Get Outta Dodge!

GET OUTTA DODGE!

- a reflection on John 12:24-26

by Deacon Paul Rooney

I have an unfortunate history of hospital stays, as well as an unresolved medical problem.  Yesterday (August 9), three related medical issues coincided at one time, and affected my spiritual journey.

I was waiting in my vascular surgeon’s office, biding my waiting time (1-½ hours) by reading about St. (Padre) Pio.  St. Pio had advised a woman in one of his letters that a cure for her medical problem “would not be for God’s glory,” and therefore he “cannot demand from the divine heart” that He heal her.  I pondered how sad the woman might have felt, because God always answered Pio’s intercessory prayers.  Then I felt compassion for the woman in pain, because memories of my own heavy-duty pain on an earlier hospital stay this year were still vivid in my imagination.  At that point the surgeon walked into the room.  He told me that my abdominal aortic aneurysm, which had been diagnosed a couple of years ago, was continuing to grow at a faster pace, and that an operation was inevitable (probably in two years).

Those three issues—the thought of no intercessory healing, my pain memories, and my future surgery—came together for me during my scripture meditation this morning on today’s gospel, John 12:24-26. This gospel pericope is chosen by the Church for use during Lent, and also on the Feast of St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr (which is today, as I write this).  It speaks of the absolute need for the grain of wheat to die before it can bear fruit.  Jesus immediately linked this seed-parable with the parable of hating your life in order to keep it for eternity.

What does it mean to “hate your life” in order to save it?  My meditation took me to the history of the Hebrews.  They had to get out of Egypt and experience the desert, trusting entirely in God.  That reminded me of the old Gunsmoke series that began in 1952 on the radio (TV in 1955).  It was the origin of the idiom or phrase “get outta Dodge” – a warning from the sheriff to the villains to leave town quickly or face imprisonment, possible death, or both.

Using it as a metaphor, the phrase takes on spiritual meaning when we look at our spiritual radar and see what ought to cause us to leave a dangerous environment with all haste.  The sad news is that some folks decide to stay in Egypt.  We all know someone like that: an older teen or young adult, for example, who chooses to remain in the Egypt of an immoral relationship.  They claim their independence to think for themselves, but actually avoid venturing into the desert of reality where they must die to Self in order to find their true God-image.  They “remain in Dodge,” blinded by their invincible ignorance to the perilous situation they have chosen.

Well, I also remained “in Egypt,” or “in Dodge” for a while yesterday.  When I got home from the surgeon and reflected on those three medical issues above, I slipped into a time of desolation, and I allowed them to shift my focus from God to Self.  I even changed a recent decision about fasting from ice cream for a month, rationalizing that my self-pity party demanded some comfort food.  Oh, how fast we forget!  Those of you who know Ignatian Rules of Discernment will remember Rule 5 – never to change a decision during a time of desolation.  It took a few hours to remember that, and then to “get outta Dodge,” away from my pity party.  Then I was able to shift from “myself in desolation” to a position of “myself-reflecting-on-myself-in-desolation.”  I was enabled to get outta Dodge.

The metaphor to “hate” or “save” our life means we must die to a life of selfishness, the natural tendency to make the Self the center of our lives.  Instead, we must “die” to that life—in effect, we “get outta Dodge,” a self-centered life.  We choose to surrender our true inner core, our true self, to Jesus.  We desire that HE be the center of our life; we desire that our will accord with His will, and we trusting pray that he will transform us into his image.

There is a true sense of freedom and peace that comes when we truly surrender our situations, our flesh pots of Egypt, to the Lord.  I am a witness to that fact.  The Lord is Good!

Now and Forever!

The Assumption of Mary

Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem

This beautiful scene depicting Mary's Assumption into heaven can be found in the Church of the Dormition in Jerusalem.  It uniquely shows Jesus holding (a small, almost child-sized) Mary as He carries her up to heaven.  In the lower part of the scene, her lifeless body is on a bed, surrounded by the mourning Apostles and disciples.  In contrast, most artwork in the Holy Land depicting the earthly life of Jesus and Mary, Jesus is usually an infant or boy being held by Mary.






Jesus is Calling You to Become a Mystic

Jesus is Calling You

to Become a Mystic

by: Deacon Paul Rooney

I suspect that most people think that the mystical life is for “those other folks,” I.e., that amorphous group of holy people that our imaginations connect with a halo, a starry far-off look, and perhaps a prie-dieu.  I also think that it would surprise those very same “most people” to discover that everyone is called to the mystical life.

