February  4,  2020

FLAWS

We got them  - like dark scars

on well waxed wooden floors –

a pitcher of water was dropped

right here  - during an angry 

argument - leaving its mark –

an “Ouch!” etched in wood -  

a tell – telling us – everything –

especially our flaws make for

notice about each other – as

well as story – that we make

mistakes that we need grace –

that we are a novel being

written – and this floor is just

one floor.  There are more.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

February  4,  2020 

Thought  for  Today  

“If there is a book that  you  want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

Toni Morrison

February 3, 2020

THE  CALLING

Sometimes when doing something else -

a voice from this or that of a half dozen  

injustices we know are in our neighborhood -

can work its way up from a twist in our gut.

It’s then we know it’s time for us to rise –

to drop everything – to fold our nets and

to go fishing elsewhere. Expect excuses.

Buts butt in. But the call keeps calling.

When the scriptures say God hears

the cries of the poor, it means us:

we’re it. We’re the poor and we’re

the called. And they are calling us.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

February  3,  2020 

Thought   for  Today 

 “Won’t it be wonderful when black history and  Native American history and  Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.”  

Maya Angelou

February 2, 2020

JUST  IMAGINE

Just imagine if all the chatter

and all the thoughts in all the

minds of all the earth slipped

out accidentally – like toothpicks

in those tiny glass jars - all slipping

out at once and everyone could

hear everyone’s thoughts and

judgments.  Woo! Wow! Oh no!

Wouldn’t that be an utter, “Uh oh!”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2020

February  2,  2020

Thought for Today

 “I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.”   Morgan Freeman

THAT  MAN  IS  YOU

INTRODUCTION

The title of my  homily for this 3^rd Saturday in Ordinary Time  is, “That Man Is You.”

Around 1964 – 1965 – there was an insightful  spiritual reading book, That Man Is You – by Louis Evely.

I’m sure some of you here had a copy of that book. It was a best seller in the world of religious books.

I looked it up last night on Google and one can still buy a copy of it: used. Today's prices are from 6 dollars to 60 dollars to $851.90. Same book. I noticed that it was only $1.45 on its cover.

2 SAMUEL 12: 1-7A, 10-17

The title and the thought for that book comes out of today’s first reading from 2 Samuel 12.

You know the story; you heard the story Nathan tells David the king.  A rich man has lots of sheep; a poor man has one sheep – a lamb.

The rich man has guests and steals the poor man’s one sheep for a dinner for his visitors.

David upon hearing that story – screams – “Who is this rich man?  I’ll make him pay back fourfold.”

And Nathan  the prophet says, “That man in you.”

“What?”

Nathan explains: “You got it all and yet you steal this poor soldier’s wife – one of your own soldiers – Uriah the Hittite – and then you have Uriah placed in a situation where he’ll be killed in battle.” 

David gets the message and repents.

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE

Louis Evely who wrote the book, That Man Is You, says there is a secret here – a great way to use and read the Bible here.

Read the stories of the Bible and put yourself in the place of every person in a  story.

This person is me.

Be Adam. Be Eve.

Be David. Be Uriah.  Be Bathsheba.  Be David’s other wives.  Be the soldiers who saw all this.

Be Nathan.

Be the Pharisee. Be the Tax Collector.

Be the Lost sheep. Be the Good Shepherd.

Be the father, the older brother and the younger brother in the Prodigal Son story.

Be the good tree, the good grape vine, or the tree that isn’t producing figs or the vine that needs pruning.

It’s basically the apostles’  question at the Last Supper. Hearing that one of them is about to betray Jesus they ask, “Is it I, Lord?”  [Cf. John 13: 25.]

In prayer, in reading the scripture, we can ask of many characters, “Is this me, Lord?”

Louis Evely wasn’t a Jesuit, but that’s how Ignatius told people making the exercises – how to read and how to get the scriptures.

It’s what Shakespeare and the storytellers know.

I’ve been doing this for some 55 years now and it still works – especially when we put ourselves into the stories, into the parables, especially when we think about what it’s like to   someone we probably wouldn’t ever think ourselves to be.

You know the old American Indian metaphor: walk a mile in the other persons moccasins – or as Hawthorn put it in a story.  He told of a lady who walked around town going, “Tch. Tch. Tch” with her nose up in the air – till another lady said to her – sort of Nathanesque.  “You ought to go out and commit a really good sin and then maybe you’ll understand the rest of us.”

That’s like saying, “Walk a mile in someone else’s sins.” 

Those of us who are “Pro Life” people or verbal rock throwers – need to walk around town with that kind of attitude – walking a mile in someone else’s sins.”