Evangelize Me!

Dear Eugene,

How we need kerygma, Good News proclamation, to be evangelized to again and again!

I know I need it.  Daily.  Badly.

Last few days I've been acting like Grumpy Cat.  I don't know if people can tell when I was leading Bible Study group last night.

You can't fake joy.  You can only go so far to pretend there's hope in you.  Love never dies but you can try killing it a million different ways.

Evangelized me!  I cried.

This morning God spoke a fresh word of the Good News to me, again through the mouth and life of his faithful servant.  I needed a strong kick in the rear, and God sent Rowan Williams.

"(...) And then, supposing we have cleared away the fears that arise from the way religious people have failed to witness fully to their God – then the deeper fears can and do come to the surface, the fears of what faith may demand of a person. Nothing will take away the challenge here; we can only hope that there are enough lives showing joy and humanity to make the challenge worthwhile – lives in which the eternal Word will speak. Such lives will have about them the great mark of God's action in Jesus which is that he doesn't invade, doesn't push us out of the way, doesn't reduce or demean us; he invites, he opens up to us his own infinite hospitality, drawing us into his world, his life. He makes us more than we are, not less. And that is what the true person of faith will show in their life. When the life of faith is visible in the public world, it is not something threatening the integrity of the supposedly neutral and obvious moral principles of the secular state; it is a glimpse into the depths of all morality, all principle and commitment, into the depths where the holiness and faithfulness and love of God secretly nourish the essence of human life, that life which is made for the destiny of becoming children of God. It is a glimpse into a richness surrounding all that we are, without which all our vaunted values and principles would soon corrupt and die."

His kick about killed me.  I need to die to live again.

"Fear not," says the angel to Joseph, to Mary, to the shepherds.

Says to me.


I took these pictures two weeks ago during a church retreat, men only.  We ate and played like little kids. (Click on picture to enlarge.)


I think you can see the motif here.  Little man, vessel of men, against a big canvas.


A canvas of what?


Something that induces both wonder and fear.  Joy and sorrow.  Hope and dread.


A sea that cradles; a sea that swallows.  A rock that provides; a rock that confounds.


"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."


Amen, Alex

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