, hopefully, receive support and guidance from them as best they can, no matter the consequences of our sometimes stubborn and ill-advised choices.
   It was through them that we first learned to trust and love God. God seemed to be the ideal fullness and perfection of the love and acceptance that, hopefully, we experienced from our parents, no matter their limitations.
   When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how best to pray, ignoring the so many formal and traditional titles of God treasured and counseled over the centuries, he told them to think of their relation to God as a child to parents and say:
   “Our Father, who art in heaven . . .”

   Ha!, the unbeliever might mockingly say, clearly a case of substituting for a lost parental relationship by imagining an all-knowing, all-powerful father figure.
   Yes, that is a possibility; it could be true—but just because something could be true doesn’t mean that it has to be true.
   It doesn’t require experiencing the death of both parents—or others who have affectionately and perseveringly loved us, almost as a parent—to think of God in those terms.
   God is the model, the epitome for all parents and parental relationships. As creator, God is the ultimate source and sustainer of all life and living things.
   Total separation from and the loss of parents is imaginable and also inevitable. Total separation from and the loss of our creator is unimaginable and illogical, a contradiction in terms.
   It’s not so much that we’re projecting parenthood onto God; it’s the other way around. Parenting and parental care and love are a participation, a collaboration in the life-giving and sustaining love of our creator.
   “I will not leave you orphans,” Jesus assured his disciples the night before he died, “I will come to you.
   “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live and you will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you.
   “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”       (Jn 14:18-21)


5 June 2022

The Great King Over All Gods

For the Lord is the great God,
   the great king over all gods,
Whose hand holds the depths of the earth;
   who owns the tops of the mountains.
The sea and dry land belong to God,
   who made them, formed them by hand. (Psalm 95:3-5)

Once people generally believed in many gods, some greater and more powerful than others.
   The Jewish scriptures (“Old Testament”) tell of a gradual process, a growing realization, a kind of discovery, that the god of Abraham and his descendants is the supreme god, greater than all the others, and ultimately that there are no others.
   This means, for instance, that all the branches of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, no matter what their differences, are all worshiping the one and the same God.
   Accordingly, this implies that although Jews, Christians, and Muslims have many differences, they should fundamentally be one—i.e. they should treat one another as fellow believers.
   By extension, if there is only one God, this further implies that the same should apply to all other religious believers, no matter what their customs or beliefs.
   And, if there is only one creator, this still further implies that the same should apply to everyone, no matter whether they have religious beliefs or affiliations or not.
   A threat to all of this is giving exaggerated importance to structures of difference.
   For example, Hagia Sophia, the great church, then mosque, now museum in Istanbul: Why must it be one or the other? Why can’t it be a shared place for different styles of worship, reflecting its long history?
   Must strictly orthodox Jews, Christians, or Muslims—or followers of other religions—pray separately from less orthodox Jews, Christians, or Muslims?

   Another, parochial example: When Cardinal Francis Spellman was Archbishop of New York, he had to respond to a massive immigration of Puerto Ricans and, later, other Latin Americans to the archdiocese.
   Historically separate churches were built for each national/ethnic/linguistic group. He decided that the same church building should accommodate people of different customs and language and that the priests should know or learn the customs and language of the parishioners.
   Our contemporary society seems to place an exaggerated importance on differences and institutionalizing them. If you like chocolate and I like strawberry, we don’t have to go to separate ice-cream stores.
   Restaurants, stores, schools, churches, neighborhoods, apartment houses, police forces, political parties, nations, and every kind of structure or organization need to be aware of differences and respect them—but not institutionalize and segregate them.
   The 1964 New York World’s Fair had a great exhibit that taught this, “It’s a Small World”; it’s still seen in Disney parks. You ride through scenes of different parts of the world, where animated dolls dressed in different, traditional clothes, sing, and even dance, to the same song. Then the same dolls are shown all mixed together, dressed in their different traditional clothing, but singing together the same song.
   It was a fundamental lesson about life. Of course there are differences! You and I and everyone else—we’re all ultimately different from one another, each one of us unique, but we are all creations of the same God.
   You’re not a polytheist! No matter what, don’t be afraid to sing the same song!




