Friday, October 16, 2020 (today’s lectionary)
Damage
Enough is enough. So I say, anyway.
In Champaign, the new couch Marc and Myranda moved into their living room this afternoon fell on their cat’s leg and now the cat is hiding away somewhere, nursing its wounds.
In Bastrop, where Andi and Aki took Miles and Jasper on a trip to the dinosaur park, Miles fell off a stool onto his face and got a little bloody. He’s OK, but of course he needed to let off some steam before he felt better.
Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins? Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Somehow a mountain of data is incorrectly being charged to our phone bill. I hope we can do something about that. But thinking about that, being out of control like that, fills me with fear, fear, and more fear.
Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.
And finally in Austin, Margaret and I had a great day but at the end of it I started complaining about one of her habits. I have complained about it for thirty years, or maybe forty, and I would like to just stop complaining and love her. We yelled at each other for a little while. Then it was over. Again. Sort of. Until next time. I would certainly like for it not to start again. I know God wants that too.
You have no secret that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light.
Show me that Way of Yours, Lord. Give both of us the freedom of your Spirit.
May your kindness, O Lord, be upon us, who have put our hope in you.
We drove a bit less than a hundred miles around Austin today. Some of those miles came when I, the driver, drove out of my way after yet another misunderstanding of Google’s haphazard comprehension of Austin’s freeway system. The satellite doesn’t always get it right, and I don’t either.
This morning Miles and I made breakfast for everyone: eggs with cheese, bacon, fried pineapple, buttered mushrooms, toast, plums and tangerines, with a bit of banana on the side. He cut and stirred the stuff, and I cooked it. We filled the plates, and a fine time was had by all. Miles stands in a wonderful kitchen safety stool, which allows him to work on the counter as if he were as tall as I am.
Miles took two dinosaurs to meet their families in Bastrop, I think one for him to hold and one for his buddy brother Jasper. They call him Jassie, or is it Jazzy? Maybe a little of both.
Yes, we exist for the praise of his glory, we who first hoped in Christ. We are sealed and delivered in the promised Holy Spirit.
If I keep coming back to my own sin, God is not especially pleased. But I do want to change my critical spirit, or rather ask God to change it. Day (or Week) 7 of St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises is dedicated to the “The Reality of Sin.” In The Ignatian Adventure, Kevin O’Brien points out the truth that rather than punishing us for our sins, God simply allows us to suffer the consequences. I feel the pain of my guilt almost immediately after I stop my yelling, complaining and criticizing.
But God does his work in me at his own pace. In his Week 7 thoughts, Fr. O’Brien includes a prayer from Teilhard de Chardin, Jesuit priest and paleontologist:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
That is better than trying to force what’s going on inside you, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense, and incomplete.
