Shapes in the Clouds

Have you ever looked up in the sky, watched the clouds floating by, and discovered a whole world of creatures and activities within them? 

Have you ever looked up in the sky, at the stars that dot the night, and discovered a whole world of heroes and epic quests? 

Have you ever looked at the bark of a tree and seen faces looking back at you? 

The world is full of shapes and patterns and designs, and we could easily look at them as nothing more than shapes and patterns and designs, but humanity doesn't like to do that. We like to find deeper meaning and symbolism. Clouds aren't just clouds. They're ever changing animals parading through the blue expanse. Stars aren't just stars. They're dragons and hunters and bears. Cracks in bark and craters on the moon are faces of souls that are trapped within.

Mourning

Today we are looking at the second Beatitude, or Blessing, in The Sermon on the Mount. This week was also Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, and, while I didn’t intentionally plan this, these things actually go together quite well. 

Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, is a day of decadence and debauchery. It is the day before the start of the Lent Season, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter, and it is meant to be a time of fasting and righteousness. It is a time when you intentionally remove something from your life and replace it with time spent with God. You are supposed to identify and remove something from your life that is or could be a distraction, or something that occupies a good deal of your time/attention. It is meant to be a sacrifice. Mardi Gras, being the last day before Lent, is a celebration of gorging yourself on everything that you will be removing from your life. It is an overindulgence of that which you have deemed needs to be removed. It is said, by some, to be a celebration of life, but it is a distorted celebration of life as true life comes from Christ “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” not from the perverted sweets of the world. 

This is where the next Beatitude comes in.

Poor in Spirit

This week we are getting into the first of Jesus’ teachings during The Sermon on the Mount.

We often have a skewed view of spiritual justice and morality. It is very common to think of your life in terms of a scale; as long as the good things in your life outweigh the bad things then you're going to be ok. However, this isn't at all what we see Jesus teach, and there are actually a lot of problems with this idea. To start with, who defines good and bad? Does each person get to choose for themselves what is good vs. what is bad? What if something I think is good, you think is bad? Does that thing count as whatever we think it is or does it have a universal designation? Even if salvation and spiritual justice worked on a sliding scale of good vs. bad, we would need some definitive measure and designation that is set in place by someone outside of the system. 

Listening to God

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ famous sermon, from which we get many of the principles, guidelines and examples of what it means to live a Christian life. This is where the Beatitudes come from as well as The Lord’s Prayer. It is an extremely important section of scripture, and we are going to take the next few months to go over it and see how we can apply it to our lives today. 

So, before we jump in, let’s set the stage. Jesus had just begun His public ministry. He was traveling all around the area, teaching, healing, performing miracles and displaying wisdom. He had just called His apostles, those twelve who were closest to Him, who traveled with Him and ministered with Him and learned from Him. He was gaining notoriety and fame, and as such, a huge crowd of people were beginning to follow Him, to see what He was going to do and hear what He was going to say. They didn’t have Instagram or TikTok during that time, but if they did, Jesus’ follower count would have been skyrocketing, and every one of His videos would be going viral. 

A Library in a War Zone

I recently had the privilege of going to the "International District" Library to get a copy of Alice in Wonderland for my daughter to read for school. (I had placed a hold on it to pick up at another library, but didn't think it would be ready for at least a week or more. It was ready the day after I went to the library. Oh well.)

This library was really really nice. It was clean, well lit, organized, and the grounds were well maintained and landscaped. The parking lot was nice. Even the Recycle and Trash bins outside were nice. It had a cool Little Free Library outside. It was a really neat library. 

However...