Tag: Change

You Can’t Get Off the Train Until It Stops!

When it comes to religion, we tend to try to blend the mentality of long, long ago with modern times; we pray with the words of long, long ago about modern things; and we even use the geography of long ago and far away when we think about and pray about the world of today and where and how we live in it.
   I guess you could say we’re behaving like “old-timers,” reluctant to shed all the customs, values, and attitudes of long ago and far away—even though they were mostly not places and events of our personal experience.
   We still read and meditate about old narrations and customs, and we try to adapt the worldview, values, and behavior of favorite characters in old stories and books.
   When we read and study the New Testament, in effect we’re learning about the life, faiths, customs, and politics of the Middle East and the Mediterranean world of about two thousand years ago!
   When we study the Old Testament, we’re dealing with local traditions and events older by far!
   Those long-ago years have come and gone, for better or for worse. We may be inspired by some aspects of this long ago past, perhaps many—but it’s not our time and place. We have to deal with our contemporary traditions and events. We have to live, love, and serve God in our days and in contemporary ways even though we treasure, esteem, and try to follow some ancient and long practiced ways of life.
   We may value every word saved and passed on to us about the people and practices of ancient times—but don’t forget that they were ancient times, not ours.
   Some things, some details, some challenges from ancient times are still with us—but many are not, and we barely understand some of them anymore even though we study hard.

   If we aspire to talk, behave, and generally act just like admirable people of ancient days did, we’re almost masquerading!
   One could say that our contemporary challenge is to distill the essence, the best of past belief and practices, and accommodate them to our contemporary culture, language, and way of thinking.
   For example, it’s wonderful to visit the Holy Land and to actually travel to some of the places we had long imagined—but the places aren’t like thousands of years ago. Out treasured historical memories are one thing, and present-day realities are another.
   Sometimes we’re bothered by too much change but living things (like you and I) live in a constant process of change, reassessment, and development.
   We have to use a lot of imagination for times past, since what was passed on to us from long ago days was only a small part and a particular remembrance of a world just as busy, and fumbling and bumbling, as ours!
   A good museum can be fascinating, interesting, stimulating, and helpful to our lives—but we shouldn’t necessarily live with or venerate every value and perspective of ancient times and peoples.
   Don’t be distracted and knocked off course by yearning for all of the past, for living means constantly changing to accommodate the past to the present. Today is different from yesterday, and today you’re no longer the person you were yesterday.
   What a good museum does is replicate some aspects of the past for present day students and learners—but it’s not about living today.
   It isn’t easy, always changing and growing, but that’s what life is about!


13 August 2023

No Strings Attached

“No strings attached” means without limiting conditions or restrictions. For example, I loan you some money without setting a deadline for paying me back. Or, for example, I agree to overlook something negative that you did, without requiring that certain other positive things be done.
   If you’re tried in a court of law, you’re adjudged “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”. And, if you’re adjudged “Guilty”, there probably will be certain conditions or restrictions placed on you. In the worst-case scenario, you could be sentenced to death, long-term imprisonment, or severe fines and other penalties.
   When Jesus was being crucified, as they were nailing him to the cross, he prayed “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!” (Luke 23:34)
   What do you think of Jesus’ decision? Naïve? Lacking in experienced judgement? Unsophisticated? Simplistic? Credulous? Dumb?
   No, you probably wouldn’t dream of using words like that in reference to Jesus’ behavior. But, in practice, you also probably wouldn’t be so generous in forgiving as was Jesus, were you in a similar situation.
   You doubt it? Well, just think of the Gospel story of the return of the prodigal son or, as it is often called, the parable of the lost son. (Luke 15: 11-32)
   What do you think of the Father’s decision? Naïve? Simplistic?
   What do you think of the older son’s reaction to the situation? Just? Balanced? More thought out? Reasonable?
   It’s reasonable to take cognizance of someone’s history of behavior when making a decision. However there is a huge difference between a reasonable legal judgement and an act of forgiveness.
   You might say it’s the difference between law and love, especially between the law of God and the love of God.