8 May 2022

Building Faith

Building faith has some similarity to other kinds of construction. It takes initiative, imagination, skill, science, professionalism, commitment, collaboration, hard work, trial, error, patience, perseverance, endurance, toil, toll, tools, and teamwork.
   Most constructions start with a rough sketch, then a detailed design, then the architectural drawings, and finally the detailed plans.
   Architects don’t construct; that’s the job of engineers and skilled and experienced technicians. Many diverse and specialized workers are needed to complete the job.
   The growing construction is constantly being monitored, and original plans may need to be adjusted and revised in light of lived experience.
   And, you know how architecture can be. The style of many a great work may become dated; the artistic standards may change and fluctuate. But, no matter what, the construction must be apt to serve its primary purpose—and even reasonably compatible with other, nearby, and similar buildings.
   Faith is one of those great enterprises that take more than one lifetime to complete. That means that at times it’s hard to discern where things are going, what is the importance of certain aspects of it, what the completion really will look like.
   The foundations of faith are necessary to support the whole building, but they’re not meant to be the be-all and the end-all of the construction. Homes may have basements, but they’re not usually designed to be the preferred living quarters.
   Foundations must bear the weight of what is yet to come, and the construction needs to continue.
   In the Bible there’s a warning about building, the Tower of Babel: some things are ill-planned and exceed the possibilities of human construction.

   Our personal faith is a never-ending construction. Collectively, faith is an enterprise so vast and complex that it gradually is shaped and grows over interminable generations.
   The fruit of centuries of endless reflections, revisions, and development, it exceeds any one merely human plan or model.
   Faith grows, so to speak. It has foundations, continual construction following the plans of the creator, and occasional revisions and reconstructions when we workers mistakenly misconstrue or don’t follow precisely the plans.
   Faith not only grows. Faith evolves. Faith develops. Faith challenges.
   Looking back, we may realize that we learned some things in a childish way. That doesn’t mean that they were wrong or bad, just that we needed to develop from a childish faith to an adult one.
   Some prayers and religious practices that used to be very important to us once upon a time may not be quite so important now. They had a value in our spiritual growth, but in some ways we’ve outgrown them.
   The Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, wrote: “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar”, which could be translated as, “Wayfarer, there is no way; you make your way as you walk.”
   That’s not a good description of a life of faith, since it leaves out the action of God in our lives. But, it’s a reminder that each of us must make our own way through life with the help of God.
   We have foundations for our faith from long ago, we have updates and models galore, we just need to risk it and live it!


17 April 2022

Seeing, Knowing, and Understanding Better

Your eyesight might not be so very bad, but, even so, being fitted with the right pair of glasses can be a revelation. You may discover that you haven’t been seeing things so clearly as you thought you were.
   The same thing happens with more knowledge about different things or more detailed knowledge about the same thing—that is, being surprised by the value or importance or the lack thereof of someone or something you thought you knew well.
   But seeing better and knowing better are still not quite the same as understanding better. You can see something more clearly and know something in more detail without necessarily understanding better.
   Christopher Columbus suspected that the world was round, not flat. That why he was convinced that he could find a better way to India and the East Indies than the long route south to the remotest tip of the African continent, around it, and sailing still further East.
   He felt vindicated once he saw the islands (of the Caribbean) and their native people who he was mistakenly sure were Indians!
   Columbus’s contributions were still great: he saw and knew important things even if he misunderstood some of them.
   That may be a pretty good description of most of us. We may see things and people, get to know them, and still profoundly misunderstand them.
   That’s why life is a never-ending process involving seeing, knowing, and understanding—which involves a never-ending process of change and development.
   It’s okay if you don’t mind not seeing so clearly—or not knowing that much about other things or people—or not understanding the what or why or how of so many things.
   But, you may be getting somethings wrong. Like Columbus, you may encounter something new and mistake it for what it is.

