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Reforming our vision to see Christ in others--written of in the previous blogpost--is for most of us a practice that takes a great deal of intention. With faithfulness, the practice becomes more natural, instinctual.  Take one of my favorite preacher/writers, Frederick Buechner. Listen to how he 'sees into' his congregation and finds there the divine spark in the form of hope. Good inspiration for any of you who face a classroom of kids or adults, pews filled with the faithful, a home with kids.

What do we see when we look colleague, loved one, stranger in the eye?

Christians stand on the belief that the "other" reveals Christ. If you're reading this blog, likely you know this belief well. But for most of us, how intentional our vision must be to truly see Christ in others! God knows that for most of us this vision doesn't come easily.

And yet.

Today, just a quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He nails it here.

"I'm still discovering, right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God."

Throw yourselves into the arms of God! How? Simply by living fully the life for which you get out of bed each day. Awake. Arise!

"Grace is a mighty flood within the reign of God" we sang this past Sunday at the beginning of Mass. It is rare for me to 'hang out'  within the body of the congregation, and I revelled in it Sunday. Surrounded by full-throated voices, I felt as if I was in the middle of that "mighty flood" of grace, swept into a joyful mystery by the embodied faith all about me. Fr.

The other day, on a slow walk to my favorite little coffeeshop I passed by a (not-so-young) dad lobbing a baseball to his young boy. Dad appeared patient as the kid caught, missed--and with one throw I noticed, just wasn't paying attention.

Taking a break from the computer, I sat outside to rest with mercifully cool sunshine and mild breeze. In front of me--flourishing stubbornly from a long crack in the concrete--were a line weeds. The sight of them drew me to prayer. Now, I would not naturally be drawn to pray at the sight of weeds growing from concrete, in fact my natural response would be something like "Where's the weed killer?!" But I am familiar with a simple poem by Mary Oliver in which she describes being inspired to pray at the same sight.

I can't get some voices from last Sunday's Gospel (21st Sunday in Ordinary Time) out of my craw. "Lord, open the door for us...We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets." Jesus' reply? "I do not know where you are from."

Entitlement. That's the word that comes to me when hearing these voices. Open the door for us! We've earned your company because we attend your Eucharist, we've heard your Word proclaimed. We deserve redemption!

DAF is my acronym for:

Desire. Attention. Fidelity. Three ingredients necessary to find and live God in all things. But outside it's use as an acronym, 'DAF' is very near to the terms "daft" and "daffy", which call up "foolish, crazy".  As in "Are you daff?!"