   Paradoxically, the law of God is love! And, love can defy logic, prudence, and practice! Love isn’t naïve or simplistic; it’s not something earned or merited; it’s a grace, a gift—by its nature not deserved.
   Mercy, pardon, forgiveness, forgetting by their very nature have “no strings attached”. They are gifts freely given, unconditional.
   If abused, it is against their nature to be withdrawn—but they may not be repeated!
   What is the best course of action if someone who has ignored your advice, squandered your hard-earned money, and has been out of touch for a long, long time suddenly reappears, appears to be contrite, and asks for forgiveness and to be reinstated in your good graces.
   Before you act or respond, first ask yourself are you thinking of yesterday’s person or today’s person? Are you thinking of the person who was or the person who is? To be alive means that we are constantly changing, that we are ever developing.
   Today’s person is not one hundred percent yesterday’s person—maybe better, maybe worse—but never exactly the same!
   In a court of law, what is being ascertained is always about yesterday’s person, about what that person actually said and did.
   Jesus wasn’t—and isn’t—so interested in what each person was before. His boundless mercy is rooted in his concern for what each person is right now, today, not yesterday.
   Thanks be to God that our final encounter with him, our “last judgement”, will not be a measure of our yesterdays, just of the still existing, ever-changing person that we are at that moment of encounter—in other words an experience of mercy and of love!
   No strings attached!



12 March 2023

Ieri, Oggi, Domani

“Ieri, Oggi, Domani” (“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”) is the title of a popular 1963 Italian movie starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren.
   The title also could be used to name three different attitudes about life and the people attracted to one or another of them.
   Most people tend to favor the life style, customs, and religiosity of either yesterday, today or tomorrow.
   – “Yesterday” people often have fond memories of bygone times, places, and people. Maybe because their past had mostly pleasant and happy experiences or maybe because they forgot or ignored or repressed the negative memories. (Be careful about your childhood memories, for a child doesn’t have the breadth of experience that an adult has.)
   – “Today” people can be a little naïve or narrow in what they celebrate or criticize. Maybe because they have not paid sufficient attention to their past or, to the contrary, not given enough thought to the consequences of their present choices and planned actions in the future.
   – “Tomorrow” people can range from optimistic dreamers to sad complainers as they look ahead to the next stages of their life. Their imaginations for tomorrow may be plausible and realistic, based on their lived experience to date, or hopelessly simplistic, impractical, and implausible.
   There’s a yesterday, today or tomorrow to almost every aspect of our lives, values, traditions, morality, beliefs, trusts, and faith.
   Why? Why because we are alive, because we are constantly advancing, falling back, learning, forgetting, progressing, and developing in our lives. That’s the way God made us. We’re ever-changing.
   Perhaps we should imagine our life as consisting of Before, Now, and Then, or, you could say, of what happened, is happening, and could happen.

   “Yesterday” is fixed. The paint has dried, the deed is done. And, we tend to either celebrate it or bewail it.
   “Tomorrow” is not yet. It’s the possible, probable, or unlikely. It’s the could-be, not necessarily the should-be nor the will-be.
   “Today” is what’s in process right now, a dynamic boundary between “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow”, between “before” and “after”.
   Your life is always “in motion”. You’re either braking and trying to return to what was, or you’re moving full speed ahead along a familiar route or following what you consider a trustworthy map.
   You can become distracted, have accidents, or lose your way when you’re driving or riding with another. Conversely you can progress, slow or fast, and safely arrive at your destination.
   (And, obviously, if you have no destination in mind, you never arrive at one—a destination, that is; you always arrive someplace!)
   The bottom line: You exist, you’re alive—i.e., you’re a “Today” person. But, what do you yearn for? Where are your memories, plans, hopes, and fears focused? Are you also a “Yesterday” or a “Tomorrow” person?
   You may and can be either, whichever you choose. But, be careful and beware. “Yesterday” may involve going backwards, and “Tomorrow” implies going forwards.
   “Yesterday” may seem more secure, but it really isn’t; it’s just a more familiar ground in your life journey.
   “Tomorrow” may seem problematic and riskier, but it’s the main way to progress, which includes both successes and failures.
   “Today” is Now. “Today” is what is happening. “Today” is what really counts!


