Sunday Homily 7-19-09, 16th Ordinary Time

Readings: 1 Samuel 3, 3-10 & 19, Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening; Psalm 40, Here am I, Lord, I come to do Your Will; 1 Corinthians 6, 13-15 & 17-20, Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit; John 1, 35-42, We have found the Messiah.

1 Samuel: This is book one of two books.  The series is 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings; the characters being Samuel, the last of the Judge leaders of Israel-Judah; Saul, the first king; and King David. 

Authors:  Traditionally it was thought that 3 people wrote the book, Samuel, Gad, & Nathan.  Samuel, chapters 1-25; Gad was King David's historian, & Nathan was an editor.  Contemporary biblical experts think this unlikely & say that the works were put together at least 50 years after the time of the events.

Time:  The events take place ca. 1100-1000 BCE.  The compilation & recording of the events takes place ca. 950 BCE. 

Today's Selection: Yahweh is calling Samuel in a dream.  This ties in with the Gospel where three future apostles are called.  Samuel's parents were Elkanah & Hannah, and Hannah is famous because of a touching story about how she came to have Samuel.  She had been barren for years and even Elkanah's other wife ridiculed her.  One day the prophet Eli heard her crying and praying in the temple.  At first he accused her of being drunk.  Then when he talked with her, he promised that she would have a son. 

Hannah had promised Yahweh that she would dedicate to the temple her son, if she got one.  Consequently, our selection finds Samuel residing in the temple with Eli the prophet.  He would be about 12 years old.

Be aware that while these marvelous stories are mythological, the writer is attempting to convey to a simple people lessons about trust in Yahweh.

Eli Who?

     When I was a young pup of a Jesuit I got to know an old blind Jesuit who was living in the old priests’ infirmary at Grand Coteau.  I can still remember a tall, skinny Fr. McLaughlin doing pull ups on a bar in back of the big, four story building we lived in.

     I got to know him especially well the first Christmas I spent at Grand Coteau, my first away from home.  I had acquired a really good case of poison ivy and could not do much.  I had gotten the poison ivy one recreation day when we were out in the Achafalaya swamp.  I used some Spanish moss after a pit stop in the woods. 

     Fr. McLaughlin received tons of Christmas cards and being blind he needed someone to write for him.  That was my job, which I did mostly standing that Christmas.

     In the Jesuits we had a strong custom of having spiritual directors.  Fr. McLaughlin was my first.  He was a great raconteur of stories, but also a kind listener.  He helped me through my homesickness.

     I talk about Fr. Mac because he was an Eli figure for me.  Fr. Mac & the priest Eli were both spiritual directors.  I would like to talk about spiritual direction and directors.  Two observations.

     First, I highly recommend this old Jesuit custom.  Get a spiritual director. 

     I have one.  Most of you know him, David McKeon, a married priest from the Rochester, NY diocese, a spiritual man and a licensed psychotherapist. 

     I usually visit him every other month, usually just recounting to him the many blessings of life with Rosemary, the life of our community, and my insights.

     Spiritual directors come in professional and semi-professional sizes.  Some are counselors.  Characteristics include:

          1.  The person is a good listener

          2.  They are affirmative

          3.  Like Eli, they reflect back what they are hearing. 

          4.  They do not tell a person what to do.  No “You shoulds,” a really difficult thing for lots of adults to refrain from.  Actually, teachers are trained to do this—with students.

         Secondly, besides recommending that you get a spiritual director, I would suggest that you all are spiritual directors, the semi-professional size.  For years I was a spiritual director for nuns, priests, young Jesuits, and people from various areas of life. 

     Spiritual directors helped me all through the Jesuits and David McKeon still does.  I invite you to consider yourselves spiritual directors.  It happens at meals, coffees, at Tom Thumb, at receptions.  Follow the four characteristics I mentioned, listen, affirm, reflect back, and don’t tell adults what they should do. 

 Furthermore, I invite you to get a spiritual director or counselor. 

 Who is the Eli in your life?

Picture 1:    Georgie & Elizabeth

Picture 2:    Ashley, Jean & Cliff's granddaughter       

Picture 3:    The Kerns, Ben, Candy, Michael, & Mike

Picture 4:    Cole

Picture 5:    Buddy with his granddad, Gilberto

Picture 6:    Leo comfortable in Jean's arms

Readings:

Isaiah 62, 1-5,  The Lord delights in you.