I have been meditating on these words of Jesus: “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3, NRSV; Wednesday, 19^th Ord. “B”).  Certainly he is talking about both the physical life and the spiritual life.  Jesus is calling us first to convert from our life of selfish inclinations, and abandon ourselves to Him.  It is a path to eternal life easy to describe; but it is also difficult to persevere on such a path.  Yet that is precisely what the spiritual life is all about: seeking and surrendering to the God who dwells within us.  Thus the advice of Jesus translates simply into conversion and new life (cf. CCC 2784-5).

I desire to share with you in this short article some pertinent words and thoughts about this mystical life.  They really originate from the great Italian mystic, St. Paul of the Cross (d. 1775), as well as members of his religious order (the Passionist Fathers).  They resonated with me too much to keep them for myself.

We all know that birth comes before death.  Nevertheless, in the life of the spirit, it is just the opposite: mystical death comes before mystical life!  You will remember that even the Martyrs are remembered on the anniversary of their physical death, not birth.  For St. Paul of the Cross, death is not an end, but a beginning.  Mystical death was the fullness of detachment, from all that is created, all that is not God.  Mystical life is the new life that begins after our death to self-gratification.

Then comes the logical question: aren’t we supposed to love everyone, as Jesus taught us, and love the world that God created, and take care of it so that it will serve the needs of all?  Mystical language tries to describe what is experienced, and does not always use terms that are explained for everyone’s understanding.  Mystics like Paul of the Cross speak of the goal of living in the uncreated Good, God himself.  When we abandon ourselves, totally detached from the contentment found in things of the world, we are in the area of pure faith.  We seek His divine pleasure, not our own contentment.  As you can see, Paul of the Cross focuses on true detachment: not so much from creatures or people, but from our own satisfaction from them, from our own instinctive self-seeking.

Paul of the Cross connects both mystical death and this new mystical life with the concept of spiritual childhood (Matt. 18:3 cited above).  He asks each of us to choose to surrender ourself to the divine will, abandoning ourself like a baby on the loving bosom of God.  What a wonderful image: becoming a baby!  Babies are docile: they let themselves be carried everywhere by their mother.  They also have total freedom from care; they know and expect that the mother will take care of absolutely everything they need.  Such is our God!

Then comes the surprise: Paul connects spiritual childhood with the Passion of Jesus; he says that we can understand the Passion only if we are childlike.  Non-Christians think the cross is folly (1 Cor 1:21-24); but a childlike spirit “catches the message of love and doesn’t look for any other reasons” than love.  So Paul urges us to become like trusting little children.  God will “nourish us with the milk and most sweet wine of holy love, which inebriates” us with a “holy drunkenness.”

How can I react to such love?  I can respond to God’s invitation to become a mystic.  I must willingly die to the selfish satisfactions that I seek every day, become like a little child, and drink the milk and wine of His love.  I can also pray daily to the Holy Spirit that He transform me into the image of Jesus, an image and reality that is also one of a childlike mystic.  That prayer is in accord with His will, and therefore it will be answered!

Deacon Paul Rooney with his lovely wife Patricia

 Check out his website "The Deacon's World" at:  

http://www.angelfire.com/ne/DeaconPaul/

Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem! A Lament for Spirit Haunted Souls

Sometimes I am so disturbed by an event that I have too many thoughts to put into a straight reflection, and though I am not a trained poet ,(any constructive advice is appreciated) it is the only way to relate the emotions that I feel.  I originally wrote this  lament as an assignment for our Biblical School in Omaha. I choose to write about my disturbance over a few horrific events in 2008 and 2009, namely the horrible Von Maur shootings and the events surrounding the Boston Craigslist killings.  Two young men, created in the image and likeness of our Lord, whose moral and spiritual weakness completely undid them.  As individuals they were completely different, there corruption, however, was diabolically similar. While our  post Christian, scientific humanistic culture removes moral barriers, these young men progressed into selfishness and darkness that left their souls empty of hope. And we our stunned; we fool ourselves, by trying to remove the weapons that destroy the body, while complacently allowing these philosophies that subtly numb our yearning for transcendence and bind us to finite earthly hope.  Paving a rocky pathway to a desolation so dark that it claims you past, present and future. Destroying both body and soul! I still pray for their souls; I wish not one to go to Hell, particularly youth whose debasement was added and abetted by our toxic culture. I now add another young man to this lament!


Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem!



My soul is sorrowful, even unto death
Take pity on our children
For we have lead them to darkness
Progressed them to the edge of Sheol;
Chaos
We despised archetypes,
Gave them platitudes, de-mythologized their world
Diminished hopes, famished souls
God, you would be their strength,
Their beauty!
Little souls now claim their weaknesses as their identity;

In the beginning it was not so!

Exchanging glory for shame, and call it freedom;
Post Christian,
trans-gendered slavery.

My soul is sorrowful, even unto death
Our children cry for strength,
They cry for meaning,
Purpose, dignity and honor;
Courage
Deathly emptiness haunts
They grasp at pleasure, wealth, and fame
Debased yearning for transcendence, hearken to the siren song of
Infamy
We have ignored eternal truth;
We have told them to find their own truth;
Founded in philosophies that have roots in

Selfishness;

In weakness;
In darkness.

Why are we surprised when evil overtakes them?
(Let your mighty wind blow over the abyss)
Why are we surprised that they have no strength?
(Let your mighty wind blow over the abyss)
When darkness debases and seduces them?
(Let you mighty wind blow over our souls)

My soul is sorrowful, even unto death
We are bloated with hedonism
Deprived of true joy
Darkness stalks us
We lack stamina, mere phantoms we go our way
Our eyes grow dim
Why are you sleeping?
Our young men are emasculated;
Seeking immortality through robbery, rape and murder
Why has no one told you?
Our young women are barren;
grasping at their beauty, ignorant of its meaning.
They have bought and sold you!
Empty bombast!  Slaves of corruption!
Why are you still sleeping?

My soul is sorrowful even unto death!

Within our midst kindle a blazing heart, multiply virtue
Awake Fear of the Lord
We fly to your protection in our desperation.
Let no more of our children be devoured by Leviathan,
ensnared by their own hunger;
The serpent who removes the small snares,
lures us to a bottomless pit.
Chaos!
Slaves of corruption!
Chaos!
Gratifying every desire of the flesh,
To become like rotted loincloths.
No longer clinging to you
Rotted loincloths!

In the beginning it was not so!
(Let your mighty wind blow over the abyss!)

Oh Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
(Let you might wind blow over the abyss!)
Do not fear what harms the body!
(Let the mighty wind blow over the chaotic abyss!)

Give us the strength to endure your justice;
Give us the heart to endure your mercy.



Peace and Grace,
Heidi

Summertime Shambles

What have you done this summer?  This has been an off year for me, I have not even tried to develop a schedule for the kids, so that I can remain a little sane, and the house can at least get the minimum maintenance. I am not sure what has happened to the time, but as usual, there are many things that I wanted to accomplish that I have not - this year is even more so.

Like for instance, figure out what exactly is my vision for this blog is, or have my 11 year old finally memorize all her math facts, read the Iliad and work with my rowdy hooligans so they are completely prepared for school which is right around the corner. I did not even get my kids to the summer library program, which is the first time that has happened since ....1994.  I am plodding away, but even when I accomplish something, the stuff I have not done looms even larger, and the days are slipping away! I feel completely out of control!

This past week (is it really FRIDAY already????), I have..... read to my kids...made Miranda read to her siblings, weeded the overgrown gardens, started my 16 year old on his summer reading, looked at Facebook, email, blogs email, blogs ect, ect... had dinner ready for my husband, organized... looked at my vacation pictures, threw in a couple loads of laundry, ironed, attend daily mass...went to one daily mass (don't be impressed, I went this morning and it is the one and only daily mass I have made it to all summer). I could go on and on, but I am tired of hitting the strikethrough button.

Sigh.... I also did manage (barely) to remember to get that Sass Master Sophia to her community center dance class, and though I did get her hair brushed and put up, I failed to make sure that she had some shorts on under her skirt so the entire class now knows that, unbeknownst to me, she was wearing her brothers underwear. I should be glad that she had underwear on at all, because that is not a given.

I have not only failed in quite a few of my cultural pursuits for myself and my children, but I have failed to get down and serious about my prayer journal, about my Scripture readings. Which is really frustrating, because the summers usually give me at least a little quiet time in the morning while the rest of the kids sleep in to go a little deeper. This year the baby has been up before me almost every morning, except when we were on vacation. At this point in my summer, I am beginning to feel hopeless, any effort to pray gets diffused by so many distractions, so, consequently I feel far away from the Lord. Here is where I usually give up.