   Living things are changing things. Living people are changing people. You’re always going to be challenged to see more clearly, to know more and better, and to understand things and people more deeply.
   Insights change and develop. Knowledge expands and deepens. Understanding grows and develops—and so do you and everyone else still alive and kicking!
   This includes beliefs, religion, God, right, wrong, good, and bad. Our customs, faith, and understandings constantly change and develop.
   Like Columbus, we may celebrate that some of our ideas were fundamentally right, even though we still may mistake a lot of the details about where we are and who really are the people we’re encountering.
   We may venerate the Bible and still at the same time no longer believe some of things people believed many centuries ago. Hopefully, that’s progress and development—even though sometimes we get it wrong, not right!
   What do we really understand about God? Who really is Jesus? Does everything his followers say, teach, and do really reflect his teachings? Do we always, frequently, sometimes, or rarely get it right when we encounter a new place, new people, new ideas, or new directions?
   Our change and development in all things is never-ending. New people, new things, new insights are our daily diet.
   Are you tired of it all, do you wish it would stop, do you want everything to be just like you remember it? If you do, beware! You may be yearning for life’s end.
   Life involves change and development. If you stop changing and developing, it’s over!


10 April 2022

Uniforms, Uniformity, and Uniqueness

This is all about you (and me, too).
   If it reminds you of something very familiar, it should. After all, we’ve always said that “clothes don’t make the man” (or woman)—although we usually never stop trying.
   Lots of people use special dress or uniforms; for instance: soldiers, sailors, kings, queens, priests, nuns, judges, doctors, nurses, etcetera.
   Just because someone looks good doesn’t mean that he or she is good. And, just because two people look the same—either because of their bodies or because of their clothing—it doesn’t mean they are the same.  Similar they may be, but exactly the same, no.
   Even “identical” twins are not 100% identical—and that applies to all living beings no matter how they’re related or dressed or talk or seem.
   If you’ve ever seen a military dress parade, you know that it’s very impressive. Everyone is dressed almost the same, everyone walks in step with everyone else—they seem to be one highly trained body—but, even so, nobody is 100% the same as anybody else.
   On the battlefield, in a crisis, we don’t want every soldier marching in tune and thinking exactly the same and following the same orders in exactly the same way. Besides obedience, we also want initiative, creativity, courage, and skill.
   Do you ever stop to think that you (and I, and each of us) are fundamentally unique? In the entire history of the human race there never has been another person exactly like you, and there never will be one.
   You may have ideas or understandings or experiences that no one else has ever had. Similar, yes, but exactly the same, no!
   It’s mind-boggling to think of it, but encouraging, too. Without you, the world would be somehow diminished!

   If I really appreciate you, I should think “Thanks be to God for you”, and if I really appreciate myself, I should also think “Thanks be to God for me”!
   That we are, what we are, why we are, how we are, all of these are reasons for gratitude, thanksgiving, gladness, and joy (when we think of our creator and creation) and, conversely, sometimes reasons for regret, sadness, and shame (when we think of ourselves and our mistakes and failings).
   But, for better or for worse, there never was another person just like you and there never will be another person just like you.
   There are things that will never be done without your doing them; there are ideas that will never be explored without your exploring them; most of all, there are people that will never be helped without your helping them.
   You, and each of us, are very important to the designs of God, to the future of the world we live in together, and to the well-being of others.
   All this is not about fame. It has nothing to do with notoriety. You may never be explicitly recognized or appreciated. But, without the contribution you make, the world will never become what it could have, for better or for worse!
   It’s okay to wear the same uniform as others—it says that you are committed to the same cause, share the same values, and strive for the same purposes.
   It’s okay to march to the same drumbeat as others—so long as you never forget that you have a unique destiny and a unique set of skills and purpose, and that if you are lacking or holding back, there is no one who can ever completely replace you!


3 April 2022

Superus, Superior, Supremus

Positive: superus -a -um, situated above, upper, higher.
Comparative: superior -ius, of place: higher, upper; of time: earlier, former, past: of rank: higher, greater.
Superlative: supremus -a -um, of place: highest, uppermost; of time or succession: last, final: of degree: highest, greatest; of rank: highest.

