Tag: Development

Snapshot or Motion Picture?

A perfect, crystal clear image of me—whether ordinary photograph or x-ray—can show many things about how I am at the exact moment the image was made. But, a perfect, crystal clear image doesn’t tell anything about trajectory or motion.
   – a snapshot taken outdoors in dim light may have been taken as day is breaking or as night is falling.
   – an x-ray showing a malignancy could indicate an improvement in a previous condition or a worsening depending on the previous picture.
   – what you said or what you wrote might be astoundingly insightful or disappointingly ordinary in comparison with general knowledge of the topic or what you had said or written before.
   It reminds me of the kid’s game, Statues, where, when whoever is It turns his or her back, all the other players try to advance to tag that person, but whenever he or she turns all the others must freeze in their positions. Whoever fails to completely freeze must go back to the starting position again.
   To be living means to be constantly changing, in motion. To be totally and in every way immobile is to be dead.
   If you really want to get to know me better (or I, you), you need more than a snapshot. You need to know where I’m coming from—my origins, my starting point, the roads I’ve traveled, the time and resources I’ve spent to get where I am, something of my adventures and misadventures—and, of course, you need to know where I’m headed or seem to be heading.
   If you want to judge me, it’s harder still precisely because I’m always changing. Our lives involve an endless series of mid-course corrections. I can make a tentative assessment of you—take a snapshot—at any given moment, but final judgement needs the completion of your life.
   There’s no winner till the battle’s over!

   The many snapshots of our lives are helpful, but just one picture tells little—we need points of comparison. The “motion pictures” of our lives are much better—even though they can vary depending on from what angle or point they may be shot.
   It’s impossible to make a final judgement until the film is complete and we’ve seen, understood, and assessed all of it. Also, even in this there are variations. We all may watch the same film, and have very different levels of contentment or discontentment about it.
   The only one capable of absolute judgement is the Knower of all things
   When someone is canonized a saint, it doesn’t mean that the person is adjudged perfect or without failing, faults, or sin. But it does mean that the person has been outstanding in many ways and is being held up for the rest of us as a model to be imitated—but, naturally, not in every detail.
   Role models help us on our life’s way. It gives us courage when we can see the achievements of another just like ourselves—and it also encourages us to see their successes in spite of their failings.
   What a strange world we live in these days, where we are so morbidly fascinated by the failings of others that we focus on them in spite of what clearly were their many successes and achievements.
   What strange judgements we make, denying some evidence, exaggerating other, and totally forgetting the limitations of any and all premature judgements.
   Don’t forget,
   “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone…” and
   “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”


27 June 2021

Playing Many Roles

A great actor/actress can handle a wide variety of roles. Sometimes they can so effectively become “another person” that at first we don’t realize who they really are.
   Others may be excellent and entertaining performers, but they’re always more or less playing the same kind of character even in very different situations.
   In life, each of us has a variety of roles to play and, similarly, sometimes, for better or for worse, we’re playing the same character throughout. For example, you may be a good mother, but you’re not a good sister if you treat your adult siblings like children.
   As a priest, I’m used to being called “Father”, but a more accurate label for what people expect might be “Brother”. Most people want understanding and compassion from a priest more than paternal correction and being told what to do.
   There also are various categories of roles we play throughout our lives. Some are rooted in biology like child or senior, sister or brother, mother or father, aunt or uncle.
   Some are the result of actions we take such as husband or wife, employee or employer, leader or follower; others result from the actions or rules of others like victim or prisoner, citizen or illegal alien, celebrity or outcast.
   And, of course, the passage of our lives casts us in different roles all the time.
   What defines each role we play is relationship, and most of the labels we use for them involve relationships
   If I have great love and concern within me, but never manifest it to others in word or deed, then I can’t be considered a lover or an empath. I’m not playing the role, even though perhaps I could.
   There’s no hypocrisy in all of this. We all behave differently to different people at different times. We don’t act the same with every other person we relate to in our lives. We are multifaceted, complex beings.