5 March 2023

Freedom of Spirit

It’s curious how sometimes a relatively familiar thing suddenly catches your eye and all of a sudden you see it in a new light.
   I was praying the Divine Office, when a concluding Morning prayer struck me like that:

   God of power and mercy.
   Protect us from all harm.
   Give us freedom of spirit
   and health in mind and body
   to do your work on earth.

   Of course, I would ask for health of mind and body to work for God—but to ask for freedom of spirit…? (Were I Hamlet, I might say, “there’s the rub!”)
   To work for God usually involves obeying the commandments, following the laws of the Church, and “doing what you’re told.”
   “Freedom of spirit,” that’s skating on thin ice. It implies that you might be going against tradition to work for God—at least in the sense that you become convinced that God is pushing or pulling you in a new direction!
   “Freedom of spirit” implies that you are seeking to be open to the action of God in your life, no matter how strange or innovative it may be for you.
   To exercise freedom of spirit suggests that you are open to new possibilities, that you are not afraid to be a trail blazer, that you may decide to go “where no one has gone before”.
   Of course, this can be a recipe for disaster, too! We can mistake our desires for God’s action and will! We may be courageously stupid!
   But, isn’t that what freedom of spirit implies? We don’t always get things right, especially at first.
   We learn by doing! We learn by trial and error. We learn by experimenting and experiencing.

   From one point of view the Sacred Scriptures, the collection of writings that we call the Bible, are a record of our collective learning experiences over the long past centuries, a record of successes and failures.
   A God-given freedom of spirit includes freedom to make mistakes, to better understand the will of God, to stumble and bumble to get things right.
   From the point of view of keepers of records, of curators of museums, of defenders of the past, it may seem an invitation to chaos.
   A God-given freedom of spirit includes both the courage to risk innovating and the courage to risk failure—in other words, the courage to learn new things.
   The great prophets of the Bible innovated and often paid a steep price for their innovations. Jesus’s teachings were not always fully understood nor accepted.
   It’s curious, when it comes to scientific research and development, we unhesitatingly applaud the great (and successful) experimenters.
   But, when it comes to religion and belief, it’s the opposite; we hesitate to applaud experimenters.
   Doing the work of God absolutely may include experimenting, trial and error, and mistakes and successes. But, all this is part of the plan of God for human life.
  Progress is not possible without freedom of spirit as well as health in mind and body. And, freedom of spirit is not without failures as well as with successes.
    But, beware blithe spirits. Remember, before asking God for freedom of spirit and health in mind and body, we pray to be protected from all harm!


1 January 2023

Testing for Orthodoxy

With two, going on three, years of living with Covid, we’ve all become accustomed to certain dangers and also protective measures—and testing procedures and kits.
   Besides concern for physical health and well-being, how about spiritual? Is there any way we can test ourselves about our religious belief and practice? Is it good? Is it right? Is it Orthodox? Is it in accordance with the will of God?
   Especially with the kind of polarization that seems to afflict modern thought, including politics and religion, it gets harder and harder to get things right.
   Is there a simple, easy, and reliable test we can use?
   Believe it or not, St. Vincent of Lérins, a Gallic monk, who lived about 1,800 years ago in what we now call France, proposed a simple and easy test for healthy faith:
   Believe that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
   In other words, test for universality, antiquity, and consent. He identified this as being truly and properly “Catholic” (meaning “universal”).
   He explained, “We shall follow
   -universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses;
   -antiquity if we in no way depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed;
   -consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.
   Is this an iron-clad, absolutely effective, always faultless test? Of course not! No human devising ever can be—but it’s pretty accurate and a useful tool for self-examination.
   Remember, St. Vincent of Lérins also wrote strikingly about the difference between development and alteration:

   Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.
   Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.
   The understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning, and the same impact.
   Vincent compared this kind of development with that of the body: Though bodies develop and unfold their component parts with the passing of the years, they always remain what they were.
   If you sometimes feel uncomfortable with certain changes and developments in the Church, which you may consider to be too “newfangled” to be trusted, it may be of some consolation to realize that change and development have always been part of the life of the church—and part of the growth of the church.
   St. Vincent was trying his best to assure his monastic brothers and others who read his writings that all is well.
   Growth, development, and new insights and understandings can be very valuable, healthy, progressive—and vice-versa! Sorting out the differences is a pretty tricky business.
   It’s reassuring to realize that this is not a new or exclusively recent phenomenon. St. Vincent was trying to clarify a similar situation centuries ago. His test is still good!


