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Saturday, January 3, 2009
Areas of focus for a new year
Happy New Year!
Gina and I were with our good friends
Bob and Darlene on new year's eve as we have for the past four years. Our new year's evenings include a nice
dinner with much lively conversation, some sort of entertainment (this year we went to hear the Milwaukee Symphony and Chorus
perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - amazing!) and then some quiet time together to review the past year and bring in
the new one. One could call these goals 'resolutions' - areas of life we hope to work on in the coming year.
They are generally divided up between personal and professional areas of life and we try to keep it simple. One over-arhcing
goal of mine is to seek more and more the awareness of the presence of Christ in those around me and in the chance encounters
that make up life.
Charles Simic's poem "Master of Disguises" puts well that sense of the divine
lurking and present in the midst of the ordinary.
Surely he walks among us unrecognized;
Some barber,
store clerk, delivery man,
Pharmacist, hairdresser, bodybuilder,
Exotic dancer, gem cutter, dog walker,
The
blind beggar singing, "O Lord remember me,
Some window decorator starting a fake fire
In a fake fireplace
while mother and father watch
From the couch with frozen smiles
As the street empties and the time comes
For
the undertaker and the last waiter to head home.
O homeless old man, standing in a doorway
With your face
half-hidden,
I wouldn't even rule out the black cat crossing the street,
The bare light bulb swinging on a wire
In a subway tunnel as the train comes to a stop.
Of course I hope to bring the presence of Christ wherever
I may go. When we are dismissed at the end of the Eucharist by Deacon Chuck to go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
the idea is that we bring the Lord with us wherever we may be in God's vineyard. Part of the gift of faith, it seems
to me, is not only to bring Christ with us but also to find him already there- present in all kinds of 'disguises'.
May we be open to bringing Christ and also to discovering his presence all around us, and in us, and working through
us!
Sat, January 3, 2009 | link
Monday, December 29, 2008
And the Word Became Flesh...We were blessd to have wonderful, life-giving celebrations of the Nativity
of our Lord this year! There was a beautiful, touching pageant presented by the children of the parish. In the
pageant there is a repeated question that bears some reflection. The two angels asked a question of Mary,
Joseph, the shepherds, the magi, and God' creatures the sheep, owl, horse and cow. The
repeated query was, "Will you be a carrier of the light?"
Think about that. Will you be a carrier of the light? In John's gospel we read, "The Light
has shown in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it." What does it look like to enflesh, to make real
and concrete, that belief?
In that same gospel of John we read, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us." If the Word of God (read Logos) became flesh, sharing fully in our humanity in all things but
sin, what does it look like for us to carry that light of Christ? What does it look like in our lives when Christ is
born anew when, in flesh, our flesh, the presence of Christ is made known?
As this year comes to an end
we may want to take a bit of time asking ourselves where and how we carried the light, where and how we embodied that presence
of Christ, in 2008. We may also ask ourselves where and how God is inviting us to do that in 2009. This is a great
time for asking large important questions and taking time to reflect on responses.
As long as we're
in a pondering mode, here's one more: "The Word was not given to us only as a gift, but also as an obligation."
-Anthony Padavano
God bless!
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