Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Isaiah 49: 8-15, Psalm 145, John 5: 17-30

Should we count on God? Should God count on us?

Sometimes we try too hard, thinking that we create our own destinies. We plan our careers, build our homes, raise our children, tend to daily wants and needs. We labor to sustain our lives, work to enrich our days, invest our time and money to help us sleep better at night, and carefully construct life-stories that we hope might be remembered.

But in each act, all that we do is simply part of a web of other lives. Mentors and protégés shape our careers. Architects, carpenters, bankers, plumbers, and inspectors build our homes… not to mention those who pay us so we can pay our bills. Teachers, friends, and family raise our children – and our children raise themselves, and even teach us a thing or two while they’re at it.

Always our needs are greater than nourishment or a place to sleep. Our greatest need is to nurture the web of life that sustains us. Sometimes we are faced with doing that in a desert of human kindness, on a mountain of travails, in a sea of hostility. Then we find that crossing the deserts, mountains and seas depends on family, friends, and communities that we have sustained, and who in turn sustain us. That web of life – God’s kingdom – finds us and keeps us.

Bill Antholis

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