First day

Monday, February 10, 2025

Memorial of Saint Scholastica, Virgin

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

First day

In the beginning God.

And with that astonishing introduction, the creation of the world begins. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage. That’s our little piece of joy, our creative power brought to bear on the lives we live.

Not so different really, from what we inherit from our Father, our God. He loved us, he loves and creates us, we unite with him and create ourselves after his image. It’s supposed to work that way, that is the purpose of our lives. In this way the alchemy of love translates even the hardest suffering into grace, mercy, and peace. So we are not afraid. Not ever. Never. Not once are we afraid after that transformation takes place.

It’s been a cold week in Lake Wobegon. Even in Austin, the temperature dropped twenty degrees on Saturday night. I’d taken to watching TV through our patio window, listening with a Bluetooth speaker, enjoying the night air. But not now, not for awhile. Even here, but especially there the weather has fallen into a cold hole. Snow and ice, snow and ice.

Snow

Sometimes my God is like snow, beautiful and cold.

It can feel wonderful to stand in its embrace,

tongue extended, open and receptive.

Other times I need to stay warm,

inside and separated,

peering out the window,

close enough to yearn, far enough to feel safe.

 

Oh God of pure beauty, let yourself live through me,

each and every day,

and when the time is right

let us melt together into eternity. – Clarence Heller

Thanks, Jesus, I stand in your embrace, and I’m ready to melt together into eternity. All my bits and pieces, untended fall apart, then you put them back together in your melting pot, oh how wonderful, oh how marvelous.

As many as touched the tassel on his cloak were healed.

The Super Bowl is about to begin on this Sunday afternoon (that was yesterday, of course). I love the garish colorful beauty of Bourbon Street. Frenchy the street artist is pulling it all together, and he will be famous tomorrow, thanks to Tubi/Fox Sports. Every player has a story, often coming near disaster, or navigating disaster as it happens. A little airbrushing and magnification makes the spectacle and the game joyful and inspiring.

God’s healing comes in every shape and size, made to order to fit every one of us. We don’t usually see it clearly at first. Backward and forward we wander, nearly blind – pleasures turn sour when we covet and keep them for ourselves. Suffering of every kind is transformed into glory, when we surrender into it. That lion the devil prowls, wanders in and out of our life, present especially when in our pain we teeter on turning away to make our own way.

How manifold are your works, O Lord. In your wisdom, you have made us all.

Henri Nouwen’s conviction sometimes did not extend to his own personal life, but his doubts left little room for Satan, because over and over he returned to the fires of his Father.

A Fire to Warm Me

Your heart is so full of the desire to love me, so aflame with a fire to warm me. You so much want to give me a home, a sense of belonging, a place to dwell, a shelter where I feel protected and a refuge in which I feel safe. You stand at so many squares and corners of my life and say with so much tenderness, “Come and see, come and stay with me…” – Henri Nouwen

(Genesis 1, Psalm 104, Matthew 4, Mark 6)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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