13 November 2022

Methodology

When we’re talking or writing about something, we may be speaking literally or figuratively—and both are perfectly respectable, proper, and effective ways to communicate.
   Speaking figuratively is communicating in a non-literal, metaphorical way using images, figures, likenesses, symbols, and such.
   It’s not a lessor way of speaking than literal communication; actually, it often can be more effective and evocative—even poetic.
   Some things, some ideas, are so hard to communicate literally that we must recourse to speaking figuratively. Sometimes we even don’t use words at all—e.g., the maxim, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
   When we’re trying to speak about things that are beyond our detailed and complete understanding we’re almost forced to speak figuratively.
   Sometimes we tend to think that science and scientific speech is better, truer, more accurate, and more effective than religion and religious speech. But, actually, it is often the other way round!
   Good Theology is just as important and vital as good Physics—and maybe more so. But, alas, just as a scientific experiment can be sloppily performed and its reported results untrustworthy, so, too, some theological ideas can be sloppily or naively put together and result in untrustworthy doctrines.
   However, scientific results and theological doctrines may well be accurate and true, even though the way they were arrived at had failings and weaknesses.
   Name notwithstanding, the “Scientific Method,” is a good way to think about all matters, including Science and Religion.
   It is a method of procedure consisting of systematic observation and research, formulation of theories and hypotheses, experimenting and testing them, and reporting conclusions.

   Critical thinking resembles the scientific method. Both involve conjectural insights that must be validated by lived experience. Both respect trial and error.
   Just as the accumulated body of scientific knowledge grows and is constantly revised and further extended, so too does the accumulated body of theological knowledge grow and is constantly revised and further extended.
   Some ideas and conjectures may have been astoundingly radical and controversial when first voiced and now are accepted and presumed as a matter of course.
   Some are articulated in what now may be rejected and out-of-date concepts but which may have been strikingly challenging and provocative when first used.
   There is always a danger that older theories and insights may be ignored or rejected because they use words or concepts that are different then current usage—the classic danger of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
   Just because a theory, description, doctrine, or way of communicating seems hopelessly out-of-date doesn’t mean it lacks insight or value. It may still be a stepping-stone to something newer, greater, and even more insightful, useful, and significant.
   Clinging to older, out-of-date ideas, concepts, and values is understandable but not commendable. A good scientist or theologian, a good thinker or believer always is testing and experimenting with new or revised insights and theories.
   Don’t tire! The process never ends. We are limited in our understandings; only God is omniscient. Rejoice in having a rich heritage, but don’t store your fortune or squander it—use it well and make it grow!


6 November 2022

Vatican II Pandemic

A key factor in the development of my life was Vatican Council II—not because of studying about it, but because I was there!
   No, I wasn’t a member of the council (that was for bishops only), and I wasn’t an appointed theological expert. But I did attend half the council—the second and third of the four annual sessions (1962-1965)—as an “assignator loci” (“usher” you could say; actually, a sort of staff attendant).
   It was held in St. Peter’s Basilica. Each tiered section of bishops had one priest assigned to assist them and do whatever needed to be done: distribute documents to the bishops; distribute blank voting cards (IBM punched cards) and collect them and bring to a central processing office in the basilica; deliver messages during the council sessions to the presiding officers of the council, even to the pope in his quarters.
   I also heard all the speeches during these working sessions of the Council, had copies of and studied all the working documents, and was fortunate to learn from the so many distinguished bishops and priests that shared their views in talks to us U.S. priest-students at our residence in Rome.
   Happily, I had arrived in Rome a week before the start of the Council to begin my studies for a doctorate in Canon Law.
   I was in Assisi when Pope John XXIII made an unprecedented trip there to pray at the tomb of St. Francis for the success of the Council just before it started.
   I was in St. Peter’s Basilica for the opening of the Council, a pontifical Mass, fortunately standing very near the main altar.
   An unforgettable and moving thing for me that day was to see Pope John, the celebrant of the Mass, kneeling down over the burial place of St. Peter to recite the Nicene Creed before the bishops of the world, professing his and their and the whole Church’s common faith: Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentum . . .

