July 6, 2022
Thought for Today
"The trouble
with being best man is,
you don't get a chance
to prove it."
Les A. Murray - Australian Poet
Wednesday, July 6, 2022
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
July 5, 2022
Reflection
TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE
There are two types of people: those who like lists of types of people and those who don't.
Down through the years I've been collecting different statements of types of people. So I have a decent collection.
Here is a new one: there are two types of people - those who think their salvation is outside themselves and those who think their salvation is within.
Of course things are never apples or oranges. The juice from the trees of life is always a mixture.
Some people think there is a diet out there that is going to solve their weight problem.
So they go on this diet - or that diet - try this - try that - in hopes of taking off all that weight.
So we wonder about types of clothes, cars, others. If I get a new suit or car, will others see me as better than I am? If I make a new move, will I look smarter? Is there another person out there who will save me and clear up my life issues?
So should I buy planning books on how to pack lightly, or how to be slim and trim, so I'll be the perfect him or her to others?
Then there are those who know the solution is within. They grab Jesus' words - like "The kingdom of heaven is within." or "Why do you see the speck in another's eye and you don't see the plank in your eye?"
Or they realize they have the Pharisee's problem. It's causing havoc in me. I have a stink within. I'm decaying as a person.
Obviously, Jesus came from the outside, yet maybe Bethlehem is within - in the stinking stable of my soul.
Come Lord Jesus! Come Shepherd! Come King.
Help me keep typing - especially myself.
Ooops. Hello Lord Jesus. I'm finally home.
Monday, July 4, 2022
July 4, 2022
Reflection
COMMUNICATION
What is communication?
It's listening - watching - coming up with questions - scenarios - figuring.
What is communication?
It's realizing I'm only 1 person with my figurings - if I even do that - and another is another person with their experiences and figurings.
It's time - taking time - not jumping to conclusions.
It's walking in my own shoes and then another's shoes for the same mile and then many more,
It's finally actually listening to another - to find out if they know and can spell out where they are coming from.
What is communication?
It's entering into the mystery of God - God's creation purposes - God's likeness - in reaching out to the second person - and in the process discovering a spirit of love can exist between people.
What is communication?
It's receiving another person in Holy Communion - especially after they have suffered and died - and their body has been broken by people who have betrayed them for 30 pieces of silver - more or less.
What is communication?
It's being silent - in the darkness of a long weekend - or a long year - or a long life - and then still reaching out to the other person - and discovering the stone has been rolled away - and the other person starts rising before us and we want to hold onto them.
Communication is resurrection and new life.
Sunday, July 3, 2022
July 3, 2022
Reflection
FEW BASIC IDEAS
There is a saying I read or heard a long time ago, "There are only a few basic ideas, but think of the metaphors.'
For starters, that's a basic idea. And I guess the metaphors would be, "History repeats itself." "Deja vu all over again." "Wait a minute, I've been here before."
But what hits me is the making of a list of the basic ideas,
Mortimer Adler's group at the University of Chicago came up with the Basic Books Program - if that's what it's called. They came up with a 2 or 3 volume set of books with the name, "Syntopicon" - or something like that.
They give topics like Marriage, War, Peace. Next come the subdivisions.
Zane Grey said all his books have one topic: "The good guys get bad - and the bad guys get good." [Did he really say that?]
Let me see if I can come up with 10 basic ideas.
1) The Golden Rule. Put it positive: Do to others what you would want to happen to you. Put it in the negative: don't do to others what you wouldn't want to happen to you.
2) Youth: what a waste to waste.
3) In our old age, we see where are parents were right - or what they were tying to do.
4) There are 7 Capital Sins - and we have to deal with all 7 more or less.
5) Sex is around 24/7 more or less - and if you don't see it coming - boom.
6) Land! Buy land!
7) At the end of our life - looking back - we won't regret if we didn't spend enough time at work - but we will regret if we missed making time for our family.
8) Listening - we don't do enough of that one.
9) Do it right - not because someone might be watching - but because it is right.
10) Death is always sitting there waiting.
July 3, 2022
Thought for Today
"The voice of the people is the voice of God."
Early 15th century saying. Cf. Alcuin [735-804] who said, "Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit." "And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the rightousness of the crowd is always very close to madness."
Alexander Pope wrote, "The people's voice is odd, / It is, and it is not, the voice of God."
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