For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value.   (1Corinthians 3:11-13 NLT)

“I’ve finally accepted grace at this stage of my life”. An old friend was on the phone after a few years of no contact. I joked that he was probably wanting to confess his sins but suggested I didn’t have enough time to hear them all. Amid our laughter, we both agreed that we were counting on the mercy of God in our lives.

My own respective failures to live up to even my own hopes to be a loving and forgiving person sometime make that hard to believe about God.

“How was your week?”, is a common conversation starter. It is a good question to ask ourselves occasionally to keep in touch with the emotional and spiritual currents that shape the day we are facing now.

Last week was a little different for me. Along with the normal friends and family conversations there was a current of sorrow. A group of us processed the sudden loss of a good friend. There was a funeral for another person of my vintage.

There has always been a false dichotomy between Mary and Martha – one a busy activist and the other an admirable contemplative. The more I’ve watched them in action in the Gospels I find them both attractive figures, complex and full of surprises. But they don’t fit the stereotype.

Happiness & Joy

 “I’m shallow enough, that shot makes me happy”, I joked after a much better than usual golf shot.  My mood on the golf course can be shaped by success, failure, the people I am with, the beauty of creation, the cold and rain….   happiness is an emotion that’s a result of circumstances. Joy, though, is a spiritual engagement with the world based on gratitude. (Richard Wagamese, Embers, One Ojibway’s meditations, p 140). I read that the other morning and it got me thinking.