January 12, 2022
Thought for Today
of criticism or praise.
just as I suspected:
Hafiz
A Year With Hafiz,
Page 115,
translateld by
Davide Ladinsky
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
A FATHER’S PRAYER
A father wonders about his kids.
Different: at times he often worries.
“Am I treating this one fair?” “Am I treating this one too easy?”
He doesn’t tell anyone about these worries. Well once and
a while, he mentions it to his wife or a
friend at work.
Television stories of other people’s kids – or what happens
to the son or one or the guys at work trigger these thoughts – or sometimes it’s
just a boring basketball game or a hated meeting – and off he goes with his
wondering and his worrying.
These become his prayers – the down deep prayers – that he
doesn’t even know he’s praying about.
And they slip out without his even knowing it in his
behaviors – a surprise trip for a hamburger with his kid – or a $20 dollar bill
slipped quietly into a shirt pocket when his kid is going on a school outing –
a man’s way of saying, “I love you.”
Then the teenage years appear. Both he and the kids are
older and different. Distancing is happening.
It’s all part of the package of being human.
The worries and the wonderings become more scary: drugs,
sex, car accidents, the wrong crowd….
The possibilities of a new way of doing life pops to the
surface.
Fathers begin saying things to their wives they never said
before. Conversations and listening become
longer.
Fathers begin to say prayers to God they never heard themselves
saying before.
And sometimes teenagers see their parents holding each
other – going for walks or a hamburger – saying a prayer together.
Each is beginning to get a greater awareness of what God has
gifted them with: family, faith, future, questions, more wonders and more
worries.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
Monday, January 10, 2022
January 10, 2022
EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION
The urge to pray and the urge to sin both seem to be ways
of expanding ourselves – to become greater, better, bigger, more than we feel we are.
When I feel small, when I feel all alone, when I feel
empty, I feel less.
It’s then I want to feel bigger, better, richer, fuller,
more than I am.
So I better reach out for God in prayer – who then sends
me – to love my neighbor.
Or I do the opposite: I try to put down my neighbor, so I
can use him or her as a pedestal.
Or I use my neighbor – or cheat my neighbor – or steal
from my neighbor.
Paradoxically, when I pray or when I sin, I contract. I
shrink. I become smaller.
This religious stuff is always tricky like this.
When I commit a real good – or should I say – real bad – sin,
I end up humbled, rejected, cut down, and reduced.
When I reach out for God, I meet greatness - but end up feeling small – empty in God’s presence.
But I also can now fit through the eye of the needle.
I can now become filled up on the other side with the
riches of the kingdom.
Jesus taught all this.
Jesus is God – and emptied himself – when he became one
of us and emptied himself even more by becoming our servant. [Cf. Philippians
2: 5b-11]
He was put down, contradicted, crucified, for what he was
telling us to do – to do the same thing – but now Christ fills the universe.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
Sunday, January 9, 2022
January 9, 2022
BILLIONS TO ONE When we listen to the Scriptures, when we hear the words,
when we notice the things that happen in
the stories, we see people who know God, people who claim God, as their own, personally So we have the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God
of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezechiel, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Each individual mentioned seems to know, love and serve
God individually, personally. Billions of people did this and are doing this – these one
to – connecting to God by name relationships. Only God can pull this off. I say this, because when I am with a group, so often I miss so many
individuals, because there all these eyes
all around me – all these different personalities – people pumping their
egos up – like so many hot air balloons filling the sky. But it seems that God can take us one at a time – to be with
each of us – one at a time. I guess a new type of relationship erupts the moment I
begin to pair off with God – like a teenager, boy or girl, moving away from the
crowd, to begin a possible one to one relationship, with each other – by name. Next can come grown up prayer – a grown up relationship, God
and me. Me and God. So the God of Andrew now arrives. It was there all along as far as God is
concerned – but for me, no, not until now. So God, here I am, as I am. Here is your servant. I’m here to listen to you. I’m here to hear the unique reason You made me – in the
unique setting you put me in Here I am, Lord. Here I am, this I am that I am.
© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022
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