Praying is Preparing Have you ever known anyone who just seems to ooze hospitality? This person just happens to have a charger if you need one, or an extra sweatshirt or jacket when you are chilled. Maybe $20 for gas or food gets slipped in your pocket or added to your Venmo. A smile might greet you on an especially [...]
Got Attitude for the Beatitudes? When the children lived at home and we had a house guest, we invited visitors to participate in our family prayer time. As one way to record their visit, we pulled out our gratitude journal, and everyone, including the guest, named events or things for which we were grateful. But when one particular guest stayed [...]
Heart, Soul and Mind The trouble with us humans is we are far too human. By that I mean we fail, we make mistakes, we freely choose to do the wrong thing, we ignore the big picture, we don’t dig deeper, we miss the point — in other words, our very nature is fallen, it’s broken, it’s a mess. But [...]
What is God’s There is a Bible verse on my calendar for the current month that states, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be" (Matthew 6:21). The "treasures" of Earth eventually fade and pass away. In today's Gospel, we encounter the Herodians and Pharisees joining together against Christ. The treasure in this case, a coin, had the [...]
Are You Ready for the Feast? How married are you to the idea that Jesus is your Savior? How open are you to the invitation extended to everyone as Jesus died upon the Cross and then rose again, conquering sin and death? How prepared are you to RSVP and, more importantly, arrive prepared to enjoy the feast? Jesus teaches with [...]
Life Isn't Fair Life isn't fair! How many times have we heard or said this phrase in our lifetime? From a young age we think that the world isn't fair and oftentimes, the authority figures in our lives are quick to remind us of that fact. You would perhaps think that it would be different with God. That once we [...]
Today or Tomorrow? Sometimes when we get home from work we are so tired that we don’t feel like doing anything at all, yet there is so much to do around the house. We might find ourselves uttering the phrase, "I’ll do it tomorrow." And as the days go by, we keep repeating, "Tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow.” Perhaps this [...]
Are You Envious Because I am Generous? As a convert, I was mostly on board with God’s generosity in today’s parable of the laborers. After all, those who labored in the vineyard since early morning made my afternoon conversion possible. Yet, I wondered about the last-minute arrivals, especially those who had been hostile to the laborers. Maybe they should receive [...]
We All Receive More Than We Deserve The parable of the landowner and the laborers hired to work in his vineyard is, on one level, about abundance. The landowner had a large enough vineyard that he needed to hire laborers repeatedly throughout the day to get the work done. As evening approached and the men lined up for their pay, [...]
Forgive From the Heart I’m not sure what I was up to when I was a kid but I recall having frequent cuts and scrapes that required my body to produce scabs. My mom told me not to pick at them to avoid scars but to my childhood mind, scars were irrelevant. More interesting were these scratchy patches on my [...]