Discernment Archives < Page 3 of 9 < For Better or For Worse

Fumbling and Bumbling

Fumbling and bumbling is probably an accurate description of the course of most of our lives. [It is an accurate description of mine—or at least of these first 90 years of it! But, I am making progress!]
   Fumbling and bumbling is not necessarily bad!
   After all, we learn by doing. You don’t learn how to keep your balance without falling down. You don’t learn how to do the right thing without doing the wrong thing—i.e., making mistakes.
   If you think making a mistake is something bad or to be avoided at all cost, you’re making a mistake about the role of mistakes. Frequently, almost usually, we don’t learn the importance and value of the right thing—as well as how to do it—until we have experienced the wrong!
   Think of a baby learning how to walk. It takes a lot of falling down to learn how to keep your balance, stand, and walk.
   Think of using seasoning at a meal. A little, the right amount, enhances the taste of the food. But, too much can do just the opposite!
   If you keep making the same mistake, again and again, you’re really not learning from your mistakes. At worst, you’re just becoming comfortable and used to them—so much so that after a while you begin to forget that they are mistakes in the first place!
   It’s your prerogative to crawl forever, but you’re missing out on dancing, not to mention really easily getting around!
   No one ever claims that it is a sin to crawl and not walk, but, oh, the so many mistakes and kinds of mistakes that get that label, that branding.
   We learn by our mistakes—which, paradoxically, implies that we learn by our “sins,” our mistakes that are classified as against the will of God, as shameful, as deep personal failings, as evil!

   “Sin” is a special category of mistake, and it usually implies a kind of habitual mistake, the kind that we make so often that we forget that our progress, our growth and development, our holiness are becoming impeded!
   It’s better not to teach a little child to do the right thing by bawling out, rebuking, mocking, condemning, and punishing. The preferred methodology is to assist, reward, encourage, explain, and teach.
   I think it’s safe to presume that God knows the most effective methods for helping us to grow and develop according to our built-in design.
   Alas, unfortunately often some of our religious teachings, counsels, and judgements don’t quite live up to God’s standards and practice.
   God’s way may seem baffling to us at times—e.g., telling a crucified, condemned criminal, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
   God’s approach to judgement seems to be learn by doing. God doesn’t condemn us for our every mistake, only for not learning from our mistakes and falling into the habit of repeating them.
   Does this mean that anything goes? That we never take responsibility for our mistakes? That there’s no such thing as sin?
   Of course not! But there’s a subtle difference between a mistake and a sin. The way God made us, we’re all fumblers and bumblers—we are all limited creatures only gradually learning from our mistakes.
   God isn’t condemning us for our every mistake, for we can’t learn and grow without them. It’s who and what we are today that counts. We all regret our many yesterdays!

27 November 2022

Symbols

A symbol is something that represents or stands for something else. For example, the Star of David is a symbol of Judaism and the cross is a symbol of Christianity.
   Every culture has its own symbols and its own customs regarding how its symbols are to be respected and understood.
   If we salute our national flag and treat it with great care, respect, and reverence, it’s not for the flag itself but for the nation and its values that it represents.
   Symbols are important “ingredients” of the Jewish Passover seder, a ritual meal recalling the loving care of God for his people. Special foods are served that are symbolic reminders of events of Jewish history.
   Jesus’ last supper was a seder. According to Luke 22:14-20:
When the hour came, he took his place at table with the apostles. He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for, I tell you, I shall not eat it again until there is fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
   Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; for I tell you that from this time on I shall not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” Then he took the bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.”
   Jesus introduced two new symbols at this last Passover meal with his disciples.
   At the beginning he broke the blessed bread and distributed it to the apostles saying, “This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me.”
   At the end with the final cup of wine he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you.”

   Writing to the Corinthians some years later, the apostle Paul said (1 Cor 11:23-26):
   For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
   As the centuries passed and as Christian customs developed and became traditional, these two symbols became the core of the Christian Passover ritual, better known as the Mass or the Eucharist.
   Over the centuries some great saints have reflected deeply about the nature of these symbols and what they symbolize.
   The important thing, of course, is not so much to study and celebrate the symbol itself but what it symbolizes—that’s why we give the care, respect, and reverence to the symbol that belong to what it represents.
   Eating together the broken bread and drinking together the wine is to reaffirm the new covenant and our shared allegiance to it and to proclaim and celebrate the salvific nature of Jesus’ death on the cross.
   The broken bread reminds us that the broken body of Jesus was a sacrificial offering for all of us. The wine reminds us that Jesus’ blood shed on the cross sealed the new covenant.
   Mass is a time for thankful remembrance and for renewing faithful commitments.

20 November 2022

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

You Think You’re Thinking?