   If each of us has a variety of relationships in our lives and a variety of roles to play—if each of us doesn’t communicate all that we are and all that we can be in every relationship we have, what about God?
   Over the centuries, different religious traditions have developed different ways to describe the different relationships we have to God and the different relationships God has to us.
   For example, in the early books of the Bible, God is described as the personal God of Abraham. Later he’s called the God of his immediate descendants, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Later still God is considered the family or tribal God of the Israelites (the descendants of Jacob).
   It is took some centuries before the Israelites moved from polytheism to monotheism, from “You shall not have other gods beside me.” to a denial of the very existence of “other gods”.
   The Messianic Jews (the early Christians) began to describe the one and only God in terms of a variety of relationships and ways of communication, especially as:
   – Father: God in the role of the ultimate source of all being and life, the maker, the creator, the sustainer.
   – Son: God self-manifesting through the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus, and his life, example, and teachings.
   – Spirit: God communicating and acting through each, every, and all human persons, in the depths of their being.
   We don’t have up-to-date words to label this complexity, and some of our traditional words no longer mean what once they did.
   We believe in one God, although “Holy Trinity” almost sounds like we don’t!


20 June 2021

Don’t Stunt Your Growth

That was a warning I remember hearing from time to time when I was a kid to discourage certain behaviors, whether it involved eating, drinking, smoking, or something else.
   The presumption was that growth was a good thing and it was foolish to impede it.
   I have some friends (of modest height) whose children are much taller than they are, probably because the parents grew up in another country with a less healthy childhood diet. But they’re glad to see their kids growing taller and stronger than they are.
   Intellectual development is similar to the physical. Often children with better and more extensive schooling than their parents have better opportunities for the future.
   Generally mothers and fathers are not jealous of their children’s achievements and successes but proud of them. Of course, it’s because they consider their children’s growth and development as a good thing.
   However, in some matters, it’s just the opposite. If the children’s religious beliefs and practices change as they grow and develop, often the parents are distressed.
   Sometimes it may seem to the parents that their children are ignoring or abandoning vital elements in their religious life. Perhaps they are—or perhaps they’re simply outgrowing certain ethnic or cultural customs and practices.
   For example, is it so bad if a young person is keenly concerned about working for justice and peace but not so worried about missing a Mass on Sunday or praying the rosary?
   Growth, growing, involves change—not necessarily an abandonment of what we once were but a development, a maturation.
   St. Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.” (1 Cor 13:11)

   Why sometimes are we so threatened by putting aside and outgrowing things from an earlier stage of our lives? Why sometimes do we defend and cling too long to past ways and thinking?
   Not every change in advocating and reasoning is necessarily an improvement or a positive development, but denying their validity and refusing to consider them isn’t necessarily an improvement or a positive development either.
   There was another warning I remember hearing from time to time when I was a kid: Don’t talk about politics or religion.
   Probably, this was because of the lived experience of those warning us about how delicate and personal these matters were.
   Right now, especially in the U.S., there is a painful polarization and division in both these areas—and the solution is not to be silent and do nothing.
   If in either of these areas we’re talking, thinking, or reasoning “as a child”—i.e. clinging too much to earlier ideas—we need to put aside childish things.
   It’s a don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater situation. The best course of action is not necessarily to cling to and defend every past thing or practice, but to discern what is good and perennial from the limited understandings and decisions of a particular group or time.
   Our roots are more important than the details of a branch. Our fundamental values merit our defense, but not necessarily every decision, plan, program, ruling, or behavior once inspired by them.
   The child and the adult are fundamentally the same person—but in the process of growing necessarily many things change.


6 June 2021

Dated Dogmas

Dogma: 1. An official system of principles or tenets concerning faith, morals, behavior, etc.
   2. A specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down.
   3. Prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group.
   4. A settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

   “Dogma” comes from the Greek verb “dokein”, which can mean to expect, think, seem, seem good, or pretend.
   The way we use the word now has more the flavor of something fixed, permanent, definitive, binding, unchangeable.
   But nothing human can be that. If each of us is less than perfect—and we are—than the best we can do is to declare what seems to us to be good or correct, according to our lights, at a particular moment
   No dogma can fit every possible situation and no dogma can preclude the possibility of being dated, divisive, or even destructive at another time or in another place.
   Even the very understanding of dogmas develops and changes.
   Since dogmas often are concerned with religious beliefs and practices, let’s look at how they play out.
   First, things—events—happen, But even participants and eyewitnesses differ in their telling about them, and their solemn testimony about them, and their writing about them. Again, human limitations at play.
   Second, with the passage of time, the stories, histories, and traditions passed on themselves change and sometimes are revised and altered.
   Consider the Bible. There are many places where you can find more than one version of events, conversations, and conflicts—sometimes in the very same book!