Psalm 96,  Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations.

1 Corinthians 12, 4-11, There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit.

John 2, 1-11, There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee.

The Team ready to begin our Mass.

 For those who don’t have a decent Bible or a book of the readings, here are two links that I use, The Bible at Your Fingertips (http://st-luke-church.org/bible-at-finger-tips.php) and USCCB, The New American Bible (http://www.usccb.org/).  

The difference?  The first is Protestant more or less, and the second is officially Catholic and has the 12 little books in between the O.T. & N.T., called Deuterocanonical or Apocrypha. 

Both are good translations.     

Zurchin Offertory, Matthew, Claire, Chloe, Denni, and Tom

 Homily for January 20

 One of the three summer canoe trips that I used to organize each year at St. Mark was for the 13 and 14 year old children.  It was a three-day trip where we put in the Brazos River just south of Cleburne off highway 67 below the Boy Scout camp.

Emma arrives.

On the third day all the adult team was aware of a stop we would make an hour or so before we would board the bus for home.  The young people would be tired and hot as they approached some water gently pouring over some limestone at probably 5 or 10 gallons a minute like a miniature waterfall. 

They got terribly excited when they were told that it was a natural spring, cold and drinkable. The kids would take turns standing under it with their mouths open. 

Queen Zoe and Georgie arriving.

2000 years ago a traveling Jesus and his disciples would have loved such water.  They would have used it drink and to dilute the wine that they had with them.  Travelers usually didn’t drink water unless it was living, flowing from a spring or recent rain.  They drank diluted wine.

The OT Stories were written around things like living waters, wine and vineyards.  Since the gospels fulfilled the expectation of the OT for the coming of the Messiah, within them these symbols took on a deeper spiritual meaning. The vine became the symbol of Christ, living waters the symbol for the good news.

Kara arriving.

Since the word, wine, is present in most, if not all, of the books in the OT, we should expect that the wine in today’s gospel would be a symbol for something terribly important…and it is.

In the Mark gospel we are presented with this metaphor.  You don’t pour new wine into an old wineskin.  Anyone who ever left a wet handball or golf glove in the sun knows why.  You would find it stiff and hardened.  If you tried to pour new wine into them, the cracks in the leather would become revealed.  The wine would be lost; the leather also would be of no value.

Buddy arriving.

Therefore, Place new wine into new wineskins!  In the Story where you find that metaphor, you are introduced to the hardened hearts of the Pharisees and scribes who had rejected the good news and therefore the Holy Spirit that flowed forth from those living waters.

Remember the Holy Spirit and the unclean spirits cannot coexist within a heart.  A new wineskin is the heart of someone who has repented and welcomed the new wine, the Holy Spirit.

Sisters, Brooklyn and Sienna

So, now you pretty much know the meaning of the parable about the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.  The old wine gave out because God sent to us his only begotten Son with new wine. The empty jars used in the purification rite within Judaism that had been empty, barren, now would be fulfilled by living waters, to the brim…from which would pour forth the Holy Spirit. 

Cupcakes of The Week (2 of 5), Kevin (17) and Claire and Ray (42nd).

What one thing would I like for you to take away from the gospel today?  

The Greek word for the servants who assisted Jesus in today’s gospel is used for male or female, diakonia. We are to understand that they were manifesting the Holy Spirit to those at the wedding feast of Cana by their words and actions. 

Toy Land with Hannah and Beth, Zoe, Torri, and Emma.

You might have felt distanced by Nancy’s 2^nd reading if you were wondering who those people are in our assembly.  We are those people!   Those who proclaimed the Word; those who serve at the table, those who distribute from the table; those who wash and fill the cups; those who bake the bread; those who set the table with gifts; those who lead us in song; those who give and distribute our gifts to those in need; those who visit the sick; those who extend the sign of peace to one another.

We are his body, blessed and broken for each other.

Tom presenting 4th quarter financials.

Readings:

Acts 10, 25-26, 34-35, 44-48, God shows no partiality;

Psalm 98, The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power;

1 John 4, 7-10, Let us love one another; 

John 15, 9-17, I have told you this so my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.

Cole lighting our Easter Candle with his dad, Chuck

An introduction to today’s readings.  We continue reading in Acts. It’s called Acts of the Apostles, but only Peter and Paul are given any space. John is mentioned only 3 times, and for James only his execution by the Emperor Herod is mentioned. So it is more properly Some Acts of Some Apostles.