Think is a general word meaning to exercise the mental facilities so as to form ideas, arrive at conclusions, etc. The dictionary gives a lot of meanings for the word. Here’s a few:
   1. to use the mind for arriving at conclusions, making decisions, drawing inferences, etc.; reflect; reason. 2. to weigh something mentally; reflect. 3. to call to mind; recall; remember. 4. to have an opinion, judgement, etc. 5. to determine, resolve, work out, etc. by reasoning.
   You know what happens sometimes? We think we’re thinking, but we’re really not thinking at all. Frequently we may simply be:
   Parroting – mechanically repeating the words or acts of others, frequently without full understanding, or:
   Quoting – reproducing or repeating a passage of or statement of another.
   You’d think that being well educated would mean being an effective and critically thinking person, but, alas, that’s not always the case.
   Beware of confusing liking with thinking. Just because we’re fond of something, or prefer something, or used to something, or belong to something isn’t the same as reflecting on, reasoning about, working out, and critically deciding about something.
   And, it’s not just about things; it’s also about others. For example, we may prefer the company of and trust someone who may not be so good for us, nor so good as we may imagine.
   When we were very young, we learned to accept, repeat, and obey what we were told by adults. But, as we matured and were educated, hopefully we learned to think critically about what we were told by or learned from others.
   Others includes, for example, family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, even doctors, lawyers, officials, newscasters, preachers, teachers, and authors.

   When you read, hear, and/or view the daily news, think! When you listen to “experts”, think! When your doctor prescribes for you, think! When someone gives you financial advice, think! When you’re shopping, think. When, you’re betting, think! When you’re proposing, think! When you’re listening to a sermon in church, think! When you’re reading a book, even the Bible, think!
   No parroting or quoting. No “deference to authority”. No blind obedience. No unreflective decision making. No being swayed by desires, hopes, and fears. Mature adult people think!
   It doesn’t mean that you always get it right. You can think you’re thinking something through completely and adequately, but you may be wrong. The solution: rethink!
   There are some things that no amount of thinking can resolve or fully understand, but which still require making decisions and choices. That’s okay.
   There is a role for trusting the judgement and insight of another, especially an older, wiser, more experienced other. There are times where choices are required in situations where you can’t think it out alone.
   You know an important area where this is the case? Religion, especially belief, faith, and trust. It’s not inappropriate to act on faith and trust, if you have thought things out to the limits of your ability and experience—but it may be inappropriate if you first didn’t bother to think things out as best you could.
   God gave us eyes, ears, and a brain to think with and intervenes in our lives more than we fully realized or thought!
   Think about that!

16 October 2022

Persevering

It’s thing you ought to do! It’s a thing that’s hard to do! It’s a thing you have to do! It’s a thing that you’re sometimes criticized for doing! What is it, really?
   Let’s start with some dictionary definitions:
   Persevere – to continue in some effort, course of action, etc. in spite of difficulty, opposition, etc.; to be steadfast in purpose; to persist.
   Does this mean to be stubborn?
   Stubborn – 1. refusing to yield, obey, or comply; resisting doggedly or unreasonably; resolute or obstinate. 2. done or carried out in an obstinate or doggedly persistent manner. 3. hard to handle, treat, or deal with; intractable.
   But, in a good sense it could almost mean:
   Heroic – 1. of or characterized by persons of godlike strength and courage. 2. like or characteristic of a hero/heroine or his/her deeds; strong, brave, noble, powerful, etc. 3. of or about a hero/heroine and his/her deeds; epic. 4. Exalted, eloquent; high-flown. 5. daring and risky, but used as a last resort.
   Okay, it’s clear that perseverance is a more or less neutral word; it can refer to behaviors, right or wrong, ranging on a scale from stubborn to heroic.
   Perseverance can be a matter of:
   – Persistence – in a favorable sense, implying steadfast perseverance; in an unfavorable sense, annoyingly stubborn continuance.
   – Tenacity and Pertinacity – imply firm adherence to some purpose, action, belief, etc., tenacity in a favorable sense, and pertinacity, with the unfavorable connotation of annoying obstinacy.
   (There is a related Latin root word, severus, that also has a range of meanings, favorable and unfavorable:
   Grave, serious, strict, rigid, stern, austere.)

   Persevering requires knowledge, determination, courage, strength, endurance, and sacrifice.
   Persevering in a good sense also involves maturity, life experience, generosity, insight, humility, and faith!
   One way of describing a saint is a person who perseveres in doing the will of God until life’s end.
   The will of God includes things like:
   – “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
   – I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.
   – Do to others as you would have them do to you.
   – Then Peter approaching asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
   – Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.
   This kind of perseverance is paradoxical.
   From one point of view, it describes a loser, someone stubborn, inflexible, imprudent, spineless, and naïve.
   From another, more meaningful, point of view, it describes a winner, someone courageous, generous, strong, and loving.
   The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
   Persevere!

