What are you going to do today and how are you going to do it? …
Tag: purpose
For, as the wise monk [Thomas Merton] taught us, the real journey is what happens inside of us. More important than our accomplishments, careers and titles, is the way we have grown inside ourselves during the time we have been given. More important is our growing awareness, acknowledgement and, ultimately, surrender and response to the “creative action of love and grace in our hearts,” which is about as good a definition of God as you can find anywhere. …
We’re all hiding something inside, and we’re all making a mess of it from time to time. We’re multilayered people, all of us, onions (to shift the food metaphor) that need to be peeled away if we’re ever going to get at our centers. …
If Zaccheus was astonished, imagine the look on the faces of the “good” people around him —the ones who prayed in the temple all the time, the ones who paid their taxes and tithes, the ones who had been hoping and praying for this Messiah. Perhaps this was the one and now was the time. But…then…he calls Zaccheus down from the tree and they begin to think he’s not the one after all. He couldn’t possibly be. …
I awoke the other morning with every intention of getting an early walk in around a local lake before the heat of St. Louis summer kicked into high gear. Alas, as I came into consciousness, I heard the pounding of rain on the roof and deck outside my window, the steady drum of thunder somewhere off in the distance. Dang. The best laid plans of mice and men and all that… …
This is why Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. This is why he taught that our neighbor is anyone in need. It’s why he told us to love the least of our brothers and sisters. Because that’s where he is and where we will most readily find him. Serving others is more than charity, more than good works, more than a quick foot washing. It’s a chance to meet Jesus face to face. …
I am very close to beginning a new walk, as retirement from my position at the university looms large (target date: June 14). The question I hear most frequently, you might imagine, is “what are you going to do?” It will likely come as no surprise to those who know me if I say, “I have a plan.” …
I recently came across this line of poetry from the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda: “Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.” And, of course, that’s right. Take, for example, the pick-up games of some variation of baseball (fuzz ball, Indian ball, Wiffle® ball, cork ball, kickball, step ball) of my childhood in North St. Louis in the early ‘70s. …
My next “Faith Perspectives” column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch appeared just in time for Christmas, a reminder (quoting Pope Francis) that “Thou Shall Not Steal” is about more than just not taking what doesn’t belong to us. You can read my column below or online here: http://bit.ly/2rQMm6U …
Choosing joy is not a call to blindness, to ignoring those things we would rather not see. Rather, it is a call to see our lives and world with new and joyful eyes of faith and then set out to help bring about real change, whether serving one person or helping to reform an institution in need of healing from the inside out. …