My spiritual director would remind me to keep praying when I can, and, in true Ignation style, when I am beginning to feel hopeless and far away from the Lord, to pray just a wee bit more. God first, always even when I do not feel like it - especially when I don't feel like it - and most especially when it feels like I am wasting my time. Which is why, after my very distracted and interrupted morning prayer and Scripture time, I moved heaven and earth (I got 16 year old Stephen out of bed by 8am) to get to mass by myself. And what do you suppose the 1st reading was?

Isaiah 38:1When Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Amoz came and said to him: "Thus says the Lord, put your house in order, for you are about to die..."

Well. that was distracting! My thought was: "I know, I know, I am drowning in disorganization,but really, I am hopeless, I can't even see how to get my rag-tag household in order!"  But the readings continued, and we heard that Hezekiah prayed to the Lord and his hopeless illness was healed by the Lord.

 And then the Gospel of Matthew:

Mt 12:1-8  Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath.  His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath."  He said to them, "Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat?  Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate that sabbath and are innocent?  I say to you something greater than the temple is here.  If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men.  For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath."

He is greater than my messes, He is greater than any of my successes, He is Lord of my ambitions, Lord of my desires and Lord of my failures. And it is my failures that allow me to begin to see the tremendous gulf between me and the Lord; not in selfish self-conscientiousness, but with awe and reverence. Because I am the lowly, rag-tag disciple hungering for more, and He defends me against the savvy accusers. I am cast down so he can lift me up and I am weak enough for His glory to show through me. If I let Him. If I push my ego out of the way and take up His yoke, as we heard in yesterday's Gospel. Pray that I do so, I will pray for you also.

As I was coming back from receiving Him in the Eucharist, I felt Him ask me if I felt any better.  I said yes, I think I can take on my day, and the rest of my summer. And I will trust that He will reform it into something only He could accomplish....now to get started on those vacation pictures!

Peace and Grace,

Heidi

Probe me God: A reflection on Psalm 139

Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mothers womb.  I give you thanks that I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

What a beautiful Psalm!  These words inspire me in true wonder and awe of the Lord, and with great gratitude and appreciation of the creation of each and every person.  It was read on the Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, who proclaimed a baptism of repentance, and this post is looking at Psalm 139 through the eyes of John. We are often so deformed in sin that we need to hear the words of the prophet anew, and understand how deep this hope of renewal goes. And, I don't know about you, but I need the humility to remember that, yes I am good because I have been created in His image and likeness, but I am also fallen.  I don't want to live easy with my sinfulness, it is destroying me.  I want my hope and my regeneration to begin today.  It is easy to affirm someone who is deeply enmeshed in degrading sin as a child of God, and then leave them there, but when the shame bubbles up again, unless that individual has a higher and stronger faith, he or she may simple be affirmed to sit in death's shadow.

  At the birth of his son Zachariah breaks out with a spirit-filled canticle:

"And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of  their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and death's shadow" Luke 1:76-79

I, who have been made so wonderfully, and with such a high destiny, I am often mired in darkness of sin, and cowering in the deathly shadow of guilt.  So,even if I know that I am a wonderful creation in the image and likeness of God, still I am overwhelmed by the devastation that is wrought by sin and concupiscence in my soul. I am stalked by past guilt, hurt and rejections.  I am put down by current tendencies to envy and tenacious false identities. And the calloused and dark wounds in my heart quietly prompt deep suspicions that subtly corrupt my motives!  How can I ever recover?  And I live in a time that is both highly judgmental on a superficial level, yet very complacent about enduring with those who struggle with truly devastating sin, and the dark shame and anger that hide with it. I need to deepen my shallow hopes in redemption.  Each one of us needs to encourage others to allow the Lord to probe us deeply, again and again. We need to be humble so we can let the Spirit blow into the god forsaken areas of our souls.

So here is the rest of the Psalm above:

Psalm 139:2-16;23

You know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My travels and my rest you mark; with all my ways you are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord you know it all. Behind and before you encircle me and rest your hand upon me. Such knowledge is beyond me, far too lofty for me to reach. Where can I hide from your spirit? From your presence where can I flee? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I lie down in Sheol, you are there too. If I fly with the wings of dawn and alight beyond the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand hold me fast. If I say, "Surely darkness shall hide me, and night shall be my light" Darkness is not dark for you and night shines as the day, Darkness and light are but one. You formed my inmost being; you knot me in my mother's womb. I praise you, so wonderful you made me; wonderful are your works. My very self you knew; my bones are not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. You saw me unformed......Probe me, God, know my heart; try me, know my concerns. See if my way is crooked then lead me in the ancient path."

