Tag: Limitations

Church Officers

An officer usually is a person elected or appointed to some position of trust, responsibility or authority in a government, corporation, society, etc.. We frequently associate it with police and armed forces.
   The Church has officers also, but uses different words to describe them like “clerics” or “clergy”.
   When church officer candidates are trained and ready to hold office, their commissioning is called ordination.
   Church officers also can be retired or discharged, honorably or dishonorably (punitively). For centuries their term of office was idealized as forever; however now they have set, limited terms of office.
   Church officers are often called “pastors”, meaning “shepherds”. A shepherd herds, tends, and guards sheep. Metaphorically, a pastor protects, guides, and watches over his congregation (his “flock” or sheep).
   However, Church officers are not a different breed; they also are sheep. But, they have leadership roles in the Christian community. They may have positions of rank, authority, or responsibility, but their role is to serve.
   In other words, the Church doesn’t have different classes of membership, only different roles of service and responsibility.
   St. Augustine, in his sermon On Pastors, described it well:
   “I must distinguish carefully between two aspects of the role the Lord has given me . . .
   “The first aspect is that I am a Christian; the second, that I am a leader. I am a Christian for my own sake; the fact that I am a Christian is to my own advantage, but I am a leader for your advantage.
   “Many persons come to God as Christians but not as leaders. Perhaps they travel by an easier road and are less hindered since they bear a lighter burden, In addition to the fact that I am a Christian and must give God an account of my life, I as a leader must give him an account of my stewardship as well.”

   In today’s Church, there are many men and women exercising roles of service, but only some of them are ordained officers. Sometimes, using a somewhat old fashioned vocabulary, we call the others “lay ministers”.
   Although they may have positions of trust and leadership in the Church, they still tend to be considered an entirely different class from the “ordained”.
   A current practical problem is that the dwindling numbers of ordained clergy simply are too few to be the exclusive leaders in the Church, and some of them are personally inadequate to the task.
   The understanding of Church leadership is changing, and some of the terminology being used to describe the changes is new.
   For centuries, in a mostly monarchical Europe, Church leadership was monarchical and clerical. Vatican Council I, in a changing world, tried to address this. It began with clarifying the office, duty, and authority of the Pope but was interrupted before it could to do the same for bishops.
   Vatican II remedied this in part. A new post-conciliar structure was the Synod of Bishops, a large and diverse ad hoc body chosen by the Pope to advise and collaborate with him in overall planning and leadership.
   Now a next stage of development is gradually emerging; called Synodality, it involves finding and establishing forms of exercising church leadership that include more than pope and bishops alone. Initially perhaps upsetting and difficult to understand and implement, it is necessitated by the reality of the church today.
   Slowly but surely, Church leadership is no longer being limited to an exclusive body of ordained Church Officers.


10 October 2021

God Doesn’t Shout

Chapter 19 of the 1st book of Kings tells of Elijah’s encounter with God on the mountain:

There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord—but the Lord was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the Lord was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake, fire—but the Lord was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound.

   When Elijah heard the light silent sound he knew he was in the presence of God.
   We may yearn to know the will of God, to know what God expects of us. We may yearn to hear his voice.
   The Bible tells of us of the experience of others, of how they perceived the will of God, of how they heard his voice.
   The lives of the saints are similar. We learn how they came to discern God’s will, how they heard God’s call.
   We may cry out in the depths of our hearts, “Lord, why did you allow this to happen? Lord, where are you leading me? Lord, what do you want of me?
   Can it be that God ignores our plea? that God doesn’t hear our cry? that God is indifferent to our plight?
   No!
   God always answers—and God often answers in ways we do not expect.
   If you’re expecting dramatic divine intervention in your life like the experience of St. Paul the Apostle on the road to Damascus, you may be waiting in vain. In fact, you may be missing or completely misunderstanding God’s way of communication. God may be speaking, but it is you who do not hear!
   When the people heard the crash of thunder and the flashes of lighting they “knew” that God was speaking to Moses.
   But Moses—and Elijah—knew better.