   As you can see from the Latin above, the similar words in English haven’t changed in meaning very much over the centuries. For instance, supreme is defined as:
   – highest in rank or authority; paramount; sovereign; chief.
   – of the highest quality, degree, character, importance, etc.
   – greatest, utmost, or extreme.
   – last or final; ultimate.
   Although sometimes we over-use the word or its derivatives, we’re always ranking things, places, ideas, values, scores, athletes, office-holders, and whatnot. But, no matter what we’re ranking, you can’t have more than one supreme at a time!
   Sometimes we speak of God as the Supreme Being. That sort of presumes that on a scale or ranking of gods or divinities, there’s one on top!
   Actually, in ancient times it was common among many peoples and in many places to worship multiple gods or divinities and to rank them. For example, for the Romans, the highest ranking, most powerful god was Jupiter. (That why the biggest planet in our solar system was named after him!)
   When you study the Bible, you learn of the gradual development of monotheism—the realization that there is only one god.
   Abraham and his immediate descendants worshiped and obeyed a god they thought of as their personal or family or tribal god. He was theirs and guided and protected them.

   It was a long, slow development to arrive at the belief or realization that there is only one God and that no other gods exist at all.
   Even so, still among monotheistic believers there are some lingering, sort of polytheistic attitudes.
   For example, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all believe that there is only one God, the Supreme Being—and there can’t be three different Supreme Beings.
   So, if all three are worshiping the one God, they are worshiping the same God.
   If good Jews, Christians, and Muslims aspire to live on with God someday, they will be living together. If their destiny is to be living together, why have they treated each other so badly so often?
   They are fellow creations of the one and same God, even though they may use different names for God, worship God in different ways, and have different customs.
   And, of course, there are other religions and other ways of worshiping the one and same God, and the same applies to them.
   We shouldn’t disparage worshiping the one and same God in different places or using different languages and practices.
   We shouldn’t consider people who misunderstand or betray the teachings of the one and same God as though they were the truest and best exponents of the one God’s values and teachings.
   We shouldn’t keep fighting over possession and control of parts of the one world, if we truly believe that the one and same God made it to be shared by all.
   Above all, we should treat every other person as a brother or sister, created by the one and same God to live with us in the one and same world.


13 February 2022

Inactive, Dormant, Dead

…it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.     (Romans 13:11-12)

   Sleep. It is a strange thing we do for more or less one-third of every day of our lives. It involves the suspension of voluntary bodily functions and of consciousness. It also is a vital necessity; without this resting, we die.
   Sleep also has metaphorical meanings. When we’re careless or not alert we seem to be allowing our vigilance or attentiveness to lie dormant. We also use the word to describe lying in death.
   In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul is sort of switching meanings of the word. He consider the living of our present lives as being asleep (night) and death as an awakening to the fulness of life (day).
   Further, still using this metaphor, he urges us to truly wake up—to cast off the lingering remnants of our night’s dreams and get dressed with the armor of light, ready to live the new, great day.
   It’s beautiful imagery. But, it’s not merely imagery, it’s the confidence, in faith, of our real destiny, of God’s ultimate plan for our lives.
   St. Paul is not giving a technical, scientific explanation of a kind of metamorphosis. But he is asserting what he believes to be a certain fact.
   It’s a familiar process, in a way. We know many things for certain, even if we have hardly any idea at all of how to explain them. We trust the knowledge, integrity, and truthfulness of others all the time.
   Some would relegate faith to the category of wishful thinking, imagination, or impossible dreams, but it, too, relies on the knowledge, integrity, and veracity of others.

