Luke chapter 5, verse 8

"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord."
~ St. Peter
As I was reading through the Gospel according to St Luke, a verse caught my eye that I had never noticed before. But this time, for some reason, this odd verse caused my cursory eye to halt and examine more carefully what I had read. Did I just read that St. Peter wanted the Lord to depart from him? Peter just wasted a whole day of fishing because he caught nothing, then a man shows up, tells him to put his net back in the water and keep fishing, and then Peter is blessed with an over abundance of fish. And as a word of gratitude he tells the Lord to get away? No, I must not have read that. Who would want the Lord to depart from them, particularly after a blessing such as that?

Usually, when one recognizes one's sinfulness (for example the sin of unfaithfulness) their first reaction is to fall to their knees and say "forgive me Lord, after thy great goodness." Not "Stay away from me!" That is what the lepers said. They shouted out "Unclean! Unclean" so that no one would catch their disease. But even then, they did not run away from Jesus when they saw him coming. They ran to him. They knew they were unclean and that they were supposed to stay far away from those who were pure. But they also knew that Jesus could heal them from their disease. Was there ever a case where the leper said to Jesus, "depart from me, for I am a leprous man, O Lord. I'm a hopeless case, let me rot."?

We are the lepers. And if we are faithful to Christ and his church we do cry out "forgive me Lord, after thy great goodness." But when do we ever tell him to leave us? In our age of hopeless negativism, it seems like something that would be shouted from the rooftops all the time. But we do not say things like this. We do not believe that we are such a hopeless case and that God should just leave us to rot. We have hope that Christ will forgive us. After all he forgave that one woman who did all those terrible things. He said "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven." (That was also in Luke).

Our country has had such an easy life that we take for granted that our sins are forgiven and that when we confess it is for the sake of reminding ourselves that our sins have been forgiven, not for the sake of saying that we are sinners and that God is the once, present and future King of the universe. (Reminding us that we are breaking his laws when we sin and we face the ultimate pit of despair when we fail to renew ourselves with him). However, St. peter seems to have quite a different view of things. "Depart from me, O Lord" is his reaction. Why? Why should Christ depart? Because Peter is a sinful man. I know that is a weak answer, but could it be that he knew it was wrong to enter into the presence of the Lord without a sacrifice, without the shedding of blood, without the cleansing of the spirit? In Peter's time if the priest entered approached the alter without making the proper sacrifices he deserved damnation. So how much more terrible would it be if you entered into the physical presence of the Lord with dirty hands?

If then, we recognize that we could fall so quickly into damnation if we are not careful, particularly in approaching His table, then we too should say "Depart from me, For I am a sinful man, O Lord." And then once we do recognize our fallen state we should say that, "I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but speak the word only and my soul shall be healed."

Rain

"I'm singin' in the rain. Just singin' in the rain. What a glorious feeling, I'm happy again. I'm laughin' at clouds so dark up above, the sun's in my heart and I'm ready for love. Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place; come on with the rain I've a smile on my face! I'm singin' and dancin' in the rain."

It rained here the other day - last Wednesday now. And as the dark clouds chased some away, they left me feeling pleased and almost safe and loved. (The Sun was in my heart). But now that a week has gone by I have realized that there are two ways to look at the rain. The first way one can look at the rain falling on your doorstep is to think of the angels crying over the lost souls in the world who have not and perhaps never will come to the throne - who choose to stay in the dark cold shadows of the winter storm. This thought chases them away and they wish the angels' tears would stop so they too would not have to meditate and weep over such things.

The second way is to think of the angels who weep for joy over the single sinner who has been brought to repentance. The Bible says something along the lines of "the angles shall rejoice over one sinner who has been called to repentance rather than a thousand who have already been saved.

I smile at the dark heavens - at the wheels of heaven eternally thundering above me before the throne (Ezekiel 1). I smile because I think of the rejoicing the angels are doing for that single soul. I think of the shepher and his 99 sheep - the widow with her 9 out of 10 pieces of silver. But, amongst the rejoicing I cannot forget - I cannot forget the thousands of other souls who have not yet been saved. The shepherd left his 99 sheep alone to find a single one. But he did not forget the others. He came back to them - he came back so that they might all rejoice together. We cannot forget to go back and search for the rest, we must care for God's flock as a whole, not neglecting certain ones.

So next time its raining, look for me outside. I'll be out there singin' and dancin'.

Ghosts

A charming little thought just sprung into my head and so I sprung out of bed so that I might get your thoughts on it. I was thinking about ghosts and the spiritual world and all the different accounts we have of ghosts (some people hear footsteps and other times just doors open by themselves. Or other times people feel or see the ghost but don't hear it. And yet other times ghosts have picked things up while others have trouble touching tangible things). So my question is this. What if the traits of these ghosts are determined by the sins the these people committed in their life on earth? For example, say a man often stole things and now as a ghost he cant pick things up. Or another man would break into places (houses, stores, cars etc) and now as a ghost he cant move through walls. Is this too much like purgatory?

