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Daily Scripture

+ 4th Week in Ordinary Time

Everyone needs a bit of ‘pocket time’

Readings: 1 Kings 3:4-13 Psalm 119:9-14 Mark 6:30-34

The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. Then he said to them, “You must come away to some lonely place all by ourselves and rest for a while.” [Mark 6:30]

The notion of Sabbath rest is rooted in the third of the Ten Commandments, “Keep holy the Lord’s day.” For Christians, Sunday is our Sabbath because it was the day on which the Lord rose from the dead. Holiness is the state of being whole, i.e., fully integrated, mind, soul and body. It is the acknowledgment of God as the ground of our being.

In truth, God doesn’t need the Sabbath; we do!

However, I am of the mind that we need to build into our daily routine, a mini-Sabbath or two. I call it ‘pocket time’ or time out from the pressure of our daily schedule. Some folks call it down time.

Of course, there are different strokes for different folks. A good power walk also can be a great opportunity for conversation with God. It’s an easy script. God talks and I listen.

All of us, married or single and whatever our call and career need pocket time every day and in that way we learn to live in the present moment. As my cousin frequently reminds me, “Yesterday is a cancelled check; tomorrow may never come; the present is a gift.” How true. I’m still a neophyte.

Quiet Love

Wednesday February 20, 2008

This poem in prose was composed by me as my annual Christmas message and greeting but the Spirit did not move my soul until the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. And so my Christmas ‘cards’ did not get to the post office until two weeks ago! I share it now with my website visitors. It is entitled, ‘Quiet Love.’

_______

When I was a child,
I used to think of God as an old man
high in the sky
with a long white beard stretching over the earth,
sweeping silk silver-lined clouds.
A sort of Santa Claus—a gentle soul
but not adverse to “making a list and checking it twice
to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Such talk among adults is silly isn’t it? —fodder for Gnostics or agnostics and even atheists? Perhaps, but I think God enjoys a bit of banter now and then.
And I suspect that God is often amused
at the attempts of great and small,
of prophets, priests and popes among them
to pin on God a personality
and put words in God’s mouth
as if such were possible
though I do believe artists and poets have come close
in their playful pursuit to depict
the movement of love through the lens of ancient sages
down through the ages—quiet love.

‘The Great Mystery’
is the name our Native American ancestors
gave to God because they knew
God is mysteriously part of everything and everyone—quiet love
penetrating the depths of eternity from one end to the other
birthing us to life
at every moment—day and night.

I believe that Jesus gave birth to God in humanity
uniquely as no one else in human history—as movement, as life, as goodness,
as love.
I think of Jesus as the incarnation of ‘quiet love.’

I think too of all the people confined to silence, not by choice,
in cells of solitude, prisoners of their body
the windows of their minds closed to the familiar faces of yesterday.
Quiet love silenced by the slow deterioration of the mind
or worse, empty souls, searching for someone to love,

And the many who have lost their way on lonely streets
or in caves of dark despair
waiting for quiet love to free them from the isolation of insignificance
or the dysfunction of worthlessness or ironically, iconic vanity.
Waiting for quiet love to touch them.

Meanwhile the pundits preach
from pulpits, of their political superiority
a gospel of narcissism to be sure,
spreading their feathers like pheasants looking for a mate —and a vote.

And what of the evangelical ‘merchants’ with gold rings
in search of fine pearls instead of tending to lost sheep
bruised by wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Stealthy ‘guardians’ of sound doctrine and dogma
stern monitors of stoic rites and rituals
moved more by fear of the unknown than by awe of the Mystery,
assuring firm adherence to rules and rubrics
that harken back to other ages—the dark ages
lest they be quickened by a new movement of the Spirit
God Spirit—quiet love.

Yet quiet love seeps through the cracks and crevices
of ancient times and places
and over time we come to know our origin
and our destiny
in quiet love—
that will not be silenced.
c Kenneth E Lasch 2008