Awhile ago I was meditating on this passage during my Adoration hour, I was praying about a situation that had recently been in the news in which God's great mercy and healing seemed to be missing.  It was a situation in which a lonely, rejected individual committed a ghastly crime.  This young man who eventually took his own life was filled with rage and contempt for himself, and for a society that offered him so little in terms of transcendence and ultimate hope that his existence was not merely an accident.  I began to think about the many, many people who are lost in the darkness of sin, or weighed down by terrible shame, yet even in our mostly Christian culture, seem to be without hope of redemption.  Many of these people struggle with relating to others, sometimes as a result of inborn tendencies, or from traumas that were not of their making.  They are isolated, lonely and filled with a hopeless rage.   I looked back at my journal where I quoted the first lines of the Psalm:  You know when I sit and stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My travels and my rest you mark; with all my ways you are familiar. Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord you know it all.  Beside it wrote: "really?  WHERE ARE YOU!"  next to it.  After that I had scribbled a line from the Matt Maher song, You Were On The Cross:

"Where were you when sin stole my innocence?
Where were you when I was ashamed?

 Hiding in a life I wish I'd never made"

It is hard for anyone to wholeheartedly believe that the Lord cares "when I sit and when I stand" or that "I am wonderfully made", when we are acutely aware of how little our souls resembles the high dignity and glory they were created for.  And in the case I was praying about this young man knew how deformed he was, but he had no hope of being reformed because he had no hope that he was created by God and that God willed him to be reformed.  It is even harder in our cynical times of superficial love and sentimental catch phrases to awaken a sense of repentance that is more than just self pity!  And there are still many who are in darkness and in death's shadow, unaware that the tender mercy of our God can and will penetrate anything. We are the ones who need to make them aware, we need to pray for the daybreak from on high to break out upon them, wherever they are!  We are to follow in the footsteps of the Baptist!


The Psalm now begins to whisper to me:  Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! Repent, for the powers that would enslave you have no power over Him. Repent, for God has never left you; though it may be too dark for you to see Him, He sees you. His hand is upon you! Do not be too proud to allow Him to show you your darkest sins, they are not dark to Him. He knows what they have done to you. Do not be afraid to reveal your most depraved desires or your most wretched fears, he is greater and stronger than any of them.  He can retrieve you from the Sheol in your soul that imprisons you.  Do not be afraid of the chaos sin has stirred up, for His Spirit is with you, encircling you and His mighty wind blows over the dark and formless wastelands in each of our souls, reforming and renewing them. Repent, for the kingdom is at hand!  His light will illuminate the way.

Then I underlined the last line, as a daily prayer for myself, and for many others who do not yet know to pray it. "Probe me, God, know my heart; try me, know my concerns. See if my way is crooked then lead me in the ancient path." 

 

  Here is the refrain to You Were On The Cross, the song quoted above:

You were on the cross.
You were there in all of my suffering,
You were there in doubt and in fear,
I am waiting on the dawn to reappear.

Go out and en-kindle a hope that salvation and reformation are at hand; a hope that no one is an accident or beyond His tender mercy; a hope that is beyond all the sorrows of this world!

Peace and grace,
Heidi

To Whom Shall You Go, updated

I have been completely absorbed in the the space trilogy by C.S. Lewis of late.  Actually, I read the first of the three, Out of the Silent Planet last summer, but I recently purchase the last two, Perelandra and That Hideous Strength.   They are books that I will be re-reading again in the future because there is so much there.