Camera

This is one of the papers I had to do for my rhetoric final and I apparently got pretty close to perfect on it so I thought I would share it with you. The topic was to write a description of our favorite material object....

Black and graceful, the small, sleek camera lounged on the old rickety desk lording its magnificence over the Empire of Room. What little sun was able to shine into that dim empire was soaked up by the one who, if the empire needed one, was the king. It sat there peacefully reviewing the wonderful beauty of the kingdom it had captured. But now what has happened? The lofty ruler was lifted from its comfortable spot in the remaining sunlight and was now being touched by caring and loving hands. These hands, causing him to wake from his lazy mode, called him to see the beauty of the far away land of Kitchen. He has been assured by his loyal subjects of the beauty and exquisite tastes he would fin there. They begged him as he left their comfortable little kingdom to bring back the loveliness that the people possessed there. Please with their faith in him, he set out with a mission to obtain the most exquisite thing he could find.
The camera now entered the bright and clean kingdom of the people ruled by the king names Sink. He could not take his eyes off the loveliness of the white counters. He blinked as the light began to be to much to bear. But now those caring hands set him to work taking pictures of the steaming eggs in the pan, the sizzling bacon on the skillet, tasting the warmth of fresh pancakes gently tanning in the skillet. Oh, how much bliss he would have to share with the people of his kingdom.
That night he returned to his rickety throng. Smiling with satisfaction, at the dog that will sit peacefully by his master's side. He now seemed change to his people. His round black lens looked smoother, shinier than it did before. His slim black body portrayed that of a new car. As he told of his stories, the listeners lounged in their respective places, slowly fading to sleep, being lulled by his musical voice. He himself soon began to fall into repose as the moon shone into the window. That black, slick, body, the round silver buttons, the smooth dark lens enclosing the clear glass was now reflecting the magnificent serenity of the moon as it sat in perfect stillness on that rickety old desk....


My teacher thought it was a bit awkward to right a love story to one's camera, but I was a bit rushed... it is a bit warm and fuzzy. Any comments?

"Laziness." said the little man "Its so wonderful."

As I stand in the kitchen gently humming to myself and stirring the corn that was about to come to a boil, suddenly with a strange squeak from the still air everything turns black. My first instinct is to turn around and expect to defend myself from the man in black who silently appeared behind, about to stick a knife in my back. 'Oh the power just went out', I announced to myself in the hopes that it might turn back on as my words spilled out.

Last night I won a whoppin' 3 dollars and 90 cents playing poker with my mom. And as I stole away with my winnings ( my mom would have easily warned me to not spend it all on one place), the questions began to flood my head. Shortly before we stopped playing the power came back on and my mom's first reaction was to rush back to the paper work she had been doing when the power so discourteously left us. I thought now, how odd it was that my mom and I would never play a game unless there was a lack of technology. Even stranger still, why had she not resorted to her normal reaction which would have been to light a candle and read a book? Further more, was there a sudden love for doing taxes that had possessed her at that moment to rush back to their open strangling arms? Certainly Not! I can assure you that my dear mother hates doing taxes as much as any American in their right mind would. What then stopped her from reading a book at that point? I didn't think I looked that desperate. Could it be simply that she just wanted a change? But if so why now? Why had it become a last resort for entertainment? Had she read a book by a candle I would have been just as pleased. Or had she lite a candle and gently, with a sly smile gently resting under her rosied cheeks, placed it on top of the piano and started playing, the pleasure would have been even more enhanced. But I ask you now, why oh why, do we take the opportunity to enjoy other people's company when there is nothing else to do? When there is no TV to entertain us, no flashing lights on the computer, no nothing except the still silence of burning candles and the asphyxiating smell of oil lamps, why is it only then that we turn to real conversation with our family?

My mom used to tell me that when TVs were just starting to get really big, mothers would leave their children at home to watch TV. This was the new and improved way of saving the money you might have spent on a babysitter. Now we think "what a nightmare!! What if I left my little Mikey at home to watch TV and he found the matches or a knife? or worse, what if he was kidnapped?!?" But the times really haven't changed that much since then. Now we hire babysitters but it is only the person who sits in front of it that has changed. We come home from work in the evenings and we tell ourselves that we have had a long, hard and sometimes hellish day and the only thing we deserve right now is a cold Bud light, our favorite TV show and eventually a nice big bowl of ice cream. Now there is nothing wrong with a bowl of ice cream, or watching your favorite TV show. The problem is that it happens all the time. The problem is that we have made a habit of this. We have crept into this hole wherein a voice is echoing, telling us that all we need is a comfortable spot, a cold beverage and the remote and we are all set to soak up all the useless information in the world.

'Sloth is their god. And Laziness is their Governor.' This is us - Americans. As Edmund Spense points out in his Faerie Queene, if we stay too long in the Palace of Pride (Sin) we simply dehumanize ourselves. So if we depend on technology, we become just like the TV or the Computer that we sit staring at so much.

"Laziness." said the little man "It so wonderful." But is it really?