Wake from your slumber
God’s gossip this week:
We have another blockbuster. We put the characters on stage. A sick man, a dying man, a dead man. The relatives. Will someone do something? We have Jesus. Taking his time. We have the accusation: ‘really if you cared, you would have come earlier.’ The neighbours and the disciples are the bystanders.
Billy Shakespeare said: “All the world’s a stage. All the men and women merely players. They have their entrances and their exits.” We can find our place on the stage of this play. Sickness. Tests. Hospitals. Death. Bereavement. Hopelessness. Many die before their death. Many are dead in their supposed living. Some are without hope. The story may better be told as saying: no-one is hopeless.
How does God give us life? How do we give life to each other? Our ‘lost ones’ may not quite smell but some lose the will to live. The easy character is the drug or alcohol addict. Stuck in drugs. Going nowhere. Doing nothing. But it isn’t just the addict. The lost ones. The idle ones. The bored ones.
How many need to hear the song: ‘Wake from your slumber.’ Even our political leaders. They are stuck so often in squabbling like children. They blether. They finger point. They shout for a tribunal or some inquiry. They will emote and shout at each other. Brexit is the uncoupling of the UK from Europe and for what reason? The North’s politicians can’t just grow up and take responsibility for their little country. Clinton was right. ‘Get on with it.’ Trump talks utter nonsense and yet got elected. This is lifelessness and people being entombed in narrow chatter and unable to move forward.
Some reject Church which is fine because too often Church people were lost in the narrows of the past and didn’t face true living. But many reject God –not because of anything poor God didn’t do for them or did to them. But because they don’t get around to even thinking of God and the bigger questions. So rattle our bones. Wake up. Taste the beauty of life. Notice the wonder and mystery. See God dancing in people, moments and nature. Come out of the tomb. Be bold. Exercise tough love with the sleeping unbeautiful.
Think it’s high time for reflection still? I’m covered in snow here in our spring and I’m praying that this one fragile snowflake I have in my hand can roll into a snowball, gaining strength and picking up mass and surface area as it continues through northern communities.
Well it’s either this fragile idea or waiting for the Galactic Child Welfare Department to make a casual stop for inspection. Patience is a virtue even when the kids are running out of time. Who is managing this planet anyway? Is this the work of 1.2bn Catholics enacting scripture? No. This is a handful of goons trying to create their own legacy. I’m looking for 100,000 to add to their story.
It seems someone gave them the keys to the bus and they are driving school children off a cliff. Never, ever question your worth. This is all unfolding real-time around us. The story is being written as we speak. It is quite an amazing thing when you think about it – it is the tale of 100,000 people, not one.