As Stack said before, we’re pretty sure that Acts was written by Luke who is also the author of the third Gospel. Luke was a Gentile (non-Jewish) from Antioch in Syria, and was a companion of Paul in his travels around Asia Minor, from Antioch, around through Greece, and to Rome. We know Luke was with Paul in Rome when Paul was in prison. Acts was probably written around the time Paul was put to death during his second imprisonment under the Emperor Nero in 64 or perhaps 66 CE.

Our Joanie with Erin

The other readings are from the First Letter of John and the fourth Gospel. Traditionally 4 books of the New Testament were attributed to John the Apostle: the 4^th Gospel, 3 letters and the Book of Revelation. Scholars say that the vocabulary, grammar and style of writing make it unlikely that Book of Revelation was written by the same person responsible for the 4^th Gospel. Some modern Bible scholars raise the possibility that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist who wrote the Gospel and John of Patmos who wrote the Book of Revelation were 3 separate individuals. The First Letter of John reads like a summary of the 4^th Gospel teachings, and the time of writing is probably similar, in the latter part of first century, sometime between 80-100 CE. 

John Blessing all females

Homily

Today’s readings really speak for themselves.  That they happened to fall on Mother’s Day is serendipitous. In Acts we heard that the Good News is for everyone, without exception: “God shows no partiality.”

The Gospel told us what the Good News is: that God is love and is always with us, without exception. “Remain in my love”….”I tell you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy might be full”….“I call you friends.” 

Ryan & Jim sharing their blessings

And the Letter of John gave us the call to respond to the Good News: “Let us love one another…everyone who loves is of God…”  

On Mother’s Day we get to express love and gratitude in a special way for our mothers. Personally, I have never known a Mother who was not doing the very best she knew how. Not everyone, however, gets to have a Mother who consistently protects them, consistently nurtures and teaches them, and consistently loves them as they wish and deserve.  All mothers are somewhere on the continuum of consistency as mothers. All mothers I have known aspire to be good mothers, and good mothers aspire to be even better mothers. Some mothers were actually Aunts or Grandmothers or adoptive mothers. My mother’s mother died giving birth. So my mother’s mother was actually her Aunt Molly.

Torri, along with her mom & grandmom, being blessed

I think one of the reasons Mary, the Mother of Jesus, has received such honor and devotion from us down through the centuries is that, without knowing much about her life, we could easily project on to her an ideal of mothering for us to aspire to. I love it that we can do that today for all our mothers. Mothers aren’t perfect and don’t have to be perfect. We honor our mothers for protecting us, nurturing us, teaching us, and loving us as best they can or could.

My mother, a Methodist of Scotch-Irish descent, immigrated as a young woman from Mississippi to Louisiana in the 1920’s, to teach school in a very small town that was totally Cajun and Catholic. She left everything she knew and moved to live in a ‘foreign’ culture. There she met my father. They fell in love and married. My mother never felt fully accepted by all his family—remember this was 4 generations ago, when Catholics considered themselves the only true believers—everyone else was suspect. She of course had to promise that all her children would be raised Catholic. When my parents’ second child was born, a son, he died right after birth. My Mother was in a hospital in Abbeville where I later grew up, and my father was 10 miles away in the country, where they lived at that time on my grandparent’s plantation.

My father’s sisters apparently told him that my mother wouldn’t want anyone going to the hospital at this time; that she needed time alone before she came home. When I was about 21 my mother confided in me that story, and she finished telling it with the words, “I never forgot it, and I never forgave him.” I share this story, even though it carries her pain, because of what else it told me about her: that even though my mother and father did not have a close/intimate relationship and their married life was a struggle, she was totally dedicated to our family and to being the best mother she could be for us 5 children. And her life was a testament to that.

Jessica, daughter of John & Connie, brother, Kevin, & sister, Renee

We do not get to choose our mothers. But today we get to honor them. However consistent they have been in protecting, nurturing and loving us, we honor all mothers today. We honor them for their dedication, and for their struggles, and for their efforts at mothering us the very best way they know how (or knew how).

The questions I have for us are: whoever mothered us, do we know and appreciate how she was mothered? What was her joy, and what was her pain and her struggle? And how do we honor that in our own lives?

