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Daily Scripture

+ 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Be wise but don’t be a ‘wise guy!’

Readings: I Corinthians 3:18-21 Psalm 24:1-4, 5-6 Luke 5:1-11

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, for it is written: “God catches the wise in their own ruses,” and again: “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that are vain.”

Wisdom (Sophia) is a feminine attribute of God. True wisdom is rooted in deep faith and an abiding confidence in God’s abiding presence in all of creation and in the depth of our being. Wisdom comes from study, prayer and from the daily effort to live in God’s grace with Jesus as our mentor. Reason without faith leads to rationalization of our wants and desires. Reason combined with faith moves us to contemplation and moves us to probe and ponder the greatest mysteries of life that exceed the power of the human intellect to explicate or explain. That’s why poets, artists and composers are enable us to comprehend the qualities of God in nature, in the human body and in the qualities of a life lived in union with ultimate truth and beauty.

So we need to go to our prayer chair for at least twenty minutes at the beginning and end of every day. We need to walk among the trees and along the sea. We need to listen to music that stirs the soul and sing songs that touch the heart.

Only then can we be thoughtful people of measured speech and positive deeds.

Quiet Love

Thursday February 21, 2008

This poem in prose was composed by me as my annual Christmas message and greeting but the Spirit did not move my soul until the feast of the Baptism of Jesus. And so my Christmas ‘cards’ did not get to the post office until two weeks ago! I share it now with my website visitors. It is entitled, ‘Quiet Love.’

_______

When I was a child,
I used to think of God as an old man
high in the sky
with a long white beard stretching over the earth,
sweeping silk silver-lined clouds.
A sort of Santa Claus—a gentle soul
but not adverse to “making a list and checking it twice
to find out who’s naughty or nice.”

Such talk among adults is silly isn’t it? —fodder for Gnostics or agnostics and even atheists? Perhaps, but I think God enjoys a bit of banter now and then.
And I suspect that God is often amused
at the attempts of great and small,
of prophets, priests and popes among them
to pin on God a personality
and put words in God’s mouth
as if such were possible
though I do believe artists and poets have come close
in their playful pursuit to depict
the movement of love through the lens of ancient sages
down through the ages—quiet love.

‘The Great Mystery’
is the name our Native American ancestors
gave to God because they knew
God is mysteriously part of everything and everyone—quiet love
penetrating the depths of eternity from one end to the other
birthing us to life
at every moment—day and night.

I believe that Jesus gave birth to God in humanity
uniquely as no one else in human history—as movement, as life, as goodness,
as love.
I think of Jesus as the incarnation of ‘quiet love.’

I think too of all the people confined to silence, not by choice,
in cells of solitude, prisoners of their body
the windows of their minds closed to the familiar faces of yesterday.
Quiet love silenced by the slow deterioration of the mind
or worse, empty souls, searching for someone to love,

And the many who have lost their way on lonely streets
or in caves of dark despair
waiting for quiet love to free them from the isolation of insignificance
or the dysfunction of worthlessness or ironically, iconic vanity.
Waiting for quiet love to touch them.

Meanwhile the pundits preach
from pulpits, of their political superiority
a gospel of narcissism to be sure,
spreading their feathers like pheasants looking for a mate —and a vote.

And what of the evangelical ‘merchants’ with gold rings
in search of fine pearls instead of tending to lost sheep
bruised by wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Stealthy ‘guardians’ of sound doctrine and dogma
stern monitors of stoic rites and rituals
moved more by fear of the unknown than by awe of the Mystery,
assuring firm adherence to rules and rubrics
that harken back to other ages—the dark ages
lest they be quickened by a new movement of the Spirit
God Spirit—quiet love.

Yet quiet love seeps through the cracks and crevices
of ancient times and places
and over time we come to know our origin
and our destiny
in quiet love—
that will not be silenced.
c Kenneth E Lasch 2008