   One inspired author writes from one point of view, and another, from another. It’s not about who is right and who is wrong—it’s about a complex reality bigger than any one person’s understanding or communication.
   Besides this diversity, with the passage of time further insights occur, more facts are uncovered about the earlier period, and perhaps a greater appreciation of the achievements of the earlier persons and their points of view develops.
   As the diversities increase, so does a discomfort with them. There is a desire for some clear definitions of meaning and some clear standards of practice. In effect, it often means that persons in authority respond to this desire with dogma.
   And, then gradually, diversity in the understanding and application of the dogma develops as well. There’s no stopping it!
   Since we human persons are necessarily limited, no human work or construction is ever perfect, and change and development always lead to new understandings, articulations, and norms.
   Dogmatic diversity in some sense is almost a contradiction in terms, and dogmatic development can be frightening and challenging to its partisans. But, life is about change and development, and that means that education, technology, governance, behavioral standards, faith, religion, science, philosophy, theology—all things that involve human beings—involve change and development!
   We sometimes say, “Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Maybe we should also say, “Better to embrace change and development than to bewail the loss of our comfortable, earlier certainties.”


18 April 2021      

This World or That

Americans have a great respect for their Constitution. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the merit of an action or a law. The final appeal for justice seems to involve finding a basis in the Constitution.
But—as hearings for candidates for judgeships often show—with the passage of time there are different schools of thought among judicial scholars and lawyers about how to understand and interpret the words of the Constitution.
And, if and when the Constitution is amended—a complex legal matter involving the federal and state governments and ultimately the citizens themselves—then a brand-new fundamental concept or interpretation is placed on equal footing with the original document!
Americans also have a great respect for the Bible. You can see it especially when there is a disagreement about the rightness or wrongness of certain behaviors or actions or about the values and ideals that inspire them. Often the final appeal for morality involves finding a basis in the Bible.
But, with the passage of time, there are different schools of thought among biblical scholars and religious authorities about how to understand and interpret the words of the Bible.
And, most importantly, the Bible isn’t a book in the sense of one continuous narrative, one planned literary work. It’s a collection of significant religious writings assembled and redacted over a period of some thousands of years.
The Bible cannot be “amended” as the U.S. Constitution, but the understanding of God and his designs clearly evolves over the centuries—and the process still continues!
Later books of the Bible often go beyond and/or enrich the thoughts and teachings of earlier ones—as do the successive generations inspired by them.

Our understanding of human nature and destiny—God’s designs, will, and plans for us—is like that. How we see the stages of life and our expectations for the future gradually have changed and been modified as time passes—and continue to do so.
For example, early books of the Bible tended to identify worldly success and esteem with goodness and vice versa.
Yet the Book of Job overwhelmingly shattered that simplistic point of view, although it had no detailed alternate explanations beyond the mysterious and overwhelming will and power of the Creator.
Gradually the belief in an after-life, the next world, began to develop, rooted in trust in the justice and love of God and culminating in the life and teachings of Jesus and in his resurrection.
In centuries when life was hard, painful, and short with little or no prospect of improvement—and when people heard of a better place to live in this world or in a better world to come—they yearned and hoped for it and, as best they could, planned to get there some day.
However, in times when life is easier, more comfortable, with expectations for betterment, there is less interest in relocating or less thought, yearning, and planning for a world to come.
Of course, for each person a time comes when health declines, life wanes, and death needs to be faced—either as an end or as a gateway to a better place and stage of life.
Those who have hope for the next world—even though they have not yet experienced it and can only imagine it—are sustained and encouraged by their confidence and trust—their faith—in God’s mercy and love.


