Readings: 1 Sam 26: 2-26; Psalm 103: 1-13; 1 Cór 15: 45-49; Lukę 6: 27-38

‘Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?’

This is a question a psychologist might ask if you find that your normal strategies aren’t working for you. You find yourself locked in a struggle with others.

In an echo of last Sunday’s readings and it is good to assume that humans don’t really get it the first time, the point is made that God does not see things the way humans do. We can be cut-throat, ‘what’s in it for me’, ‘look after your own’. Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel doesn’t just overturn things for his hearers 2000 years ago. It is still the dominant ethic.

We are told in the psalm that ‘the Lord is kind and merciful’. For those of us who wish to be described as a person of faith, a Christian, a Catholic, this begs the question: am I kind and merciful?

The first reading shows David acting in a merciful way when he could have killed Saul. (In fairness, if you read more of the books of Samuel you learn David didn’t always get it right!) How can we be kind and merciful? The gospel spells it out for us:

• Don’t judge
• Don’t condemn
• Forgive

If we each spend time this week working on those, we will be easier to live with and be happier. As the gospel points out, suspending judgment, condemnation and being forgiving comes back to us, in good ways, by helping to create a community of kindness and mercy. 

In so doing, we will be happy – and build communities through right relationships.

I’m trying something a bit different. Hope you like it.

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5-8; Psalm 1: 1-6; 1 Corinthians 15: 16-20; Luke 6: 20-26

What do we need now?

Hope seems pretty useful. The way our lives have been a rollercoaster these past two years – are we up or down? – you’d be forgiven for asking: Is anything stable? Is there anything that we can cling to?

As it regularly does, scripture helps give us a longer view. The Psalms that have stood 3000 years worth of famine, war and plague encourage us to ‘hope in the Lord’. This Sunday’s Gospel gives us Luke’s Beatitudes and woes. One can be inclined to write off the Beatitudes as pious-sounding, pie-in-the-sky stuff but Luke then hits privileged people, like me, ‘where they live’ by reminding us as Jeremiah did in the first reading that God doesn’t look at the world the way that humans do. God doesn’t care about status, power and control. God loves every human creation, indeed every part of creation.

‘Hope in the Lord’ can seem naive or simplistic. Yet, taking the long view is a way of riding the storm. Not getting too high or too low. Rather, each of us should focus on acting with love and justice and ask ourselves ‘how am I doing with that?’

But why love and justice? Because they build right relationships, they build community. They bring God who is love to the fore in everyone’s lives and so bring God’s reign closer. Thus by acting with love and justice we bring God closer – and so make hoping in the Lord a reality.

Warm summer evening

near sunset

a glow

I can see

through the windows

draws me outside.

Rather than the west,

the spectacle

is in the east

as vaulting cumulonimbus

glow a range of colours

akin to something

from a painting.

Yet it is the brilliance

of the white

that is nothing short of stunning!

Only clouds?

Open your eyes

and your heart

to savour

another generous dollop of

God’s grace.

We need Christmas to remind us that

God is already with us

Around us

Emmanuel – God with us

For all time

But we forget

to live our faith

that God is love.

How do I incarnate love in my actions?

God’s love encompasses

The world.

Do I appreciate the way 

that each part of creation

Uniquely manifests God

Through being what it is,

its ‘thisness’?

Sun, sky and clouds

God with us

Plants and animals

God with us

Flowers, birds and insects

God with us

Family, friends and strangers

God with us

By living our faith

In a God 

Who encompasses everything

Who cares about each creature,

Each part in the vast tapestry of creation

We slowly become our part 

of the enormous love 

Of the God that we believe in.

This begins 

When we truly open our eyes and heart

And Christmas is as good a time

As any to start.

A summer’s morning walk

like every other

startles me

awake

with its vision

of blues

– both sky and sea

reminding me

of the beautiful person

with whom I have the grace

to share my life

and our dogs

who are both

steady and boisterous

along with the raucous kerfuffle

of the lorrikeets

in our bottlebrush.

Such visions bring joy and

‘joy is the infallible sign

of the presence of God’.

I am thankful

for the gifts

of beauty

appreciation and

sight.

The society

in which I live

has propagated a myth,

a myth so powerful

that fortunes, industries,

even countries

have risen and fallen

based upon its premise

of solitary freedom.

‘I am free to do as I choose’

The counterbalance

of responsibilities

were ignored, abhorred or forgotten

in the headlong plunge.

Along comes a pandemic

that proves

that my actions always

affect others.

Yet, despite two years

of lockdowns,

disruptions and disconnection,

the myth

has deep roots,

so facts that ‘I do not believe’

continue to be ignored.

Humanity has been given

a golden opportunity

to grasp the power

of our connection

in community

where we are each held,

strengthened and loved

to be all that we can be.

Then we can prove

the dictum:

‘we are each angels

with one wing

and it is only when

we embrace each other

that we can fly’.

What of the myth?

Do not think it will just disappear.

We each have a responsibility

to denounce it,

to live its converse,

showing the myth to be

the destructive lie

that it is.

As I open the front door

I’m greeted by

A swathe of colour

In the sky.

The morning artisan

At work again.

The further from my home

The more colour I can see.

The contrast in light and colour 

Gives texture to the cloud

As aerial canvas.

But no words nor photos 

Capture how it feels.

I say thanks

And this gift

Opens me to accept the day.

Sun streams

sharing its warmth.

Breeze takes the edge off.

Weeping cherry

is in full bloom

attracting the attention

from lots of bees.

Simple balm for my soul

The idea of being outside:

warm day, blue skies,

seems very attractive.

The reality of being outside

which includes gale-force winds

sucks the fun out of the idea.

It feels like a kind of

metaphor

for ‘where we are’

with the pandemic.

Trying to do the right thing

but there is a big gap

between idea and reality.

Feeling

caught.

But allowing myself

to stay

‘there’

doesn’t help me.

So I look out, up and around –

and that helps.

Privileged,

I visit Maureen in hospital

a shell

of what she was;

thin,

frail.

Yet, who she is:

a gentle, loving person

is still present.

Her husband and children echo,

lovingly keeping watch.

Testimony to love

fostered over decades.

Our conversation

was filled with truth and love,

grace and blessing.

This was no time

for empty or idle chatter.

My tears were shed

at a friend’s imminent passing,

all-too-soon.

Grief does not only come at the end.