Tag: family

Search and rescue

So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”⁴ Strengthened by this mission, the apostles “went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.”⁵

⁴ Mt 28:18-20 ⁵Mk 16:20
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2

In our age, the idea of “making disciples” is often met with a good deal of skepticism. For good reason.

Conversion is too often coercion.

The “good news”, instead of resounding, too often amounts to irritating noise (at best) or really bad news.

Too often the good news is disconnected from the sheer goodness of God and amounts to no more than another avenue for human pride, prejudice, power, and greed.

God calls us to seek him because he is the best there is.

He has made a way for us to recognize and find him – Jesus.

He sends search teams to find and rescue us, to bring us across the border into his kingdom, to foster and adopt us as children, family.

That is the good news, the really good news.

May that news resound throughout the world.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags discipleship, family, good news, gospel, immigration, love, rescue

Humor the real self

Dried apricots

My New Year’s non-resolution was to get up early enough to have time to write before I start work. You know, like serious writers are supposed to do…if you read all the books…(which I don’t).

I’m doing quite well with Part A – getting up early. For me, this is almost a miracle.

No, it is a miracle.

Part B has been another matter. I thought Part B had to do with this blog and my other blog (piano music) or maybe even a new blog I have in mind. It hasn’t turned out that way.

I’m an introvert whose life is way too busy. One generation before me, one just even with me, and two behind me – that’s a lot of people right there. No way am I missing out on all that fun. No way am I turning into an old codger.

(Codger – haven’t thought of that word in a long time.)

Where does an old potential-codger introvert, surrounded by generations of people, find a little nook in the space-time continuum to put one’s feet up, stare off into the distance, and realize how many muscles are knotted up and pinpoint exactly where they are?

I eat a lot of dried apricots – helps me keep my potassium from going low. (I get mine from Trader Joe’s – by far the best place I know of for dried fruit.) Some are soft and sweet and some are hard and don’t taste like much.

I become the second kind. When I don’t have time to myself. To just be and just do whatever my dried apricot soul feels like being and doing.

That’s what Part B has turned into.

And the surprise I wasn’t expecting:

my soul has been feeling like writing emails to people in those generations around me, connecting with them in new ways about what is going on in their lives;

praying for them much more than I ever had before

(and, alas, for people like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, who I don’t even like to include in the same paragraph);

and just thinking about them and letting joy happen.

That’s it. My New Year’s non-resolution, unbeknownst to me and not part of my plan:

Make a little nook of space and time to let joy happen.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags apricots, blogging, family, introversion, joy, potassium, praying, Trader Joes, writing

Poetry

Immigration status (re-post)

Post author By dw
Post date December 16, 2018
1 Comment on Immigration status (re-post)

We would be,
all of us,
detained at heaven’s border,
seeking life,
fleeing death,
illegal immigrants all;

Detained and
forever separated
from our loved ones;

Were it not
for God’s outrageous mercy,
his willingness to spend
without limit
his very life
for us
so that we
could be
not only citizens of his realm,
but his very sons and daughters,
sharing his home,
his table,
his very life.

dw

Copyright © 2018, all rights reserved.

Samuel, we miss you and are praying for you and Julia and Daniel. We want to see your family together again; we want you to worship here with us again. God be with you.

Tags border, citizenship, detained, family, Free Samuel, God's mercy, illegal immigrant, immigration, Samuel Oliver Bruno, separation

Poetry

Immigration status

We would be,
all of us,
detained at heaven’s border,
seeking life,
fleeing death,
illegal immigrants all;

Detained and
forever separated
from our loved ones;

Were it not
for God’s outrageous mercy,
his willingness to spend
without limit
his very life
for us
so that we
could be
not only citizens of his realm,
but his very sons and daughters,
sharing his home,
his table,
his very life.

dw

Copyright © 2018, all rights reserved.

unsplash-logoChristian Spies

Tags border, citizenship, detained, family, God's mercy, illegal immigrant, mercy, status

Other Writings

Identify yourself!

You cannot tell me who I am, and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island