It was as I was reading That Hideous Strength that I came upon a passage that really impressed me.  It is a quote by a character named Dr. Dimble who is speaking to his wife as the final battle of the book is beginning.  He is on the side of good, but there are mysteries that he is grappling with that are hard for him to fully understand and his leader, the Director, has commanded him to accept.  As he is discussing these things over with his wife he says:

Have you ever noticed,.....that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?....I mean this,....If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family- anything you like- at a given point in its history you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and codices are even more momentous.  Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse:  the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing."  pg.280-281 

That captured my attention. We are, for a time, gathered in and then - as with the Biblical image of a winnowing fan - we are separated out.  And there are examples of situations that, for a time, are accepted as morally neutral or tolerated as a necessity of an era in the Bible, but that eventually are revealed as unacceptable, such as Old Testament polygamy.  Polygamy is certainly presented in the Bible as something that is accepted, but it is definitely a falling from the original Biblical example of marriage.  And if you read your Bible carefully you see that though it is not wrong for Jacob or David to have multiple wives and concubines, it costs them something.  Look at the jealousies and rivalries that come of it.  The eventual splitting of the Davidic Kingdom has it's beginnings in the corrosive effect of polygamy.  And the cost is sent on down through the generations, until it is time to see and understand; until it is time to make a choice.  As we progress through salvation history, or even our own lives it will eventually come down to a choice, a terrible choice that requires clarity of vision and tenacious clinging to the Word of God.  Our eternal destiny will rest on it.

"They rejected his statutes, the covenant which he had made with their fathers.  The vanity they pursued, they themselves became; they followed the surrounding nations whom the Lord commanded them not to imitate."  2 Kings:17

These thoughts have been turning over in my head for a while now, the passage in That Hideous Strength just brought new clarity for me, especially in the wake of some acrimonious discussions, with fellow Catholics, over the issue of so called "gay-marriage".  But it is not that issue that primarily bothers me, that is one of many moral issues that are confronting us in our time.  It is the confluence of these moral issues, the "culture wars", and the increasing ferocity of the battles over them between fellow Catholics, that signal to me that we are coming to a point in our society.  Choices will have to be made, and I wonder how clear we, as Catholics, see what is at stake.


The  reading of the day I was writing this post  (Saturday, April 28) makes this even more urgent in my mind:

 "Many disciples of Jesus who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?'  Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, 'Does this shock you?  What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?  It is the Spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.   The words I have spoken to you are Spirit and life,  But there are some of you who do not believe.'  Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him.  And he said, "For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father."  As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer walked with him.  Jesus then said to the Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"  Simon Peter answered him, "Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God."   John 6 60-69

This is at the end of the Bread of Life discourse.  Jesus is telling his followers to believe that they must "feed on me" or they will have no life in them.  These disciples are shocked; they are confronted with something hard to believe, something that seems foolish and not rational (verse 42:  and they said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph?  Do we not know his father and mother?  Then how can he say, 'I have come down from heaven'?").    Many of the Lord's disciples no longer walked with Jesus from that point on. They left Him, they made a choice based on vain worldly wisdom and they departed from Wisdom in person. But Peter, shows us that he has clung to and believed in the words of the Lord, and when confronted with the choice - though he is not yet perfected in his belief, nor does he fully understand what the Lord is saying- his love for the Lord clears the way for his courageous words:  "Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life." Peter sees what is at stake!  And it is this choice that prepares Peter to humbly trust in Jesus, even after Peter betrays Him.  Peter does not despair in his failure but receives with trust and faith the abundant mercy of the Lord.

I wonder if we have been given just enough of Jesus in our religious instruction to make us think that we know what His love means, but in reality we have inoculated ourselves from being truly transformed by His radical love. His radical love is not tepid "acceptance" or "tolerance", it is a purifying fire which will make you fit for eternal life. Unless you have ordered your life on His Commandments, putting His will in the forefront of all that you think, do, and say, and humbly repenting when you fail, it will be difficult to understand what a shallow sham our culture has made of Jesus, love and religion. It will be difficult to discern the True God and his will from the culture's gods, which will send you off in vain pursuits of worldly acclaim and worldly wisdom. From this stand point a degenerative blindness seems to set in, and in the end, even when the choice is presented point blank, it becomes too difficult to perceive what is at stake. You will become the vanity you pursue and defend!

 So how can we discern the will and love of God in a time when love is perverted, materialistic, and when our lack of knowledge of our Savior Himself is used to blind and divert ourselves from Him? Do you see a hardening and narrowing happening as I do?  Does it seem that we are on the edge of momentous choices, where everything we need to make the right choice is given to us, but many cannot or will not seek it?  I fear that the longer we try to straddle between the two paths:  the one of Jesus and eternal life and the path of worldly vanity, the less we will be able to make the courageous decisions that will be required of us when confronted with a final opportunity to choose eternal life. "the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing."

To whom shall you go?  To whom shall you cling to?  A terrible choice is beginning to emerge for all of us, can you see what is at stake?-choose life, not death.

Peace and Grace,
Heidi