Where did Jesus go?

It's been awhile since Jesus walked as a man among us. Given the chance, many would gladly invite him in and maybe serve him a meal or wash his feet like that woman did at the Pharisee's house.

If he was here today, where would we find him?

Then there's the sheep and goat thing. At the end of a string of parables, Jesus talks about those who cared and helped; feeding the hungry, making a place for the homeless ... and he told them they'd done it to him. Stunned, they actually protested his recognition of their good hearted lives; they hadn't known it was him they were caring for, hidden in with the poor and needy of their world.

Too, we could perhaps remember that when he came to live with us, it wasn't as a rich guy.

Note to self -

Of the two, one has a good end ...

... the other passes the time avoiding difficult questions while keeping to the preapproved path.

A classic dilemma.  

One advantage of the passing years; you care less about the expectations of others and more about what good you might do.

Happiness is for pigs.

At least, that was my father's observation.  He was raised on a farm and perhaps his pig encounters lacked the nobility he hoped to find in life.

Joy, he observed, was a grand ballroom, filled with music and meaning.  It came not from getting but from giving.  Not from talking about things but from doing well those things which made the world a perhaps more beautiful place.

As a musician, he had an uncommon bent among the classicists of his generation.  He reached not for perfection but for the magic that music could work in the souls of the performers and the hearers.  With choirs and orchestra, he would paint a musical masterpiece that would persist in your memory for years, change your worldview, your theology, and your life's goals.

From 1960 with one of his college

choirs.  A capella, if I recall this one.

Now decades after his passing, I still remember.  It still brings tears to my eyes as the extraordinary beauty of it and the nobility of it rises up yet again in me.

I'm forever blessed and encouraged by it all.  So are the many who walked that path with him and with mom in those years.  More than fifty years have passed, and folks from those days still call from time to time, students most of them, and they still shine with the glow of what touched them then, and that's joy.

Response to Syria

16 hours ago ...

Should the civilized world respond to the slaughter in Syria? (NC-17)

 

Of course we should.  

More than a hundred-thousand have died. We must intervene and bring the violence to an end.

Innocents have been driven from their homes, their towns leveled and burned; more than a million are in refugee camps.  They've lost everything.

12 hours ago ...

Now in addition to bullets and bombs, there are chemical weapons being used, and the associated extraordinary suffering is upon us.

Should the world step in?  Yes!  Absolutely. 

Is a military strike by the US likely to be helpful?  That's the question in the news.  But what is the likelihood that limited strikes will accomplish what's needed...  an end to the violence...

We need a solution not unlike an elementary school's handling of bullies.  The offending children need to be dragged off the playground, weapons confiscated, and taken to the principles office.  Shooting up the playground isn't likely to help much. 

The question of whether or not to execute a limited military strike doesn't begin to address the circumstance.  While the last two years in Syria appear to be of a military nature, the truth perhaps is that the individual events are murder and the perpetrators are criminals.

The pope has called us to prayer for peace in the nation.  An end to the violence is his concern.  I don't think he's looking for a surgical slap on the hand for using bad weapons.  The list of crimes begins with a hundred thousand people having been killed, and a million have been driven from their homes to suffer for years, having lost everything.  Inexcusable.  Yes, the chemical weapons were also an inexcusable escalation of the inexcusable violence.  Should the world step in? Yes!  Absolutely.