   Three special ways God speaks to us are through the created universe, the teachings of Jesus, and in the depths of our hearts.
   The problem is not that God is not talking to us. The problem lies with us, that we are often deaf, dumb, and stupid—we don’t see, hear, sense, feel, taste, discern, understand, or comprehend.
   Elijah in the depth of depression and despair, went into the desert to die—and yet he was summoned to stand before God on the mountain and hear his voice. At least he was not so far gone that he misconstrued the violence of nature as the voice of God. He listened for the light silent sound!
   The sonnet of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “How do I love thee?”, could also be a reflection about “How do I hear thee?”:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


12 September 2021

Calumny vs. Detraction

Your armory of good words, probably has two excellent but almost forgotten and rarely used ones, subtle, clear, and strong:

Calumny: 1. a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something. 2. the act of uttering calumnies; slander; defamation.

Detraction: 1. the act of disparaging or belittling the reputation or worth of a person, work, etc. 2. the taking away of a part, as from quality, value, or reputation.

   Both have to do with damaging a person’s reputation. The difference is that calumny achieves it by a falsehood, and detraction achieves it by a truth.
   Calumny seems clearly to be wrong, since it involves spreading a falsehood with the intent of damaging someone’s reputation.
   Detraction is also wrong, although less obviously. There are those who might claim that it can never be wrong to tell a truth, but this is not always the case.
   For example, if you once said or did something which was very personal and private, whether good or bad, it is not necessarily correct for another person to publicize it, making it a matter of common knowledge-especially if the intent is to destroy your good name and reputation.
   We are all less than perfect. Everyone is not entitled to know everything about each of us without sufficient cause or reason.
   If someone has repeatedly done something seriously wrong or dangerous to another person or the public good, there may well be adequate reason to reveal it. But, if not, the very revealing of the wrong or danger may be itself a wrong!
   Everyone is entitled to a reasonable degree of privacy and to his or her good name, and to violate it requires an adequate cause.

   This isn’t about an examination of conscience or a private confession. A wrong remains a wrong, whether known or not. But, everyone need not know everything about another, whether right or wrong.
   Today, where huge quantities of true and false information are easily available to us through the various media, there seems to be a great emphasis on a “gotcha” mentality—a kind of almost indecent haste to unearth anything that could be used to discredit another, whether justifiable or not!
   Of course, some grievous matters may need to be revealed for the common good, but not everything, always.
   In examining our individual or collective conscience, we need to a remember that there is such a serious fault (wrong; sin) as calumny. and there also is a subtler fault (wrong; sin), also serious, detraction. 
  We can’t excuse ourselves because of ignorance, that we didn’t fully realize the implications of what we were doing.
   We’re supposed to know the laws of the land in which we live and obey them. Ignorance does not excuse us from breaking them and paying the penalty.
   We’re presumed to be familiar with the customs and tolerances of the society in which we live and respect them. Ignorance does not excuse us from ignoring them and being treated accordingly.
   We’re supposed to seek and discern God’s will for us and follow it. Ignorance does not absolve us from our responsibility.
   We’re also supposed to clearly speak the language of the society in which we live. So, be sure your vocabulary includes these two clear and powerful words and that you wield them well!


22 August 2021

Building Sand Castles

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

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

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


15 August 2021

Expansive in Folly, Limited in Sense

Solomon finally slept with his fathers,
   and left behind him one of his sons,
Expansive in folly, limited in sense,
   Rehoboam, who by his policy made the people rebel;
   (Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach) 47:23a)

   “Expansive in folly, limited in sense.”
   What a blunt summary of the life of the third ruler of the united kingdom of Judah and Israel, Rehoboam, son of Solomon, son of David.
   They weren’t a dynasty of angels. David, hailed in tradition as the greatest king of Israel, the very prototype of the good king, was an enterprising young man, a military tactician, a renowned battle leader, fighter and killer.
   He also was a man who contrived to sleep with the wife of one of his officers, Uriah, who was away on active duty. And, later finding her pregnant, he ordered that her husband should be placed in the front line of a major attack and then abandoned to die there.
   When his bastard child died, David repented, and God forgave him. He married the widow, Bathsheba, and fathered another child with her, Solomon, who ultimately succeeded him.
   Solomon ruled a peaceful, united kingdom. He went down in history as the prototype of the wise man, but he also was a womanizer, who for political reasons introduced pagan worship into his kingdom to satisfy some of his many foreign wives.
   With the ascent of his son Rehoboam, the briefly united kingdom began to fracture and fail. There’s not much said about him in the Bible beyond the brief summary, “Expansive in folly, limited in sense.”
   David and Solomon also had their follies, misjudgments, mistakes, and failures—but at least they regretted, repented, and amended their ways.

