Lord, teach me. . . .

True love is selfless. It is prepared to sacrifice. –Sadhu Vaswani Jesus is drawing nearer and nearer to the cross, well aware that his time on earth is limited. He decides it is Time to begin teaching his disciples more about what will happen next. As he is explaining that the path ahead will, in fact, be very difficult and painful for all of them, Peter pipes up. Lord , he says, shush. You don’t have to die! At which point Jesus offers a timeless, classic rebuttal to us all: Get thee behind me, Satan! You’re thinking like people think, not like God thinks! Peter was beginning to think he had it all figured out: follow this Jesus, find a new way of living. He liked what he was learning—but now this. His new friend just made it perfectly clear: If you cannot listen and follow God’s plan, then at the very least don’t become a roadblock, an adversary. Get behind me. Stay out of God’s way. Lent offers the chance to reassess our priorities, to determine where ...

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds  cannot change anything. –George Bernard Shaw Ash Wednesday has come and gone. As we begin another Lenten journey, we may have again decided, this year, to make a change in our lives for the forty days of Lent. Have you? Have you decided to give up something that you will really miss, like chocolate, or social media, or cigarettes? Or have you decided, perhaps, to give back something that could make a difference in the world, like volunteering to work a community meal, or participate in Right to Read? Whatever decisions you may have made, you will be exactly as successful in your efforts as you think you will be. In other words, if you are doing something for Lent because everyone else is doing something for Lent (but it’s not really your cup of tea), you probably won’t have much luck sticking to it for six long weeks. The mind is a powerful tool. Just like that little train engin...

The purpose of life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.  –Albert Schweitzer There is a wonderful story about Elijah, Jezebel and God in 1 Kings. Elijah has been persecuted by Jezebel and fears for his life. Feeling alone and very sorry for himself, he goes to hide out in a cave. God sends a raven to feed and care for him, keeping him nourished and strong. Then God tells Elijah to stand outside the cave, and the LORD will pass by in all his glory. Elijah covers his face with his cloak and waits. The mountain shakes with a violent earthquake-- but the LORD was not in the earthquake. Fire covers the mountain—but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire came a still, small whisper in Elijah’s soul. And the LORD was in the whisper, and had a single, piercing question for Elijah: What are you doing here, Elijah? Good question, one we should be asking ourselves on a regular basis. What am I doing here, anyway? Our days in this ...

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God:  for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism  and selfishness that have chilled his faith.  –Thomas Merton February in the northern hemisphere can be a bleak, dismal time of year. The official halfway point of winter this year is February 4—so in theory, it’s all downhill from here, right? Isn’t that handy, to be able to look at a calendar and know that in meteorological terms, anyway, this dark, cold, bleak season is half done? The end is in sight. Somehow, that gives us strength to carry on, to take a deep breath and keep on shoveling. As we wander closer to Ash Wednesday and prepare for Lent, it’s somehow fitting that we are also in the coldest time of year. We have wrapped up the joyful celebrations of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany; now we begin the other high holy season, the time during which we are reminded again, in a different way, just how d...