31 January 2021

Change: Development or 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.”
Do those words sound a little provocative to you? Well, they should—and they are! But, surprisingly, they’re from the writings of a 5th century Gallic monk-saint, Vincent of Lérins. (The Lérins, the site of his abbey, are islands near Cannes in the French Riviera.)
He cautioned, however that “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 went on to compare 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.”
This is a man of the 5th century speaking, and speaking with great optimism in a time of growing chaos: the time of the collapsing of Roman imperial authority in the West, of the “barbarian” invasions, of theological controversies such as Pelagianism.
Regarding the latter, Vincent tried to strike a balance between extreme views regarding free will versus the grace of God: that justification is something we achieve ourselves versus that we, of ourselves, can not achieve it at all.
The concept of development—in the sense of growth, change, maturation, and evolution, to use our modern vocabulary—offered a kind of middle way.
It’s interesting. Those ancient controversies still echo in our day, but with different concepts—e.g., nature vs. nurture.

After describing the growth and development of the human person and calling attention to the difference between maturation and alteration, Vincent wrote:
“…the doctrine of the Christian religion should properly follow these laws of development, that is, by becoming firmer over the years, more ample in the course of time, more exalted as it advances in age.
“…there should be no inconsistency between first and last, but we should reap true doctrine from the growth of true teaching, so that when, in the course of time, those first sowings yield an increase it may flourish and be tended in our day also.”
Do individuals change and develop? Of course! Do families change and develop? Of course? Do cultures change and develop? Of course! Do countries change and develop? Of course! Do religions change and develop? Of course!
But, can individuals, families, cultures, countries, and religions become other than what they started out to be? Can they change course, lose their way, mutate, and decline? Alas, of course!
Vincent warned, “If, however, the human form were to turn into some shape that did not belong to its own nature, or even if something were added to the sum of its members or subtracted from it, the whole body would necessarily perish or become grotesque or at least be enfeebled.”
Cancer is a kind of grotesque growth—an exaggeration of a normal growth or the development of a foreign growth.
If I have it, it’s no help if the doctor tells me I should go back to the healthy state I used to have. That’s history.
I want to know what I should change now!


29 November 2020

Lead Us Not into Temptation

Tired of interminable changes and dismayed by so many contemporary attempts to return to or relive the past?
It’s challenging to embrace and live fully in the here and now.
A successful integration into the present is a never-ending process, since the present is a changing and evolving reality, not a fixed one.
Beware of being thwarted by handicaps in growth and development, inadequate philosophical and theological underpinnings, socio-cultural pressures, or fear.
The concepts, understandings, and strategies that at one stage in our development served us well, in another may prove to be obstacles to further growth and maturation if they are not modified and readapted to the present reality in which we live.
This can lead to misperceiving of opportunities as threats, a point of view that needs the optimism of Pope Pius XI, who urged, “Let us thank God that He makes us live among the present problems.”
Conversely, the total rejection of past experience in favor of entirely new, speculative, future possibilities, a kind of radical mutation of our lives, may also be damaging to our integral development.
Here we need Pope Leo XIII’s challenge and encouragement, originally to Christian philosophers, neither to reject what is new nor jettison what is old but “augment and perfect the old through the new.”
To successfully achieve this integration and renovation requires wisdom and a subtle discernment of substance from accident, essential from ephemeral.
Saint Paul said it well: “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.”
But, also, in the words of Shakespeare: “parting is such sweet sorrow…”

What to do?
– Trust in God. The one who made us, sustains us in being, and guides our lives, has intervened in them far more than we suspect—and will continue to do so.
– Be not alone. Relatives, friends, colleagues, fellow citizens, neighbors, and acquaintances may have disappointed us in the past and may do so again—none of us is perfect. Yet, we need to share our experiences of success and failure in life to assist one another to cope with the challenges of today and tomorrow.
– Be real. Resist the temptation to “flee the world” and its disturbing and bewildering changes. Withdrawal is not the remedy—we’re not frightened snails! Don’t seek retreat to an imagined better past or to an unrealistic imagined future.
– Be politic. Otto van Bismarck once said, “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable—the art of the next best.” An old Chinese proverb expressed a similar wisdom: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” They both imply an implicit warning about extremism, that “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
– Be patient. The word, “patient”, is rooted in the Latin verb, patior, which means to suffer, to bear, to undergo. We’re all limited and imperfect. We all have our blind spots and prejudices. But, all we’ve got—besides God—is each other.
– Be glad. Don’t let the torrent of bad and fake news demoralize and depress you. Avoid being immersed and entangled in a web of devices and distractions. See the beauty of the created world and all of its creatures, in spite of their limitations. Give thanks!


