this past week i have been in boston at a church meeting, but spent most of the time sick, in and out of hospital. i am reminded of my own mortality and find myself wondering what this life is all about and if what i am doing will have any meaning beyond the present. my only consolation is that i am in the great line of people like dorothy day who passed on this tradition to me, and now i am passing it on, and so in the scheme of things, we are simply moving in the stream of God and God's saints.
today the reading is lk. 9:7-9 where herod thinks john the baptist, whom he killed, is coming back in jesus. a good illustration of how our past can follow us. i have seen my past bite me in the ass over and over and only indealing with that guilt can one come out and be a new person. i see it in the guys i work with. over and over there is young herod, who is 20, who is over come with guilt, over things in the past, from robbing to assualting people, and his continued cycle of abuse and self-abuse. he seeks to escape by his drugs, and as we talked about the grace of God and letting go of the past, and moving on by seeking to make amends where one can, and then seeking to live one;'s actions in a new way, he still cannot let go, he wants an instant wand to take the past away, and ultimately all we can do is depend on the grace of God and return to that grace or like herod of old we are haunted by our sins, our abuses and self abuse ands seek to allevate that pain through sex, drugs, and other means of escape.
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