   The morals of this little history are many, but one thing stands out—that nobody is perfect, always gets things right, doesn’t make stupid and even destructive decisions.
   However, some people do come to their senses, realize that they have failed or damaged others, and change. They admit their mistakes and strive to do better.
   Every idolized human person has clay feet. Short of divine intervention, of a special act of God, no one is faultless, and sometimes the faults are major, monumental, and their unintended consequences may live on and can’t be remedied.
   We would need superhuman wisdom and strength never to fail. Everyone’s biography has sections we’d love to edit away. But our failures are not the ultimate measure and judgment of our lives, no matter how great or consequential they may be.
   In this regard, St. Paul’s message to the Corinthians is consoling (1 Co 1:25-31):

   Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God. It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

1 August 2021

Time’s Up

One way of describing life is growing and changing. Maybe it should only be changing, because growing, at least in the bodily sense, slows down and stops after a while.
   But growing in the senses of thinking, understanding, improving, bettering, accomplishing, and achieving can continue long after physical growth ends and even while physically we are declining and diminishing.
   Death means the end of all growth and development, at least as we know and experience them now. But, in a spiritual dimension, we may believe and trust that they continue in some other, yet to be experienced, way.
   We sometimes joke about the incessant questioning of little children: Why is this? Where does it come from? How does it work? etc. That means they’re growing in terms of knowledge and understanding.
   Hopefully, they will never stop questioning, never stop challenging, never stop growing in their thinking and understanding.
   If they, if we, do reach a certain stage of life where we no longer question, challenge, grow, or change in our thinking and understanding, we are, so to speak, dying or dead!
   It’s odd. We esteem and acclaim explorers, discoverers, inventors, scientists, artists, and innovators in many areas and aspects of our life but criticize dissidents, eccentrics, oddballs, nonconformists, and “heretics” (in its original meaning of people of different opinion) in others.
   In the unending quest for knowledge and understanding, we sometimes get it right and we sometimes get it wrong—but, the main thing is to never stop trying. There’s nothing wrong in making mid-course corrections in the way we live our lives.
   We’re not perfect, infallible, nor omniscient.

   No matter how much we may achieve, how much we may understand, how much we may sacrifice, how much we may love, how much others may respond to us, it will never be enough and we will never be fully satisfied.
   This is all part of the human condition. There’s no sense in lamenting the deficiencies of our past or the limitations of our present. It’s rare to learn to skate without falling down, to learn to do anything new without getting it wrong from time to time.
   The very essence of our lives is growing and changing. If fear of mistakes or failures holds us back from growing or changing, we gradually are living in an unreality; we are gradually dying in more ways than one.
   The greatest challenge for each of us is to learn to celebrate, rejoice, and have gladness, peace, and satisfaction in our lives—in our limited, ever changing, and imperfect lives.
   Especially we need to remember, know and be grateful for the understanding, empathy, support, and love we have received throughout our lives from others—and above all from the One who created us, whose mercy and love is without limits, and whose providence sustains and guides our lives.
   Let us pray, imitating St. Ignatius of Loyola:

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost;
to fight and not to heed the wounds;
to toil and not to seek for rest;
to labor and not to seek any reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

 

25 July 2021

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

Figuring Things Out

There are an awful lot of things that we can’t figure out, that just don’t make sense to us, and that we don’t really understand no matter how hard we try.
   As a matter of fact, we live our lives constantly surrounded by things we can’t figure out—and, oddly enough, that doesn’t seem to bother us at all.
   Just because we don’t know exactly how a cell phone works doesn’t stop us from using it all the time. On the other hand, it may be able to do more things than we realize, but if we have no desire to do those things we’re not bothered in the least because we don’t understand them.
   How many of us can really explain how a plane flies? Even though we may not know exactly how, it doesn’t stop us from taking flights. But, we do presume and trust that the pilot understands a lot more about it than we do.
   It’s like going to the doctor. When we’re sick or don’t feel well, we trust that the doctor will know better or find out what’s wrong and do something to help us. We don’t have to know precisely how it works, to benefit from a vaccination.
   Whether you’re going to an obstetrician or a local midwife, it involves an act of confidence and trust in the knowledge and decisions of the other.
   The hardest things to figure out aren’t matters of science, technology, mechanics, or biology. The hardest things to figure out are other people!
   How often we’re baffled by their decisions, reactions, and behavior. How often we think or even say, “I just can’t figure him/her out!”
   Because we often can’t figure the other persons out, we can unknowingly misunderstand them, misjudge them, or react to them inappropriately.
   And, it’s not just strangers. It could be your mother, father, wife, husband, child, sister, brother, neighbor, friend, colleague, counselor, minister, entertainer, or boss.

