Blessings

how many things
when at first glance
appear to be a curse

how many times
those very things
are the blessings
we so much need

Anunciation

Every passing moment, here and now; listen. 
Each is a little annunciation 
God announcing the truth of each moment;
What He asks of us right now.

Sacking Our Savior

A week or two ago the gospel reading for the day was the parable of the vineyard owner who sends his servants to collect his due. The wicked stewards sack the servants, killing some of them. So the vineyard owner sends his son, whom the stewards also kill.

The primary point of the parable is to explain what the Jews have done to the prophets and to the people, and are about to do to the Son of God.

The genius of Christ teaching in parables is that he is able to speak to very many situations and people, through all time.

This parable is not dead. It was not given merely to make a prediction, or to make a point to a few people 2000 years ago.

No, it speaks directly to us today. To every human heart. Or, at least on that day the other week, directly to me.

For it was clear that - I - am both the wicked steward and the vineyard. And every day I beat down, kick out and kill God's Word in my heart. Every time I take possession of myself, and refuse to hand myself over entirely to my rightful owner, I crucify and expel the Son of God from my heart.

Each day, the Son of God comes to claim our hearts as His own. If today you hear His word...

Accidental Fiction

I was in Barnes & Noble the other day. If my digital camera had been available I would have gone back for a photograph because what I saw was too precious not to have proof of.

Displayed on the end of the isle were Richard Dawkins books. The sign on the ilse shelf indicating the genre was visible at the correct angle just above his books. The sign read: Fiction/Literature.

If I can get back and take a picture, I'll post it.

Up

Up, they always climb up. Every year, in early May, the caterpillars come. Lots of them. And whatever direction they have open to them, it's always up they choose.

They climb that way, but they don't always go that way. Sometimes they fall. Especially in the grass. They climb to the tip of a blade. It bends. They over stretch, and fall. In the grass. They do this over and over again.

Then one day, somehow, they know. It is time to be still. One last thing they do, spinning about themselves a fuzzy silken cocoon. Now protected, secluded, silent.

In their stillness they are steadily transformed.