Random Thoughts # 8

Wednesday, November 02, 2016

Wednesdays are “random thoughts days,” since I have to leave early in the morning to go out of town. Here are today’s selections.

Foot washing

Jesus Christ kneeling before you like a slave, doing something personal and intimate to save your soul and your life. 

It's hard to wash your own feet.  If you're built like me, sometimes it's hard even to see your own feet.  So people washed each other's feet.  It's also hard to wash your own soul.  In fact, impossible.  When it comes to souls, we're all like people in the hospital, paralyzed, or perhaps unconscious, too helpless to take care of ourselves.  We need the nurses to do the washing, or someone else.  And so, when it comes to souls, we need to get washed by others.  That's why we need a community.  That's why Jesus gave us one.

And then He told us to do the same. To journey from the heights of our pride to the depths of humble, loving service. Oh, our journey is such a tiny step compared to the journey He made for us. And yet we so often travel our own little inch resisting, resentful, rebellious, whining and moaning all of the way. What a stupid illusion it is, this sense of "dignity" or "pride" or "honor" that makes it so difficult for us to just let go, to lay aside our garments, and to find our identity in the act of serving others, quietly and humbly.    

Forgiveness

When we do not forgive, we can do no good. We can bring no peace. We can share no joy. We are so far from love.

                Instead, we are cast into the prison of our bitterness, where we are tortured by hateful feelings, until the last drop of life has been wrenched from our souls. And the saddest thing about it is this: in the long run, we suffer far more than those we have refused to forgive. They may lose a friend. We lose heaven itself.  

Our refusal to forgive does not punish those who have hurt us as much as it punishes us ourselves, for it shuts us up in a prison of our own making. 

Forgive AS THE LORD HAS FORGIVEN YOU.  (Col 3:14)  It goes right back to God, and to God's love for you personally. Again, I would suggest that none of us has this power of forgiveness naturally within us. It has got to be fueled by the forgiveness that we experience from God himself in our own lives, for our own peccadilloes, weaknesses, failures, sins, crimes and hidden secret shames. 

the power of those words, Your sins are forgiven you, was won at a very great price, let us not forget: at the price of more pain and agony and mental torture and inner turmoil than any of us ever will have to face ever: unless we fail to hear His voice and choose Hell for ourselves by choosing NOT to listen. 

Freedom of Choice

We can make choices about how to deal with a particular incident not based on patterns of the past, but rather, based on possibilities of the present.

God bless you!

Special note: ON Tuesday, I accidentally deleted my entire “reflections” mailing list. If you know of anyone who was receiving these reflections, please send me that person’s email address.

bcamera@anselm.edu