Pickle Ball Come For All of Us!
"Pickle Ball Comes For Us
"Trusting the Wisdom of God!"
(The Cross of Pope Francis!)
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??? Because of new federal regulations for seniors? 75 plus have to play pickle ball. no longer tennis. Personally I avoid the game, for I have seen people in their forties break a leg, and I am not retired. But watching senior citizens in our society we would? think they will live forever. One eighty year old friend reminds me "eighty is the new sixty."
??? If we are to trust the wisdom of God, especially as found in our lectionary daily readings from the Apocrypha this week, it might be good to ponder a question that has haunted humanity for ages. How can the existence of a loving God who is all powerful and all wise be reconciled with the existence of evil and suffering in the world?
??? That question lies at the heart of much of the Bible's Wisdom literature. In the book of Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth is painfully aware that he lives in an absurd world where despite people's best, nothing really changes? or is accomplished. Life is simply a "vanity of vanities," (1.1) and a "chase after the wind" (1.14). All we can do is "Fear God and keep his commandments (12:13) while enjoying the good that comes our way and enduring the bad.
??? Throughout my own life I have experienced much suffering, and in the last thirty years have seen young men and women suffer each day from poverty, drug abuse, parental abuse, illness, and have been with them when they died. Life seems futile. I know many people who take drugs, to give themselves solace in a life without meaning.
??? For Christians the wisdom of God is revealed in a crucified Christ who is "a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (I Corinthians 1:23). God shows foolish wisdom when he takes on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth and dwells? in a world with freedom at its core--freedom being a requirement of love is to flourish. However as we know too well the misuse of freedom can cause deep suffering.
??? Jesus, the incarnate Son God, reveals the foolish wisdom of God by his willingness to submit to the suffering caused by the misuse of freedom as well as the unpredictable collisions that inevitably occur in a world where everyone and everything is endowed with freedom. The risen Christ, who promises to be with us "until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20), offers comfort to those who are suffering, and calls his followers to do the same.
??? Our faith in Christ, the Compassionate One (suffers with us), enables us to to trust in the wisdom of God and to go and walk with our brothers and sisters who suffer as much if not more than we do.
??? Thomas Merton once wrote watching a crowd of people:
"I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization
that I loved all those people, that they were mine,
and I theirs , that we could not be alien to one anther even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness."
How would our day be different if we could see every person as God's beloved child?
Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Temenos Catholic Worker
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
Dr. River Damien Carlos Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.
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“People ask me why do you write about food,
and eating and drinking. Why don’t you write
about the struggle for power and security and
about love, the way others do? The easiest answer
is to say that, like most other humans I am hungry (M.F. Fisher!”
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(Temenos and Dr. River seek to remain accessible to everyone. We do not endorse particular causes, political parties, or candidates, or take part in public controversies, whether religious, political, or social--Our pastoral ministry is to everyone!
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