Can I hear God?

Another older one...

I was walking Katie to school this morning.  I heard birds singing.  I said, "Katie, do you hear the birds?"

"No, it's too noisy.  Buses and cars and stuff," she said.

It was, and you had to listen for the birds, blocking out the other noises.  For a brief moment, I was patting myself on the back for noticing the birds.

Then there was that little voice in my head: "Eric, do you hear God?"

"No, it's too noisy."

Managing a Smile

I just came across this note that I wrote several years ago.  Posting it for preservation...

Changing Anna Marie (who was 9 months old at the time) I was suddenly aware of a basic truth.  A nine-month-old is totally dependent.  Cannot do anything for itself.  The infant is provided for and protected, totally and unconditionally. 

And the only thing the infant can return is what?  The only thing the infant can return for all this is its own affection.  A smile, a laugh, a hug, a kiss.  It can only return its love.

Can you imagine a healthy infant that did not show attachment and affection to its parents?  Yet that is exactly what we do.  For all His love, gifts and protections, the best of us barely manage a smile for Him. 

All he asks of us is our love.

He Who Lives by the Sword

Christ tells us what happens to those who live by the sword.   

I don't think Christ meant this figuratively, or in some probabilistic sense.  He's not saying, "odds are, you'll get it one day..."  As far as I can recall, Christ never tells us what might be.  He always tells us what is or what will be.

To live by the sword is to have an interior disposition of soul that is belligerent and possibly malevolent.  It is an exterior manifestation of the interior reality of a soul that is already dead or dying.

It is not simply bodily death Christ speaks of here.  It is the whole person, and the death of divine life in the soul. 

He who lives by the sword dies, not because of the sword itself -- let alone that of anyone else -- but because of the spiritual rot which is at the root of that way of life.

This is why St. Paul tells us to put away our pugilistic attitude.  It leads to death, whether we brandish a physical weapon or not.