John escorting Bressica, Thompson, CT, near Boston

Readings:  2 Samuel 7, 1-16; Psalm 89; Romans 16, 25-27; Luke 1, 26-38. 

2 Samuel:

Date compiled:  650-600 BCE, probably in Jerusalem.  David lived ca. 1000 BCE

2 Samuel is part of a 4 book assembly: 1 & 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings. 

Subject matter:      a)  Samuel as Judge

                              b)  Saul as King

                              c)  David as King

Sources:          a)  The court history of David written by Gad

                       b)  Samuel wrote chapters 1-24 of 1 Samuel

                       c)   Anti-monarchy source

                       d)  Pro-monarchy source 

                       e)  Redaction & editing by Nathan   

King David, Jesus' Ancestor   

 In the spirit of anticipating Christmas, I would like to tell you an Old Testament story this morning, a story about one of my most favorite O.T. characters, King David.  We Catholics do not have a tradition like Protestants do of hearing over & over the stories of the great ancestors of our religion and culture.  Today we can rectify this a bit.    

To get the scene you have to go back 1,000 years BCE.  David and two other great leaders are all living at the same time.  Samuel is the first of the three and he is the last ruler of Israel who is a judge.  Saul is the second person.  He follows Samuel as leader and is the first king of Israel.  

What is happening is that Saul is doing a bad job of being king.  If you know any psychology you will detect that he is bipolar or manic depressive.  He has big mood swings.  Yawheh has tired of him and has whispered to Samuel that Samuel needs to go find a new king.  Yehweh deconsecrates Saul as king.  He directs Samuel to go visit a man named Jesse with 8 sons in a special little town.  Name that town.  Bethlehem.  This is significant to N.T. writers like Luke and you will hear it mentioned in the Christmas readings. 

As each son is brought before Samuel Yahweh whispers in his ear, "No, not this one," even though Samuel thinks each one would make a good choice.  After the seventh son is rejected, Samuel prepares to leave, but asks Jesse if he has any other sons.  Jesse says that, as a matter of fact, he does have another son, his youngest, who is out in the fields tending the livestock.  When David comes before Samuel, Yahweh whispers, "This is The Man."  Samuel consecrates David then and there the future king of Israel.

With that David moves into King Saul's palace as a page and becomes a favorite to Saul.  David can interpret dreams and he can play a soothing guitar that calms Saul when he has some of his dark moods.  David pleases Saul so much that eventually David marries his daughter Micah.

Life goes on peacefully this way until one day the Philistines come to attack.  The Hebrews are terrified, in fact doubly terrified because of one giant guy who is killing everyone and challenging any & all Jews to come out and fight him.  Guess who this guy is.  The Famous Goliath.  Guess who volunteers to come out and fight.  David.

This part of the story we all know.  David dings Goliath with a stone from his sling shot, then whacks off his head with Goliath's own sword.  David becomes very popular with the people.  David becomes unpopular with Saul who begins to feel the poison seed of jealousy.  The jealousy expands so much that eventually Saul dedicates all his efforts to killing David.  David hides in the desert and ultimately Saul dies.

At this point David becomes the king and is successful in all he does.  At one point, in fact, after a successful military campaign against their enemies, David comes dancing joyfully into the city of Jerusalem leading the military parade.  From a nearby window his wife Micah is watching and as the Bible says, she is disgusted.  When David returns home and is greeted with the derision of Micah, he defends himself and declares that he will continue to dance his joy before the Lord.  Yahweh is not impressed with Micah' criticism and she never has any children.

Not all the time does David join his armies in the field.  On one occasion he is strolling on the roof of his house in the afternoon.  He looks over to a neighboring roof and discovers a woman bathing.  David is bitten.  He sends his servants to invite her to dinner at the king's palace.  A month or so later, guess what.  The lady sends word that she is pregnant.  Guess who this lady is.  The famous Bathsheba.

David decides that he can't let it be known that he is the father.  He sends for Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, who is one of his best soldiers.  He invites him for dinner, gets him drunk, then tells him to go home and sleep well.  Uriah, however, is a man loyal to his comrades and decides that he will not go into his house to sleep when his fellows are sleeping in the fields.

So the next morning David sends him back to the field with a note to the commander.  The note instructs the commander to put Uriah in the front of the fight and when they are all engaged to pull everybody back but Uriah.  Uriah gets killed. 

