The Entrance Hymn from the Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified…

worth reading on politics and liberty from Front Porch Republic.

and the air is cold as it should be in late November. Somewhere out there people are pushing and shoving for whatever is left on the racks. Not me. Today is a rare day when there is nothing official on the docket. I may or may not leave the house and I may or may not get out of my pajamas. Just depends on how the day unfolds.

God was wise to declare a sabbath for humans. Given our natural propensities we would fill every waking moment with something to do and develop the drugs to keep us awake all the time. Come to think of it we have. Once a week we need to have very little to do, preferably nothing, and let these mortal bodies rest and regain something of what has been lost over the prior week.

So I’m going to sit here for a while. It’s the least I can do.

We live in a culture of cultivated ungratitude. To be discontent with our lot is as American as apple pie. It’s the air we breathe, the environment we live in, and from the time we are children we are programmed to seek out whatever is next, whatever we assume is better, and to shed even the useable things we have for the coming big thing.

There’s a good side to this. Innovations brought into being by people unhappy with the status quo have brought great good to our lives. Would anyone really want a Model “A” Ford for thier everyday car again? That millions of us have never even given polio, a scourge in times past, a single thought is a tribute to those who believed we needed to do better.

But there’s a dark side as well. The kind of discontent that drives innovation can also set us on a perpetual journey, a lifetime of never being happy with what we have or where we are and a discarding of important things that have stood the test of time.

After a lifetime of watching commercials we seem to be never be able to rest, never be able to settle down and enjoy. New cars, new jobs, new people, more of this, more of that, last year’s clothes perfectly good but already out of style, and the TV says you got to have more. They want you to feel this way, the people who produce goods and services. Your boss always wants you to be hungry because then they can drive you farther and faster. The government wants you to consume and acquire so they can tax and spend. The idea is to keep the great pyramid of cards together by everyone buying into the idea that more is better, contentment is laziness, and busy people without time to think about what they have make the best worker bees to feed the hive.

No one in their right mind craves hard times but in these days when things are lean there may also be the still small voice of God calling us to something better. Perhaps God is reminding us that this mad chase we’re is just that, a kind of insanity that robs us of our happiness even as our life is sucked away from us for no good reason.

Hard times shatter our illusions, refocus our lives, and call us to see things in a different way. Their poverty forces us off from the buy, buy, sell, sell, work, work, merry-go-round and gives us a chance to catch our breath and regain our perspective. We see, perhaps only in hard times, the illusion of things, the dark side of the American dream, and realize what can transcend them all. We’re like an alcoholic one day into sobriety, we hurt, but we see the world with eyes clear for the first time in years.

No one wants hard times, difficult days, the threat of poverty and the challenge of sustaining life. But they are hear and wise people, discerning people, people who have come to their senses will see in this a precious opportunity, a call from God to have eyes of gratitude, the awareness and cherishing of all that we have, all that matters, and all that lasts.

And with those eyes wide open we can become, perhaps for the first time, free of the illusions, awake from the long dream, loosed from the meaningless chase our culture sets before us as an ideal life, and truly alive. God grant us the eyes, the heart, the soul of gratitude. Make us aware of all that we have been blessed with. Quiet the rumblings in our heart, the unease of a mind focused on that which matters little.Grant us in this day, a sense of all that we have been given and the many ways you have sustained us and in so doing help us to turn our hearts first to You and in that light see the world anew.

Yes, it’s him. No, it’s not a joke or a flashback from some bad 60’s acid.

h/t again to Rod Dreher

heroes today for the little guy by standing up for an audit, finally, of the Federal Reserve. Will it pass through Congress? Who knows? But it’s the first hammer against our own Berlin Wall, the wall that protects elite financial and political institutions that shape our lives in ways we can’t imagine from public scrutiny. Viva democracy!

H/T to Rod Dreher (see link on this page)

about being on Facebook is you really do find out how many people you know and how you’re connected with others. I enjoy the chat feature where I can say a quick hello to folks far away. It doesn’t beat a face to face, of course, but it will do in the short term.

for Resa Ellison now in the hospital in Minneapolis, MN with grave complications from H1N1 and pnuemonia. Yesterday the doctors had run out of treatment options and told her family she may not make it through the day. As of now she is still with us but we need a miracle. Pass this on.

Sunday, November 21, 2009
Homily

These beautiful days in November are a gift to us. In the normal course of things we would expect grey days, cold rain, snow, and ground frozen hard like stone. But such has not been the case for most of this month. The air is cool but the sun is bright and we’ve been given a reprieve from the inevitable if only for a week or two.

We know from years of living in this area that weather can change in a heartbeat and so people are using these days, this break in the normal climate, to get things done, to complete tasks that normally would be impossible now. Leaves are raked, painting is done, roofs are repaired, roads are being cared for, and the harvest is being brought it. The clock is ticking. One day in the near future we’ll look out our windows and see the snow flying and with it the understanding that everything will have to wait until spring.

It’s wise to be prepared, to have good tires on your car, a furnace that works, food tucked away, money in the bank, and everything in good repair. This would seem to be common sense but in our culture where we live from day to day, paycheck to paycheck, and party to party we often forget this only to learn painful lessons when times get lean.

Yet as wise as it is to be prepared for the ups and downs of life, to live frugally and wisely so we are not caught unaware and vulnerable in the ebbs and flows of time, to rake the leaves and make sure everything is ready before the snow flies, there is a greater preparation, greater but often ignored.

How are we preparing our soul?

The Gospel for this day reminds us that the preparation of things and possessions is without value if not accompanied by an equal or greater desire to store up virtue, faith, and all the needs of the soul. The Gospels tell us that we can possess everything and still lose our soul. We can build bigger barns and still leave life empty of that which matters most. We can have false confidence in what we can acquire and in so doing find ourselves spiritually poor even in the presence of worldly abundance.

Imagine what the world would be like if the Christians inhabiting it would place as much of their lives into their faith as they did their 401k’s. How would things be different if we prepared our souls with the same care we use for our house or car? Could we fathom a culture where people dedicated themselves to holiness with the same passion as their career path? What if we loved God as much as we love our television sets?

I stand convicted of being careful about things earthly and careless with things heavenly. I’m guilty of taking so many parts of my life seriously and leaving God the scraps to work with. I often wonder how I would be different if I prepared to stand before Christ with the same effort I’ve used for my retirement. It’s almost certain that I’ve not taken a fraction of the time I use to practice for an audience as a musician to prepare to one day stand before Christ.

Some day everything I’ve done will be meaningless and everything I’ve acquired will be sold or given to someone else. Only a soul carefully tended with prayer and holy things will remain and yet I feel so unready. In truth many of us are as well.

Yet the mercy of God is beyond our comprehension. One flickering candle of piety in our hearts is met with pure and holy light, one act of virtue with a flood of grace, one moment of repentance with an eternal mercy.

We, you and I, can recall what matters most in the end and change our path, redirect our existence towards that which truly matters, and find the peace we desire here and the salvation we crave for eternity. Seize this day with a holy urgency and be saved.