Gospel, Homily and Coffee

Recently a friend has begun fly fishing. He got hooked, figuratively, and then got all the gear. Putting in the energy and time, and enthusiasm.  It has been quite fun to watch. I showed my nephew in laws a couple of years ago how to fly fish, and they all had new poles and gear by the following Christmas. Anyone have similar experiences? Been drawn into something, some activity and went full bore. Got all the equipment and read up on it. Think too of tv shows How many got into Tiger King? Game of Thrones? Sports fans go crazy for the Giants, the Sox, Red, not white; Yankees. The live it, breathe it. Passion is great! That drive, that energy, that excitement...for a time. Parables bring us to wisdom in a roundabout way. We are taught sideways.  Jesus is a genius with these. He tries to break open our minds and our hearts to understand the Kingdom so as to experience the Kingdom. He wants us to get hooked, to find the passion for the kingdom. I would be willing to bet that

Time is relative, as Einstein theorizes and as scientists have discovered. Time is not an absolute but changes according to different contexts in the Universe.   We all know this in a very local and personal way. Kids experience time much different than adults. It takes forEVER for Christmas to get here. Adults, OMG, is it that time again! Kids, it will be forEVER until I am 10. Parents--there is no way my child can be 10 years old. Kids--summer break goes by tooooooo fast. Parents---will it never end! Time, pun intended, for another Greek Lesson: Chronos and Kairos. These wonderful words describe different aspects of Time. Chronos can be best described as the time as measured on our chronographs, aka, our clocks. Objective and seemingly unchanged (except Einstein says not).  Kairos, this is the fun one. Kairos we can say is God’s time. Kairos happens in God’s way. Kairos is the mystery; time on a different and uncontrollable scale. Here is the hard part. We live in both

Ever watch cat videos? And if they get surprised, they initially jump! It's kind of fun to watch. This is an example of the fight or flight part of the brain. They fly!  All animals have this, including us humans.  It is that basic part of us that reacts to threats; to keep us safe. It gets triggered all the time, in big ways and small ways. It is that fun in the haunted houses in the fall. It is that reaction we have when a car pulls out in front of us, and we slam on the brakes, and then get really angry and slam on the horn. It is also that part of us, if not monitored, keeps us too animalistic, and does not allow us to evolve into the people we are meant to be. Spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, is that capacity to discern our experiences, and know how to act, and not merely react. Sometimes new ideas, new experiences, new ways of seeing reality come into our awareness. They can seem strange. They can scare us; they can threaten the way we see the world and oursel

“Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout with Joy to the rock who saves us…”  This is the starting line of Ps 95, a prayer of joy and a prayer of humility. Those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours will be familiar with it, as it is the first prayer of the day.  A great friend of mine does not enjoy science fiction. Any movie or tv show that even has a hint of it, she will not go see nor watch. Yet, many of the best shows and movies contain a theme that she actually enjoys: what does it mean to be human and alive? For us Sci-Fi geeks, Spock, Data, 7 of 9 were all trying to figure out what it means to be human.  The brilliant movie “Arrival” explores humanity and the meaning of love. To be honest, almost all good literature, art, cinema explores the meaning of humanity; even country music. Jesus Christ, truly human, fully human and, as we also believe as Christians, fully divine. The fullness of both, within one person.  Jesus Christ reveals all that God is.  And, all that humanity i