Shortly after this David is visited by a local prophet who has received a message from Yahweh.  Nathan tells David a story about a rich man who took a poor man's sole beloved sheep and slaughters it.  Nathan asks David what should happen to that rich man and David says he should be severely punished.  Nathan says, "You are that rich man."  So David acknowledges his failure and does penance. 

Meanwhile Bathsheba has a son.  The Great Solomon.  He who built the Jerusalem temple which the Jewish people are still lamenting since its destruction by the Romans.

You will see Luke make a big deal out of the lineage of Jesus, that he is of the house & family of David.  Solomon, the son of David & Bathsheba is his great, great grandfather.

There are so many lessons in this story.  I have just two observations.

1.  Jesus comes out of a lineage with a unique event.

2.  God forgives even some big sinners.  We can take consolation from this & know that we are accepted.

What about David do you like the best? 

AUDIO:  http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2008-12-21.mp3

Picture 1:  Our Father

Picture 2:  Maggie McGrath & Tom (dad)

Picture 3:  Cliff Wright

Readings: 1 Samuel 16, 1-13; Psalm 23, The Lord is My Shepherd; there is nothing I shall want; Ephesians 5, 8-14; John 9, 1-41. 

Fourth Sunday of Lent – Intro to Readings

 Our three readings today have to do with seeing.  In the first reading we have the account of Samuel being sent by God to find a successor to King Saul.  At this time, the succession of the kings was not by direct descendant, but they were chosen by God..  Recall that Saul was their first king, a king they demanded from God so that they could be just like every other people around them.  God gave them Saul.  Saul did not quite work out, and today’s reading is the account of God’s selection of his successor, David.  The account focuses on the fact that God sees people differently than we do.  You might say he shines a light through the cover of the book to see into the person.

 Paul’s letter to the Ephesians continues this theme of God’s light and introduces us to the well-known phrase “Jesus is the Light of the World”.  The Letter to the Ephesians is one of those letters where Paul’s authorship is strongly questioned.  The letter contains no references to companions, addresses no particular questions or issues in a particular community, and very closely resembles the Letter to the Colossians.  There is much reference to Baptism in the letter and it seems that some of the passages in the letter are taken from early Christian liturgies, particularly Baptism. 

Our responsorial Psalm today is the very beautiful Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd” and has two ideas: God as Shepherd and God as Host.  The psalm was probably part of a thanksgiving liturgy.

 Our gospel today is from St. John and originally I had intended to read the shorter version, but all of the commentators I read were so full of praise for the entire chapter and how it is one of the masterpieces of Johannine story telling, well what could I do!

 Homily

 Last Monday after work, I caught the DART train home.  When I got into the front carriage, there was a young woman at the front of the carriage speaking to everyone.  I sat down and immediately realized I was in for a sermon!!  Not what I needed at that moment.  I wanted the train driver to come out of his cab and toss her off the train!  But as she talked I listened.  She was telling us about how Jesus had come into her life and saved her, and Jesus would save us too, if we would only accept him.  In fact we were already saved. 

 As I listened, I started to do what the Pharisees did in today’s Gospel.  I wondered so what now, what is the big difference in her life, I wanted to know the “so what”.  Then I began to ask myself would I be willing to get up in front of a carriage full of people and share my faith in Jesus.  She was a very good speaker, she spoke clearly and calmly.  Then she sat down after thanking us for listening.  The man in the row behind her leaned forward and said something to her, I didn’t hear, but I could see that she wiped a tear from her eye.  The train rolled on and after a few stops she rose, turned to us all and invited us to have a “Blessed day” and got off. 

 Onto the train got a young man, who sat in her seat, about her age, dressed all in black, a black shirt with the word “neurosis” written across the front, long hair and a tattoo on his arm.  He had leather straps on his wrists with metal spikes on them, and a metal belt and chains around his waist, and a ring in his nose!!   Oh boy, did I have fun with the contrast as I thought about today’s readings!  I had jumped to all sorts of conclusions about the young man.  I was judging the book by the cover. 

 If I go back to my questions about what the young woman was saying.  So what difference was Jesus’ presence in my life?  I need to constantly be aware of my own blindness when it comes to other people.  I need to make sure I don’t fall into the trap of having a closed mind, which is what the Pharisees had in the gospel.  They were completely blind to the miracle, and only saw that Jesus broke the Sabbath law.

