Hopewit

St. Julian Ukrainian Catholic Church Richard Rohr is a Franciscan priest and teacher. I can’t claim to understand in depth his view of the world or all the essentials of his faith; our understanding is bound somewhat—always—by our growing-up experiences and education.  I have, however, been reading his daily meditations for some time and gaining access to some insights that experience so far failed to provide. I’m not alone—I’d venture to say—in having struggled always with the quarreling in my own mind and in my Christian home, the church; an unease over a myriad of doctrines and “right ways of doing things,” and wondered how that could ever have grown out of the Sermon on the Mount, the prospect of personal, familial joy and peace that is—according to Christ’s witness—the nature of the Kingdom. I posted this excerpt from the January 26 th meditation on Facebook, so some of you have seen it there. The meditations can be emailed to you daily by going to the Ce...

The Big Muddy - Southern Saskatchewan Matthew 7: 1-5 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. I remember being a guest-presenter at a men’s breakfast some years ago. It happened to be during the lead-up to a provincial election and comments like, “what’s the point of voting; politicians are all corrupt and on the take,” were common. I decided to base my talk on the passage beginning with “ Do not judge, or you too will be judged” in Matthew 7. If I recall correctly, my main point was th...

Swift Current Creek - good Pacific Ocean - good Unidentified Panamanian 3 inch bug - good Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:20-21 NIV) Franciscan Richard Rohr’s daily meditations ( https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/ ) have focused recently on a bottom-up way of interpreting scripture; instead of visualizing God “up there” and his creative power coming down to earth, he proposes that we more accurately visualize God as the base of creation, the bottom, the foundation. As opposed to the ruler, king, possibly. The upshot being that what we understand scripture to mean always rests upon our understanding of the nature of God; any misconception at the basis of our faith necessarily leads to misco...