9 October 2022

God’s Requirements

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?

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 6:6-8)

   Religiosity in the days of the prophet Micah (8^th century BC) and for centuries before had a heavy emphasis on personal and public sins and atonement for them.
   In the days of the Jerusalem temple, atonement rituals involved sacrifices, especially animal sacrifices. The worse the sin (and the greater the sinner’s resources), the greater the sacrifice.
   Micah—and others—challenged this traditional religious custom and practice. You know what God really asks of you, he taught, it’s simple, three basic things:
– Do justice
   – Love goodness
   – Walk humbly with your God
   Now-a-days, we have no temple for atonement sacrifices but we still have a somewhat similar atonement mentality.
   But now as then, there’s no paying God back with sacrifices. If you regret what you have done, the answer to what you should and need to do is simple: exactly what Micah taught centuries ago.
   What God asks of you is not to spend time and effort regretting and mourning your failures nor in being jealous of others. “Don’t cry over spilled milk!”
   Just be just, be good, and be humble!

   Look, no matter what you can come up with, you can’t change the past. What’s said is said, what’s done is done.
   Don’t waste time regretting the past. We all have regrets about the past. None of us are perfect people, and none of us has a perfect past. Fact of life!
   Also, don’t waste time and effort in trying to “pay back”. No matter what you may consider to be enough, it may never be enough for another.
   The best you can do is to confess, to admit what you have done and, then, change for the future. It may never be enough for another, but it may be the best you can do.
   We still have a sacrifice mentality. We may feel the need to atone for what we have done. Others may demand that we pay a price for what we have done.
   Over the Christian centuries, many atonement practices have been popularized and some are still with us—e.g., special prayers, fasting, wearing painful devices, or vowing abstention from possessions, marriage, or free choices.
   With the best of intentions, we may still be making inadequate or inappropriate decisions.
   What God is asking of us, requiring of us, is relatively simple to state, pretty much what Micah taught long, long ago:

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.

We more or less pray this every day, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

2 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

To Be or Not to Be . . .

Hamlet’s reflection about suicide and death, at least the first words of his soliloquy, are very familiar to most English speakers. But, it’s not just a reflection about death and dying—it’s also a reflection about life and living.
   Notice, it’s not about “to live” or “to do” or “to work” or “to endure” and the like—it’s about “to be”.
   You and I, we did not choose “to be”. For better or for worse, we are. Although we can choose to die, we cannot, literally, chose “not to be”; it’s too late for that.
“To be” is more or less a way of saying “to exist”. It’s a fact, It cannot be totally undone, although it seems as though it can be ended.
   It’s understandable that sometimes our life can seem unbearable. At times, we may feel lost, bewildered, confused, overwhelmed. We may suffer loneliness, misunderstanding, helplessness, failure.
   We can succumb to wishing and seeking not to live any more, but we can’t erase our history to date.
   If we haven’t become famous, important, popular, powerful, beautiful, wealthy, or the like, it makes no difference. We’re not called upon to be this or that. We’re fundamentally meant “to be”. It’s alluded to in a popular hymn:

     “Glory to God, Glory,
     O praise Him, alleluia.
     Glory to God, Glory,
     O praise the name of the Lord.”

In a society where achievement is an important value, it’s important to realize that the most important value of all is simply to be the person God made us to be and wants us to be.
There’s no competition to be the tallest mountain, the brightest sunrise, the sweetest flower, the swiftest river. Why should we compete with any other rather than be glad to be who and what we are?

   My challenge is to be me, not to be you. Each of us is a unique creation, a unique collection of gifts and talents, meant to make a unique contribution to the world in which we live.
   I have to strive to be the person God wants me to be, not who anybody else wants me to be. I have to sing my song, whether anyone else hears it or not. I have to blossom and bloom, whether anyone else sees me or not.
   I have a role to play in the world, whether noticed or unnoticed. There are things that, if I don’t do them, they will never be done. There are people who, if I don’t love them, may never know love.
   Every single one of us has a purpose, a destiny, a mission that is unique and irreplaceable. The choice is not so much “to be or not to be” in the sense of living or dying—it’s more to be what each of us is meant to be, to fulfill the unique destiny that each of us is challenged with.
   Poor confused, bewildered, torn, and frustrated Hamlet, the dead king’s son. Just because you are a king’s son doesn’t necessarily mean that you will inherit his kingdom. Just because you are a victim of others’ greed and passion doesn’t necessarily mean that you must avenge their victims and right their wrongs.
   Shakespeare’s play is entitled “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. It’s a tragedy because it deals with a serious and sad theme about a person destined to experience downfall and destruction through a character flaw or conflict with the overpowering force of fate.
   Be! Live out your life story. But, be careful! Don’t let your story become a tragedy!

19 June 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