Like a child...

"For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you."
Luke 17:21

"Did your hair used to be all black and now it's turning white?" We have a new kid in second grade and he needed to clear up the question of my hair color before we could get to the spelling words.  There are so many times I feel like I'm on a TV sit com and cannot possibly say, out loud, the funny things the writers are giving me to say. But the whole experience of this job is showing me the Kingdom of God, right here, right now. It's not always hilariously funny. Some of the kids' comments are maddening. Like the kid who was angry with me and looked down at my Mary Jane shoes and said scathingly, "You don't even know how to tie your shoes." (At the time that was maddening, but now it's funny. Sort of.) I think we tend to romanticize the Kingdom of God, but in reality, Jesus is telling us the Kingdom of God may be challenging. The Kingdom of God may test our mettle. If the Kingdom is among us now it is difficult, filled with life and death, rejoicing and suffering, mourning and dancing. What makes it the Kingdom of God is the presence of God among us and I think that is what Jesus is giving us with this passage. The Kingdom of God is among us because God is among us...right in the middle of the mess. God is surrounding us with revealing situations and people who show us, sometimes more clearly than others, God's presence in the midst of this life.  It's may be easier to see the presence of God in second graders, that is why Jesus set a child in the middle of the disciples and told them to be more like children. Let's look closely at our lives today and see the Kingdom of God right here right now, no matter who it is revealing God to us. Love, heidi

Seeking God's will...

"My chief care should not be to find pleasure or success, health or life or money or rest or even things like virtue and wisdom...But in all that happens, my one desire and my one joy should be to know: 'Here is the thing that God willed for me. In this God's love is found, and in accepting this I can give back God's love to God...'"
Thomas Merton, "New Seeds of Contemplation"

Whoa...does this sound like a gamer-changer to anyone? All this time we thought we were striving for success, even success in holiness. And all along if we just seek to find God's will for us, God will meet us right there! If you have been reading some of the same spiritual sources I have these last several years, we've learned that God's will for us can be found by searching our own deep desires. Wow. Fabulous, isn't it? We can find God's grace and presence all over our lives as we seek our deepest desires. God will be there, bolster us up, cheer us on, send others to help us. Days that we struggle to get a head of steam for what we are to accomplish just need to be lifted up. We will be helped from the inside, but also those around us can be shining lights for us, too. As we are going about our daily doings, we are loving God with God's own gift of Love to us. Brilliant, really. Let's spend some time with this in prayer and see where it takes us! Love, heidi