The blind man’s sight of who Jesus was is something that happened over time.  At first he saw Jesus as “the man Jesus”, then “he is a prophet” then finally as “Lord”.  So too for us, our sight, our faith, is a journey and we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is and what our response to Him is, as we live and allow Him into our lives.

Picture 1:   Mass begins with Tony & Kevin  

Picture 2:   Tony congratulating Bob

Picture 3:   Beth & Rob, Beth being today's photographer

Picture 4:   Cara & Sean with mom & dad, Christine & Ed  

Picture 5:   Leo joins the choir

       

Readings: 2 Kings 5, 14-17; Psalm 98; 2 Timothy 2, 8-13; Luke 17, 11-19.

2 Kings:

• Time of the events: 900 B.C.
• Time when written: 550 B.C., during the Babylonian captivity
• Subject of 1 Kings: This book continues the history of the kings taking up with the death of King David and continuing through the story of David & Bathsheba’s son Solomon.  He builds the famous Temple of Solomon.  After his death the nation divides into the northern & southern states, Israel in the north, Judah in the south (including Jerusalem; remember by the "J’s").
• Subject of 2 Kings: This book continues the history of the decline of the two states until Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeats the people. 
• Subject of our chapter 5 (read it all, it is delightful): one of the leaders of the Syrian-Babylonian army goes to visit the prophet of the day, Elisha.  Naaman, the general, has leprosy.  Note the twist of the story at the end.  Thanks is a theme of this selection and it sets the stage for Luke’s story about gratitude.

Gratitude

Last Sunday after our Mass, after Rosemary had counted the income, and had put it on spread sheets, we got in the car to go out for the evening.  I dropped her off at the Royal Lane & Preston Tom Thumb to buy something, she gave me some letters to mail at the corner, and she gave me the two envelopes to deposit in the bank on the same corner.  We always deposit that money right away.

I drove through the parking lot to the mail box and dumped in all the envelopes. All the envelopes.  Namely, her letters and the two bank deposit envelopes.

I knew almost immediately what I had done and, in fact, wanted to reach down into the mail box to retrieve the deposits.  However, I realized I could go to jail for that.  So we typed up a special note with our phone number and put it in the mailbox and figured we would make contact with the Royal Lane post office early the next day before pick up.  Guess what Monday was: Columbus Day, a postal holiday. 

Tuesday morning I got a call from the main post office that they had one of our deposit envelopes and I could pick it up.  When I met the guy I confessed that I was embarrassed to admit that I was the person who put the deposits in the mail box.  He says to me that as a matter of fact it happens a lot on that corner and that a woman had actually put in 10 thousand dollars in cash. 

So we have gotten back the running expenses deposit and still are waiting for the outreach envelope, which he seems optimistic will show up.  The thing that touched me, however, was how this postal supervisor treated my brain dead behavior with such a light touch.  I thanked him for both, for getting the envelope and for making light of it all.  I was really grateful.

The two stories we have in today’s readings are all about gratitude. A few observations.

First.  The temptation is to think I am one of the nine who did not return to thank Jesus. Yes & No.  I would suggest again: we are both.  Lots of times we forget to thank.  Lots of times we thank. 

Second.  There could be symbolism in the nine and one.  Perhaps I am nine tenths ungrateful and one tenth grateful.  This is a pretty normal proportion. A lot of times, however, I am not so much ungrateful as just insensitive, totally unaware.  Perhaps the lepers who did not return just figured they were lucky and went on their way.  The other guy realized he had been given a gift by that stranger and wanted to respond.

Jesus  tells him his faith has saved him.  I would suggest that his gratitude transformed him.

Third.  How is it possible to rearrange the percentages?  Rosemary & I have a favorite little practice that we do every night.  I’ve mentioned it before. We ask each other what were the blessings of the day.  I recommend this. I even recommend it for sitting alone, while savoring the first cup of coffee in the morning, driving or riding the DART to work & back, getting ready to go to school.  Simple question: what were my blessings yesterday or this week?

In that main post office I could have focused on how dumb I was or that I did not get the second deposit back.  Fortunately I could appreciate the supervisor’s light touch and that I had gotten back one envelope, the larger.

You may start now: what were your three biggest blessings this week?

AUDIO: http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2007-10-14.mp3