   When St. Paul says, “the night is advanced; the day is at hand,” he’s talking about the end of our present, limited stage of life and about our future one, when we wake up to the fulness of life God has in store for us.
   Look, if you know you’re leaving very early tomorrow morning for a wonderful vacation, you’ll certainly try to have your bags packed today before you go to sleep and the clothes you’re going to wear tomorrow selected and ready.
   Shouldn’t we do the same when we remember that “our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed”?
   Why is it that we are so illogical about the awaking from the sleep that St. Paul is talking about? Any day could be our last day before we die—that is, any day could be the last day we are asleep until we awaken to the wonder of what God has in store for us.
   So, so to speak, always have your plans made, your bags packed, your travel documents in order, and everything in readiness for a great departure as soon as you wake up!
   If all you worry about and plan for are details of things you want or feel you need to do tomorrow that you couldn’t complete today, you’re actually just rolling over and asking to be left alone to sleep some more—and missing out on all that could have been, if only you had remembered what the really new day was offering.
    We know not the day nor the hour, but the end of the night (of our present lives) always may be sooner than we expect or have planned for. That’s why our best course of action is to do the best we can every day of our lives, and treat every day of our lives as though it were the last.


9 January 2022

What the Lord Requires of You

   You have been told, O mortal, what is good,
     and what the Lord requires of you:   Only to do justice and to love goodness,
     and to walk humbly with your God.
(Micah 6:8)

   To know what the Lord require of us is a never-ending quest through the entire course of our lives.
   Traditionally, as a child, we may have been taught that part of the answer was to obey the commandments and laws of God and of the Church. In practice, it also usually included to do what our parents, family, clan, friends, fellow believers, fellow citizens, and others who influence our lives told us was right and proper.
   In the previous verses Micah posed the question with some examples of the traditional answers of his time:

   With what shall I come before the Lord,
     and bow before God most high?
   Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
     with calves a year old?
      Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
     with myriad streams of oil?
   Shall I give my firstborn for my crime,
     the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
(Micah 6:6-7)

   He used some extreme examples of types of sacrifices that were considered possible requirements of God.
   We do something similar ourselves in raising our children, when we give them long lists of does and don’ts, sometimes in great detail.
   No wonder that we tend to think first of guilt and sinfulness when the question of what the Lord require of us comes up.
   Look at our traditions and rituals. What an emphasis we give to the negative, to sacrifice, atonement, mortification, and giving up pleasurable things when we think about how we stand with God and what he requires of us.

   Jesus taught us to address God in prayer as a father, as a loving parent, not as supreme being, master of the universe, or an all-powerful and demanding judge and ruler.
   Hopefully we may have been blessed by having a loving parent and so have some positive appreciation of this image of God. And, even if we had a parent limited in his or her ability to love and care for us, we probably yearned for and imagined a better.
   With good parents, we have only to reach out to be embraced, consoled, understood, accepted, and loved. We never doubt their limits to respond compassionately and forgive our offenses. We even reluctantly understand the fairness of some of the restrictions or punishments they placed upon us.
   We’re not fundamentally afraid of a good parent, nor totally concealing our behavior. We instinctively trust them to be merciful and forgiving.
   Micah might not have had precisely this kind of image and understanding of God, but he certainly would have understood it.
   As a prophet and teacher he was accentuating the positive, encouraging focusing on the underlying nature of the Lord, and trying to liberate those who heard his word from being over whelmed by their failings and need for punishment and atonement.
   It’s strange, isn’t it, that, even though probably we all more or less always knew this, in practice we still often tend to act as though God is to be feared and judge ourselves more harshly than we may deserve.
   It’s almost a kind of egoism, that we can be so unforgiving of our limitations and so imagining of deserved punishment for them.
   Remember, what Jesus requires of us is to “Love one another as I have loved you!”


5 September 2021

Apostolic Development Officer

No, St. Paul was never called that, even though to some extent he was a fundraiser.
   He once appealed to the Christians in Corinth to be generous in providing aid to the poor Christians in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8-9). His appeal is a beautiful reflection on the nature of charity, practical and realistic as well. Here are a few excerpts:

   – I am not saying this as an order, but testing the genuineness of your love against the concern of others.
   – You know the generosity of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, although he was rich, he became poor for your sake, so that you should become rich through his poverty.
   – I will give you my view of the matter: this is appropriate for you as you were the first, a year ago, not only to take any action but also even to desire the project. Now then, complete the action as well, so that the completion from your resources may match your enthusiasm.
   – For as long as the enthusiasm is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what a person does not have.
   –  It should not bring relief to others and hardship to yourselves; but there should be a balance—your surplus at present may fill their deficit, and their surplus may fill your deficit, so there may be a balance…(8:8-12)