   Some commentators describe the Council as contentious, but this was not my experience. Overwhelmingly the Council was a spiritual event for all concerned.
   Every morning I saw bishops kneeling on the cold marble floor of the transept of the basilica in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in preparation for the day’s work.
   Every daily session began with a Liturgy at a modest altar table in the central aisle of the basilica between the banks of seats on both sides; all the rites of the Church had their turn and some were surprising—for example, the Geez rite used drums and dance!
   During my three years in Rome, although the Council was in session only for a few months each Fall, it dominated church life.
   My assigned personal duty was to develop some expertise in the law of the Church, but the vitality and excitement of my life in Rome was the amazing and wonderful experience of the Council.
   What a sad surprise it was, back in New York during the final session of the Council, to discover that most people there didn’t realize what an astounding event in the life of the Church was taking place.
   In some small way I brought some of the Council spirit to my work in the Chancery Office. Many evenings and weekends I would visit convents in the diocese to talk to women religious who were eager to learn about the Council and the new perspectives it was bringing to their lives.
   Priests in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where I lived, were also glad to know more of the Council and its teachings.
   I was severely infected by Vatican II. For the past 60 years I keep trying to remain contagious!


23 October 2022

Saints and Sinners

Saint:  1. a person of exceptional holiness of life, virtue, or benevolence.  2. a person recognized as such by family, community, or Church. 

Sinner:  1. a person who transgresses the law of God.  2. a person who willfully or deliberately violates some religious or moral principle.  3. a person who is guilty of any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.

   Neither word means that a person is 100% good or 100% bad; however both words imply that the person is exceptionally, outstandingly, unusually good or bad.
   Unfortunately we usually use a word that means one extreme or another as though they were absolutes. (For example, saying that a person is tall or short, skinny or fat, dark or light, pretty or ugly, dumb or smart, old or young, poor or rich, truthful or false, straight or gay—the list in endless.)
   Word pairs like these actually name a scale’s two extremes, and we’re all in some position on the scale except at either end.
   So, in a sense, we all have a bit of both. “Saints” can occasionally be guilty of reprehensible or regrettable actions and “sinners” can occasionally do exceptionally holy, virtuous, or benevolent things.
   The words, if used fairly, point to a sort of majority-of-the-time behavior—and this can fluctuate and change. We may start out or initially be treated as saints and end up being considered as sinners—and vice-versa!
   – Remember Joseph’s initial hesitation to marry Mary.
   – Remember what Jesus said to the “good” thief who was crucified at his side.
   – Remember Jesus himself being adjudged and punished as a notorious criminal.
   Also, our understanding of what it means to be a saint or sinner often changes and varies from place to place and time to time.

   For example, in the early centuries of Christianity, when many persons were sentenced to a painful death for not worshiping the official gods, martyrdom, a death like Jesus’, was esteemed.
   As time passed, martyrdom declined but extolling the heroism and death of Jesus and the martyrs led to esteeming a lifestyle of extreme denial and living sacrifice.
   Some popular early hermits, by contemporary standards seemed to be “wild men”, almost crazy, living in desert caves, barely clothed nor adequately fed.
   As this lifestyle also declined and there no longer were hermits living in desert caves, it influenced the development of early monasticism where denial and sacrifice were still important ideals and practices.
   These ideals lived on in the later, action-oriented religious orders with their many services to others. Practicing poverty, chastity, and obedience were still considered a necessary part of holiness.
   This also continued to some degree in the development of “secular” (i.e. not bound by religious community vows) clergy, especially with the requirement of clerical celibacy.
   In our contemporary world, that too, is being critically examined and its failures denounced.
   We’re all a mixture of saint and sinner. Our challenge is to try to move more towards the “saint” extreme of the scale than the other.
   We try to be more like Jesus as best we understand him and live a holy life as best we understand that.
   We’re not dreaming an impossible dream, aspiring to a holiness of life—but sometimes we need to realize that we’re not going about it the best way we could, and should!


3 July 2022

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

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