22 November 2020

Thinking outside the Box

I remember reading an article some time ago about oil and the future of the petroleum industry that reminded me of a conversation with a friend many years previous:
“You know the Fischer company, the ‘bodies by Fischer’ of the Cadillacs?.” he said, “Well, they used to be a carriage company. When ‘horseless carriages’ started to become popular, the Fischer company decided that their business wasn’t just carriages but transportation.
“They responded to change and development by ‘thinking outside the box’, and they not only survived but grew.”
Many small and big oil companies have been doing the same. They’ve been accurately reading the signs of the times and rethinking their business model, their “mission”, if you will.
The article explained that they were not only embracing new technologies like fracking but also totally different businesses like wind turbines. To use my friend’s example, they also were thinking outside the box, realizing that their business is not just “oil” but “energy”.
What about religious people and religious organizations? How many of them have been successfully reading the signs of the times and thinking outside the box?
It’s not easy to do, of course, since it involves letting go of secure, familiar, and once effective and fruitful things and risking embracing a relatively unknown, uncertain, and somewhat risky future.
There has been a lot of progress—and a lot of defeatism, too. For example, take “ecumenism”. During the last half century, most Catholics have moved away from “outside the Church there’s no salvation”.
In fact, one of the seismic shifts in the understanding of the church has been that the one church of Christ embraces all who are trying to live as disciples of Jesus.

Some of the aftershocks of this ecclesiologic earthquake have involved placing less emphasis on rites, rules, and regulations:
– For example, defining church membership less by the ritual of baptism and more by the life-time commitment to follow Jesus that the ritual presumes and celebrates.
– For example, esteeming faithfulness to that commitment less by regular Sunday Mass attendance, Friday abstinence, or observance of other church regulations and customs and more by fidelity to the teachings, all the teachings, of Jesus.
– For example, judging the validity of marriage less by the marriage ceremony having been conducted according to church law and more by the existence of the decision and commitment that the ceremony symbolizes and represents.
– For example, respecting persons with ministry in the church less for their having been ordained or authorized and more for their personal integrity, competence, and loving commitment to service.
Change isn’t always comfortable, probably frequently isn’t comfortable—don’t we often speak of “growing pains”? It’s painful because change—growth, maturation, development, evolution, whatever you want to call it—is challenging.
It doesn’t involve just thinking outside the box, it means getting out, climbing out, breaking out of the box. It means rethinking your identity, purpose, and mission.
It It means letting go of some things, even really good things, so that you can have others, even better.
A chick can’t live unless it cracks the egg!


6 September 2020

Rights, Rules, and Regulations

“It’s a free country, ain’t it?” That used to be part of a very snotty comeback from someone being told what to do—or what not to do.
It’s a very American attitude: brash, bold, assertive, proud—and even disdainful and rebellious.
The United States was born out of rebellion and revolution. The thirteen English colonies rejected the authority of their king, disobeyed his laws and edicts, and asserted that they had a God-given right to be free of him.
Let’s face it, by the standards of their day their behavior was considered illegal, criminal, wicked, and sinful. And, we celebrate it every 4th of July!
The American justification for the revolution and the war for independence involved invoking a higher power and authority than the king and asserting the existence of inalienable natural rights, rights that cannot be taken away by any human authority.
An irony of American history is that we’ve become a very litigious, legalistic country—constantly bring charges against one another and seeking punishment and redress.
We’re constantly arguing about laws, invoking laws, rules, and regulations, and challenging the legitimacy of their interpretation.
American Catholicism also has been very legalistic. For many, the impact of Vatican II was not much more than a change in Church laws, rules, and regulations: turning the altars around, Mass in the vernacular, no more Friday abstinence, and easing up of regulations for Lent.
Here’s a current example of a religious legalism: Because of the Coronavirus, we were “dispensed from the obligation of attending Mass every Sunday”. Dispensed? There weren’t any Sunday Masses!