   – But remember: one who sows sparsely will reap sparsely as well, and one who sows bounteously will reap bounteously as well.
   – Each should give as much as you have decided on your own initiative, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver… (9:6-7)
   – The one who provides seed for the sower and food to eat will supply and increase the produce of your righteousness.(9:10)

   Making charitable contributions is not just about having a deduction in your income tax. It’s also not just a gesture that will enhance people’s esteem of you when publicized.
   Giving also shouldn’t be determined by the worthiness or the attractiveness of the recipient. Many an old story told of helping a repugnant person who turned out to be the Lord, illustrating the judgement story in Matthew’s gospel: “…whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
   Frequently the demands on our generosity are unplanned, unsought, unexpected, unattractive—and also can be annoying, delaying, distracting, and even a little intimidating.
   How much, how often should I give, contribute, donate to needy persons or good causes? At least as much as you judge to be really needed and you can.
   Charitable contributions, gifts, and assistance to others are not according to a scheduled or traditional amount. And, we’re not expected nor required to rashly exceed our means, especially at a cost to those who depend on us. But, it can be commendable to sacrifice of ourselves to assist others.
   “Love one another as I have loved you.” This new commandment Jesus gave us has no fixed quantity or limit.
   Sometimes our easiest gift may be money. Giving time, attention, presence, ear, support, respect can be harder.
   How will you know if you have fulfilled his mandate and loved as he loves you? Not until you have nothing left to give except your very life itself, and you do!


29 August 2021

Building Sand Castles

Sand Castle: 1. a small castle-like structure made of wet sand, as by children at a beach. 2. A plan or idea with little substance.

The dictionary definition is accurate enough, but in yet another sense much of our lives involves building sand castles.
   It’s not that we are consciously and deliberately choosing to construct something fragile and impermanent. It’s that no matter how hard we may try to build to last, no construct of ours lasts forever, not even close!
   – Many marriage rituals include the making of a commitment “until death do us part”. It may be a sincere and heartfelt expression of choice and determination—but, alas, how often unanticipated circumstances and changes, like the sea with the sand castle, can wash it away.
   – For some people their employment is something to be endured for the sake of the salary they receive, but no matter what their feelings any employment is impermanent, although why and when we may not know.
   – Think of the sacrifices parents often make to provide for their families. They may work and save to buy a big home, enough for all their children. But sometimes as children grow, marry, and move away and as parents age, the house that was so desired once may become empty and burdensome.
   – You may have a job that you dedicate much of your life to. You may even make valuable contributions to the organization’s greater good. Yet, when another comes to take your place, all may change for better or for worse.
   There’s an old lyric that voices a similar idea: “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.”
   It’s clearly expressed in the Bible: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14)

   The moral of all this doesn’t mean that every human effort is futile. There is a joy in the doing, a satisfaction in the achievement, a gifting to another or others in the process.
   In the Genesis story of the temptation and the fall, the serpent urges the woman to eat the forbidden fruit, “…your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods…”
   Isn’t any human aspiration to build forever, any attempt to create something that is everlasting succumbing to the same temptation?
   Isn’t any brooding sorrow over the collapsing, failing, or ending of any kind of human endeavor or effort “devilish”? Or, as Mr. Spock, of Star Trek fame, might say, “illogical”?
   We may yearn for the eternal but it is beyond our means to achieve it. We may lament the endless moments of loss in our lives but it is our human condition.
   Just because a sand castle, no matter how large or beautiful or complex it may be, ultimately is washed away doesn’t mean that there was no pleasure or satisfaction in its building.
   The very capability to build it and all our life and to experience pleasure, satisfaction, and joy in the doing is a gift of God.
   Shouldn’t that very realization be a further motive for gladness and for thanksgiving?
   “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
   Enjoy your time at the beach! Have fun building your sand castles! But, when the day wanes and the daylight dims, it’s time to go home.


15 August 2021