Wednesday, February 23, 2022                                 (today’s lectionary)
Memorial of Saint Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr
Brushing up against someone different
You have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears for a moment and then disappears.
I visit my friend Shannon in his mattress store, and he is often busy with customers. Or paperwork. Or eating lunch. But his most important task, he says, is “facilitating relationship.” I am not his only visitor; many people come to share time with him, and of course they meet each other too.
Yesterday I saw Will for the second time. Important changes are coming in his life, and I celebrated some of those with him in advance. We talked and talked, while a very quiet lady napped on a mattress in the corner. Shannon was happy, overseeing all of us, facilitating our relationships with each other, and with God.
Just outside, upscale Central Market flourishes. Many folks were reading in outdoor chairs. Many others ate lunch at picnic tables (the temperature yesterday in Austin was 82 … today’s it’s 52 … tomorrow it might be 32), while the weather allows. The huge parking lot was packed, and that on a Tuesday afternoon. Several smaller stores join up with Central Market, and Urban Mattress has the pole position, right next door.
For one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin.
One of the guys in the store “comes in nearly every day,” Shannon said. “I get along ok with him, except when he doesn’t notice I’m talking to a customer.” He popped in and out, often with a joke. He smiled. I didn’t catch his name.
I noticed that after I realized he was a “groupie,” I felt more dismissive and reluctant to engage him, or allow him to engage me. I was talking with Will, and he skirted the edges of our conversation without getting involved himself. Still, there was something kind of nasty about my response to him. Maybe.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. In no way can a man redeem himself, or pay his own ransom to God; he would never have enough.
Thinking about this, I think I felt his difference from me, and rather than inviting that difference, I rejected it. Such a simple thing it is, to recognize our brotherhood, embrace it, and embrace him. But I did not.
Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.
Jesus was not happy with that prejudice in John. And yesterday he was not happy with me.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.
We are all in this together, at times lost, at times found, always in what my friend Dan calls “liminal space.” Clarence Heller again writes something confessionally honest and then shares it with the world. And in doing that, he helps me:
Bread Crumbs
I’ve stopped writing down how I’m feeling.
I’ve stopped making time in silence to listen.
Yet I feel lost and overwhelmed,
out of the flow of the Spirit,
out of the sacred rhythm of life.
And I don’t even remember what I’ve forgotten,
and I don’t even know what I don’t know.
So Dear One, if I have lost my way, please find me.
If I am on the path, please let me know.
(James 4, Psalm 49, John 14, Mark 9)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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