We can’t blame all of the legalism on American culture. There is a certain legalism in the Church itself.
For centuries, the Church defined itself as a perfect society. The two perfect societies, Church and State, each had their own legislative, judicial, and executive functions and personnel. They each could make laws.
The Church has a Code of Canon Law, courts, judicial trials, and can mete out sentences and punishments.
Of course Church authorities have to be of service to all its members, and their challenge is to be of service: to serve more than rule, to teach more than legislate, to witness more than enforce.
What a curious irony of history! American Catholics historically have been outstandingly obedient, dutiful, and rule-abiding. When it comes to the Church, the majority of them are certainly not at all “brash, bold, assertive, proud—and even disdainful and rebellious”!
In the history of the Church, many others—in many other times and places—have been, for better or for worse!
In hindsight, the American revolution came to be seen as a good—not perfect, not without flaws, faults, and limitations—but as a good. Today, the U.K. and U.S, are not enemies but allies and share common roots, culture, and history.
In the Church, a similar change of attitude has occurred. The “heretics” and “schismatics” of the past are now brothers and sisters in Christ, part of the one Church of Christ in all of its diversity.
Let’s stop waving the “Don’t Step on Me” flag and march under “Ex Pluribus Unum”.


28 June 2020

Facing Death

Much of Holy Week, especially Passion (Palm) Sunday and Good Friday, is overwhelming about death—the final suffering and death of Jesus.
Much of recent weeks for all of us has been overwhelmingly about death—the danger of death from the rapidly spreading Coronavirus.
These days we can’t help but think about the possibility our own death or that of family and friends; it’s not quite like our familiar and somewhat accustomed reflection about the death of the Lord.
We believe, we know that Holy Week has a happy ending, that Jesus triumphed over sin and death, and was resurrected—and that he opened a way to the fulness of life for all of us.
We know that, we believe that, we’re consoled by that—and, to be honest, deadly honest, even so we’re still scared.
You know, if you could have been conscious and reflective in the first stage of your life—in your mother’s womb—it might well have been the same:
Imagine, the only world you know is the womb: you’re comfortable, secure, warm, nourished, and loved—but you’re growing and developing, outgrowing the comfortable but increasingly more confining place where you live.
Then a terrible, disruptive, and painful process begins—you’re being forced out of the only world you know, and you had no experience of anything “outside” this comfortable world of yours.
You’re being born!
In this second stage of our lives, we’re somewhat like the story of the two caterpillars comfortably munching on a leaf of their tree as a beautiful butterfly flew very close to where they were. One said to the other, “You’ll never get me up in one of those things!”

Like it or not, sooner or later we must face another birth-like change in our lives—another disruptive, and painful process of being forced out of the world we know, with no experience of anything “outside” of it.
In faith, this experience isn’t a termination, but a transition. It’s a doorway; it’s a pass that lets us cross the mountain chain; it’s being born again—this time into eternal life.
In Medieval Europe, a popular theme of sermons and illustrations was the Dance of Death. Death was personified as a grim reaper, scythe in hand, who called high and low, rich and poor, to their fate.
I remember seeing a cartoon-like version of this in a magazine. Death was portrayed as skeleton-like dark figure. Each page was Death coming for a different kind of person.
For example, the farmer begged him to wait, so he could first harvest his crops—the lawyer urged him to delay, till his last case was tried—the blacksmith asked for time to finish his last forging.
The last visit was entitled, “Death Comes for the Little Child.” It showed the ominous figure of death reaching out toward the child—who gleefully ran towards him, shouting, “I know you!”
The following page showed the child ripping away what turned out to be a mask from the face of death to reveal his true identity. It was the Lord!
We believe that facing death is not facing destruction and total termination—it’s about facing the ultimate stage of our lives.
How do we know that? We don’t “know” it; we trust! We entrust ourselves to the loving God who made us, is always with us, guides us, and invites us to the fulness of life.


5 April 2020