Thoughts and Beats

The mind makes thoughts. The heart, the seat of feeling, produces beats. Before what I hope is a restful night, a few final thoughts and beats for the day:

Funny how we are so impatient for God to arrive when it is we who are running late. Funny how we mourn and rage when God hides or seemingly refuses to appear when it is we who deny our presence and refuse to show ourselves. Whose real presence is at issue, anyway?

Who is going to make peace for us? Who is going to apologize? Who is going to make a holy renunciation? Who is going to sacrifice? Blessed are they who answer the question; more blessed are they who are their answer.

Most Capuchin Franciscans are seriously joyful; it is the first impression you get from them, and it is quite often an accurate impression. Fewer in number among them are those who are joyfully serious. They are a mystery. These brothers interest me, and I would like to get to know them better.

How near, every day, God draws to us. How near, but how quickly we draw back from the edge to mere reality. If only we would slow down, we would catch on to what the Creator is about in this moment.

Did we stop? Did we savor? Did we not only rise to the occasion, but did we also rise with the occasion?

If you remembered someone today -- if you noticed someone -- genuinely, compassionately, then maybe it was not only your own doing. Maybe you were an answered prayer. If you neglected someone today -- if you ignored someone -- deliberately or mindlessly, then you forgot to pray. And God heard what you forgot to pray, and responded anyway. For God always responds.

Be here. Not there. You will never get over there unless you begin fully here. Do not wonder how to get there. Do not wonder where at all. You will only wander. Trust first that you are going, and believe that here begins the way to there.

Do not worry what is there, but trust there is someone who waits there, and someone trusts you to make the way from here to there. Who is there makes what is there real and trustworthy. Where we are going is there, and where we are going is how we get there because of one who has come from there over here and back again.

But we come from here, and we have to go. We cannot wait to be brought over. We can be led, and we can even be lifted, but we cannot expect to be carried. We must choose to go in order to be guided and sped along.

Observe, reflect, act. To do these is to be holy, right, and just. Be seen, be judged, and let it be done to you. To consent to these is to made holy, right, and just.