Gospel, Homily and Coffee

I will be closing down this blog today. Future posts can be found here:  https://ols-reno.blogspot.com/2023/12/3rd-advent-rejoice-god-is-with-us.html  

Joy, the reality of God is Joy. Joy, that gift of a moment, of an experience, in which we sense hope, trust; a moment in which the eternal is touched. Joy, that gift of God that renews us and calls us to live life differently. We cannot make Joy happen by our own efforts per se. This is why trying to buy joy through objects and things does not work. Joy runs deeper, it is that recognition of hope and love for the future, within people; affirmation of hard work with others. Joy again, is pure Gift. We can’t make it happen, we can only prepare ourselves for it. Joy, it is that moment in which we witness a couple formally adopt their child and a family grows.  Joy is that moment when a couple say I do to each other while looking into each other’s eyes, and we know that they truly mean it. Joy is that moment when a parent sees real maturity in their child who has begun to make good decisions for themselves. Joy is the moment when we children thriving, laughing and simply enjoying life. Joy

Many years ago a friend living in Texas came up to visit me in Fernley. This friend had been born and raised in the city. Anyway, I had asked him what he would like to do and he wanted to go geocaching. Okay, I thought it is March in Northern Nevada, fun! But we went, found a cache located near Lahontan Reservoir, and so we drove out there. I parked the car near the cache and the gps device told us the cache was about 500 feet away. I looked around and had a sense of where it would be, on this hillside. My friend became worried: worried that we would get lost. I said not a problem. What if we lose sight of the car? I looked around, it was Nevada sage, no tree for miles; and again we were only going 500 feet up a hill. I said we will be fine, we will never lose sight of the car and we won’t get lost. We didn’t. I have been lost in the wilderness once. It was scary. I was in Northern New Mexico, in a thick forest and it was an overcast day. I was by myself, and nobody knew where I was, a

Going to museums can be amazing. Art can affect and have an effect upon us. It can cause us to react, to think, to transcend, to appreciate beauty! If we notice it. I have been in the New York Met, in front of a Rothko and started to cry. I have stood before a Caravaggio and been drawn into the story being told. Recently I was in a museum and was struck by a particular statue of Hercules. It was tall, 20 feet, dynamic, with amazing detail. I was admiring it, and this woman came up, took a quick glance, pulled out her phone, took a photo and moved on. We do this and can witness this taking place a lot. Amazing things in front of us, art work, vista scenes, weddings, baptisms, flowers…and we spend more time getting a photo than we will taking in the view. We may capture the object, but we fail to capture the moment. We do not truly see what is going on. Life is meant to be lived with fullness, with intensity; that means to experience it as it is, not how we want it to be.  Living life et