What I Didn't Write About

Sometimes when I'm writing a post, I realize a whole paragraph or two just doesn't fit in and I delete it. Sometimes it happens that the topic of the part I delete was supposed to be the topic of the post, but it gets overrun by something else. This, of course, is always a surprise. Sometimes I have to change the title of the post. Then there are times when I mean to say something and I just plain forget, so the following is a mishmash of things that I've forgotten or deleted lately.

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The post entitled Giving In was originally called Choice. In talking about the rich young man who went away sad, Fr. Barron said that Jesus had offered him a choice. Then he said that our society today is very pro-choice, not just with regard to abortion, but across the board. We believe not only that we have a right to make a choice about everything, and that the only criteria for making the choice is what we think is best. There is in this view no object standard for right and wrong. It's just my choice. I came face-to-face with this today in front of Planned Parenthood when I was talking with a man who was passing by. I thought he was the same man who yelled at us last week for holding f***ing signs when we probably bought stuff (not his word) from Communist countries that exploited children. (I failed to tell him that I live in a country that exploits children.) But today's man said, no, it had not been he. He thought everybody had a right to their own opinion. Then he told me about how some other people were wrong about something they were doing to him.

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When I realized that I had illustrated two posts in a row with Asian pictures, it reminded me that for some time I have been meaning to recommend the work of Daniel Mitsui. You could spend a lot of time on the blog looking at his work, in fact, you could spend a lot of time looking at just one of his pictures. I greatly desire his Mysteries of the Rosary, but unfortunately (probably fortunately for my meager finances) they are not for sale. 

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I've been thinking about this scripture for a while now and since it was today's first reading, I thought I'd mention it. It's Isaiah 1:18.

Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they may become white as wool.

What strikes me about this verse is that it says your sin may become white as snow--not your soul, but your sins. I looked up a lot of translations and the only one that worded it in a way that didn't make it sound like the sins themselves were becoming white was The Good News Bible which isn't even a really translation, but only a paraphrase. Of course, it would be nice to be able to look at the original text but since it's in Hebrew, that will never happen for me. If I had time, I would try to read some commentary on it, but alas, that I do not have.

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My dream about the living water reminded me about a scene in Inception that I love because I think the images are beautiful. It's the scene where Cobb and Ariadne are in Limbo and he is showing her the houses where he and Mal used to live. It's not as lovely here as it was in the theatre--in think you got a wider view on the big screen--but you will remember it if you saw it, and if not, this will give you some idea of what it was like. The part I'm talking about is at 2:58 and is fairly brief.

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At work the other day, I heard someone say, "If thus-and-so doesn't happen, I will have wasted the last 12 years of my life." At first I wondered what she was talking about, but then I started thinking about the implications of that statement. I'm pretty sure that if we are really trying to do whatever it is that the Lord wants us to do in our lives (and I'm almost positive this person is), we cannot possibly waste 12 years of our lives, even if we make a million mistakes, mess it up terribly, and see it all come tumbling down. Nothing that's given to the Lord is wasted, and we have no idea what good may come of all our shattered dreams. C. S. Lewis quoting Charles Williams said in an interview, "The altar must often be built in one place so that the fire may come down in another place." For all we know, that fire may already be raging in some place that we will never see in this life. Our job is just to keep our eyes on the Lord and work for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

AMDG