The Bread of Life!
I am the Bread of Life!
(Sloughing Towards Galilee!)\
?I learned the hard lesson of Jesus "Trust no man!"?
John 6:35-40 NRSVEU text Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.
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"But Jesus on his part would not trust himself to no man nor woman! John 6:23.
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I am presently eating green beans, cooked for hours with vegan oil, an old southern recipe; I had throughout the summer when green beans were fresh growing up. Most of my cooking is southern. Several years ago in a service, I was having an old hymn, and a minister colleague joked with me about being old-fashioned, and I smiled, for in them? I find memories of a time of being loved by my parents, being called to ministry, and yet the church where I heard them would later kick me out as a result of being "intrinsically evil," queer, but in those words, Jesus leads me to see only Him. For Jesus is the "Bread of Life."
Through all of this, and my journey on the streets, what shines for me is "The Bread of Life," Jesus never walked away from me. Like "The Hound of Heaven," he chases and still continues to chase me.
Through the saints of Dorothy Day, Damien of Molokai, Francis Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, and Carlos Acutis, I am never alone, God works through them, and the Great Cloud of Witnesses, I am never alone. Through their presence, I returned to the streets today after an injury last week.
As I walked down the sidewalk today I encountered two guys, two high on fentanyl and one running from Walgreens after stealing some food; There were three in doorways wrapped in coats, cold, and hungry. I know all,? I care about them, and I find myself haunted, by streets filled with so many others in the same situation.
Their desperation haunts me, their constant struggle. I am haunted by people walking by and not seeing them. The hopelessness of their situation haunts me.
I often think of how we are so like third-world countries, with so many homeless, and mentally ill people on the streets, and their beautiful housing above them. They are kicked around our neighborhoods, as if they are nothing, looked upon as criminals, people to be feared, when in reality they are simply individuals, each who bears the broken face of Christ.
This hauntedness is with me all the time and all I know is simply to continue to love, for "love is our true destiny, for we can not find true fulfillment without it."
And so for me, all I know to do is embrace the wisdom I am ever learning:
in the new light
of each day's questions
I am never prepared.
Today, again, I have nothing
to offer but a handful
of old prayers, worn down
by the relentless abrasion
领英推荐
of doubt, and a fragment
of dream that plays on in my head
only half-remembered. Still,
the doves coo and circle
through the pines
as they do when I pass
each morning. Their sorrow
is so nearly human, it rings
sweet with regret. By dusk,
the trees will bow down, and I, too, will
make my appeal, will find'
again your mercy,
your solace.
(Elizabeth Drescher) Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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