   When it comes to our faith and religious practices, there’s also a lot of things we can’t figure out, that just don’t make sense to us, and that we don’t really understand.
   As a matter of fact, we live our religious lives constantly surrounded by things that we can’t figure out—and oddly enough, that also doesn’t seem to bother us at all.
   Just because we don’t know enough history, philosophy, and theology to explain the origin, change, and development in religious matters, it doesn’t usually bother us in the least or stop us from practicing our religion or living lives of faith.
   When we join with others in religious observances, we may not be able to explain everything, but we do presume and trust that our religious leaders (be they priest, minister, rabbi, imam, or swami) understand a lot more about them than we do.
   In religious matters, as in many things, although we may not have all the answers we do trust and have confidence in our religious leaders and fellow believers.
   Of course, religious leaders, like all leaders, like all people, are less than perfect, don’t know everything, and can’t explain everything, even though we may trust them.
   We may be baffled by their decisions, reactions, and behavior. We may think or even say, “I just can’t figure him/her out!”
   If this is the way things are with other people, how much more it must be with God (the maker, the creator, the supreme being, the source of all life and love).
   We can’t figure God out, and so God can be unknowingly misunderstood, misjudged, or reacted to inappropriately also!
   Especially with God, it’s really not about figuring things out—it’s all about trust and love.


13 June 2021

Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

This is an expression that we may use to describe someone who is so deeply involved in the details of something that they lose sight of the overall, the big picture.
   The movie, “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, was a great example of this. British soldiers are in a WWII Japanese prison camp. For the sake of their physical health and overall morale, their commanding officer leads them in constructing a bridge over the nearby river, demanded by the Japanese camp commander.
   When the completed bridge is targeted for destruction by the British army, the prisoners’ commander, so deeply committed to the success of his project, blindly tries to impede the British action.
   Losing sight of the forest because of the trees is always a danger for anyone, especially responsible, thorough, and thoughtful people. One can get so absorbed in the details of some construction, task, investigation, or analysis that it’s easy to lose sight of the overall goal—or even impede it.
   “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” We shouldn’t get so immersed in what we are doing that we lose track of our overall goal. There’s only so much time, opportunity, and resources available to us.
Don’t spend so much time packing carefully that you miss the vacation flight!
   There is a high degree of specialization in the field of medical care. There can be doctors who are so highly skilled in some very specialized medical fields that they almost lose sight of overall threats to the health, wellbeing, and life obligations of their patient.
   This can happen in all fields, not just the medical. With all due respect, it seems to me that something similar sometimes happens in the religious field as well—to preachers, writers, theologians, biblical scholars, canonists, historians, and those with special ecclesiastical responsibilities.

   Generally in the Eastern churches, the cross as a symbol of victory is often a golden or even bejeweled emblem. In the Western church, it is usually the crucifix, the cross with the tortured body of Jesus affixed.
   During the Easter Triduum, we remember and celebrate in great detail—the passion narrative—the final few days and hours of Jesus’s life. Sometimes it seems that we’re so celebrating the details of the price he paid that we almost neglect why and for what purpose he paid the price.
   Jesus didn’t seek or want to suffer or to die. Remember his prayer in the agony of the garden. He only sought to do the Father’s will, no matter what the cost.
   Your goal and mine is not to be crucified, or to suffer, or to live a sacrificial life. Our goal is to live, to love, to serve, to celebrate and give thanks for the wonder of God’s works, and above all, as Jesus, to seek to do God’s will—no matter what, nor what the cost.
   To become so fascinated, to empathize so deeply with the details of the price he paid can—not necessarily but may—distract us from his overall purpose. Even in this, we can lose sight of the forest because of the trees!
   In our rapidly changing and divided and contesting world, we may become so comfortable, engaged, and defensive of certain concerns, values, customs, procedures, persons or institutions, that we may be in danger of losing sight of the overall goal or purpose that they once and may or may not still help us attain.
   The harder you work, the greater sacrifice you make, the more responsible you may be—beware of not seeing the forest!


25 April 2021