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Earth Day - Star Ledger Photo

Every thing has meaning, is blessing; each of us is charged with their care -
from the smallest creature to the ocean’s depth.

Grant us wisdom to know your ways of love and gentle kindness.
Give us the mind to learn what we do not know but long to understand
so that we may honor and nurture all that makes us one with you. Amen.

-Diane Lopez Hughes

We are called to hear the Scriptures with both mind and heart, to be transformed by God’s Word. One way to be transformed by God’s Word is to allow the community of faith to guide us. A reputable Bible study group, the Sunday homily, sharing the Word with a friend are but a few of the ways to hear God’s Word with our hearts and be transformed.

The true test to hearing God’s Word is how we are living. Living well in response to God’s Word means that what we allow what we hear in Scripture to guide every dimension of our lives.

Fr Walker invited us to hear God in the messy diapers, in our jobs, in our households, in our finances, in our friendships. God’s Word is present in all of life.

So the question I ask today: How do I live well through hearing God’s Word? How do I read the Scriptures with my heart?

Our days and our weeks are consumed by activity as we rush from place to place, task to task, one more meeting, sports event, call to make, item to buy, thing to do.  Fr Peters reminded us that we all hunger for rest; that keeping Sabbath offers us the God-given gift of rest whereby we deepen our relationship with God, ourselves and others. During Sabbath, we switch to “God time”, the quality of our time for each other.

Finally, Fr. Peters suggested we live with the attitude of keeping Sabbath each day and see how our life changes. Adopting a Sabbath attitude keeps us balanced throughout every facet of our lives. It allows us to see the work we do as part of the big picture, to know we are more than our jobs, more than the roles we play; we are God’s blessed creation.

How do you mark the Sabbath in your home today? In what ways are your practices like those in your home while growing up?

What would you like to change in the way you celebrate Sabbath?

For three evenings, Jim helped us to develop a way of thinking that connects what we celebrate as a parish with what we live as a family.

Here are some pictures of our Parish Mission 2010.

One of the scriptures he shared was that of raising Lazarus from the dead. I sometimes wonder if Lazarus really wanted to come back! Was he as willing as we imagine?  He already died, if he had a taste of life eternal, why come back to this life once again? And coming back was he any different? This led me to the following reflection:

Ohio is plagued by snowy winters, requiring that salt be put on road surfaces to make them safer to travel. The problem is that salt eats away at a car’s metal body. So, going to a car wash is a frequent winter ritual.

Recently I was sitting in a car-wash facility near the end of the washing process when the machines began to spray a special liquid all over the car. The sign said it was a “drying agent,” but that struck me as odd. Wetting something down to dry it seems contrary to what you’d expect. Yet that is precisely what those chemicals are designed to do. It is counter-intuitive thinking—a paradox.

Jesus also dealt in counter-intuitive thinking when presenting His kingdom message to His followers. In Matthew 16:25, He said, “Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” That doesn’t sound right. To save your life, you have to lose it? That seems like saying, “To dry something, you wet it down!” Yet, it is absolutely true. Only as we die to self, entrusting ownership of our lives to Christ, can we learn what it means to really live.

Jim’s reflection leads us to ponder how are we daily living the dying and rising of Jesus? Dying well means dying each day to the things that stop us from embracing the way of Jesus and dedicating ourselves to living the Christian life well.

“Dying to live” may seem counter-intuitive, but it is the heart of the Christian experience. [Bill Crowder, Our Daily Bread]

To live for Christ, we must learn to die to self. And in doing so, we can embrace life in Christ, a life that will never end.