Community Chat

[gloriajean]

Be inspired to try something new and much of what you dream can
become your life. Lord, thank you for giving me the freedom of choice,
and grant me the courage to experience my opportunities and create
new ones.


S C R I P T U R E F O R T H E D A Y

"There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every
affair under the heavens." ~Ecclesiastes 3:1

M E D I T A T I O N F O R T H E D A Y

There is a time for everything. We can learn to wait patiently until
the right time comes. Easy does it. We can waste our energies in
trying to get things before we are ready to have them, before we have
earned the right to receive them. A great lesson we have to learn is
how to wait with patience. We can believe that all our life is a
preparation for something better to come when we have earned the right
to it. We can believe that God has a plan for our lives and that this
plan will work out in the
fullness of time.

P R A Y E R F O R T H E D A Y

I pray that I may learn the lesson of waiting patiently. I pray that
I may not expect things until I have earned the right to have them.

Good evening friends! This waiting is the story of my life!! How was your day? hope great!! Cold today and maybe snow will come yet, we'll see. Too cool for the porch.
Linus' day off, we rested. Tomorrow is his long day at work - help me pray, please so he won't get hurt? So much to do, but no ambition today at all. I just can't get over being tired today! Next Friday is already Good Friday and we'll be in Texas! I'll be coming home with Lori Easter Monday night. Time is flying!
So glad we're not driving that long distance this year like we did last year. Never ending trip it seemed like. Flying takes just two hours in the plane. Friday morning we have to be at the airport already at 5 AM though!

Homily of the Day


April 15, 2011


Do You Hear Mainly What You Want to Hear?
by Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.

Jer 20:10-13 / Jn 10:31-42

For too many of us too often, conversation is a game, whose only goal is winning. It’s a deadly game, and both truth and love are its victims. How clearly we can see that in today’s gospel. Jesus wanted to give his listeners life, but all his listeners wanted was to win an argument. It was a short-sighted, fear-driven choice to be sure, and it left them empty handed in the end.

Jesus is making the same offer to us now. “Come with me,” he says, “and I’ll show you the way to a life that’s not only full and rich but everlasting as well. Just walk with me, listen to me, watch what I do, and then you do the same. It will take some close listening and some re-thinking of old habits, but I’ll help you,” says Jesus.

What a great offer Jesus is making to all of us: To be our mentors as we try to grow up and grow whole. But our selective listening, our hearing only what we want to hear or expect to hear, can frustrate even Jesus’ best efforts. If the re-thinking that we’re supposed to be doing in Lent is to have any value, our listening skills have to improve and our hearts have to become much more open, and much less fearful.

Trust the Lord and take the risk of listening to everything he has to tell you. After all, he knows it all. Wouldn’t you be foolish not to listen?


In the River of God’s Love

The love of God is like an infinite river…
it flows with an irresistible power,
and its deep current is unhindered.
You and I are in the river of God’s love.
If we swim with the tide, we will float along with that love.
It will bring us to wherever we are supposed to be.

from Quiet Moments with Benedict Groeschel: 120 Readings

The Centurion At the Foot of the Cross

By Max Lucado

The day began as had a hundred others—dreadfully. It was bad enough to be in Judea, but it was h ell to spend hot afternoons on a rocky hill supervising the death of pickpockets and rabble-rousers. Half the crowd taunted, half cried. The soldiers griped. The priests bossed. It was a thankless job in a strange land. He was ready for the day to be over before it began.



He was curious at the attention given to the flatfooted peasant. He smiled as he read the sign that would go on the cross. The condemned looked like anything but a king. His face was lumpy and bruised. His back arched slightly and his eyes faced downward. “Some harmless hick,” mused the centurion. “What could he have done?”



Then Jesus raised his head. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t uneasy. His eyes were strangely calm as they stared from behind the bloody mask. He looked at those who knew him—moving deliberately from face to face as if he had a word for each.



For just a moment he looked at the centurion—for a second the Roman looked into the purest eyes he’d ever seen. He didn’t know what the look meant. But the look made him swallow and his stomach feel empty. As he watched the soldier grab the Nazarene and yank him to the ground, something told him this was not going to be a normal day.



As the hours wore on, the centurion found himself looking more and more at the one on the center cross. He didn’t know what to do with the Nazarene’s silence. He didn’t know what to do with his kindness.



But most of all, he was perplexed by the darkness. He didn’t know what to do with the black sky in midafternoon. No one could explain it.… No one even tried. One minute the sun, the next the darkness. One minute the heat, the next a chilly breeze. Even the priests were silenced.



For a long while the centurion sat on a rock and stared at the three silhouetted figures. Their heads were limp, occasionally rolling from side to side. The jeering was silent … eerily silent. Those who had wept, now waited.



Suddenly the center head ceased to bob. It yanked itself erect. Its eyes opened in a flash of white. A roar sliced the silence. “It is finished.” (John 19:30 NIV) It wasn’t a yell. It wasn’t a scream. It was a roar … a lion’s roar. From what world that roar came the centurion didn’t know, but he knew it wasn’t this one.



The centurion stood up from the rock and took a few paces toward the Nazarene. As he got closer, he could tell that Jesus was staring into the sky. There was something in his eyes that the soldier had to see. But after only a few steps, he fell. He stood and fell again. The ground was shaking, gently at first and now violently. He tried once more to walk and was able to take a few steps and then fall … at the foot of the cross.



He looked up into the face of this one near death. The King looked down at the crusty old centurion. Jesus’ hands were fastened; they couldn’t reach out. His feet were nailed to timber; they couldn’t walk toward him. His head was heavy with pain; he could scarcely move it. But his eyes … they were afire.

They were unquenchable. They were the eyes of God.



Perhaps that is what made the centurion say what he said. He saw the eyes of God. He saw the same eyes that had been seen by a near-naked adulteress in Jerusalem, a friendless divorcée in Samaria, and a four-day-dead Lazarus in a cemetery. The same eyes that didn’t close upon seeing man’s futility, didn’t turn away at man’s failure, and didn’t wince upon witnessing man’s death.



“It’s all right,” God’s eyes said. “I’ve seen the storms and it’s still all right.”

The centurion’s convictions began to flow together like rivers. “This was no carpenter,” he spoke under his breath. “This was no peasant. This was no normal man.”



He stood and looked around at the rocks that had fallen and the sky that had blackened. He turned and stared at the soldiers as they stared at Jesus with frozen faces. He turned and watched as the eyes of Jesus lifted and looked toward home. He listened as the parched lips parted and the swollen tongue spoke for the last time.



“Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit” (Luke 23:46 NIV).

Had the centurion not said it, the soldiers would have. Had the centurion not said it, the rocks would have—as would have the angels, the stars, even the demons. But he did say it. It fell to a nameless foreigner to state what they all knew.

“Surely this man was the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:54 NIV)

THE LESSON OF THE COFFEE BEAN
Author Unknown


A daughter complained to her father about how hard things were for
her."As soon as I solve one problem," she said, "another one comes up.
I'm tired of struggling."

Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen where he filled three pots
with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a
boil. In one he placed carrots, in the second, eggs, and in the last,
ground coffee beans. He let them sit and boil, without saying a word.

The daughter impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After a
while, he went over and turned off the burners. He fished out the
carrots and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed
them a bowl. He poured the coffee into a bowl. Turning to her he
asked, "Darling, what do you see?"

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and
noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break
it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. She smiled, as she tasted its
rich flavor.

She asked, "What does it mean, Father?" He explained that each of them
had faced the same adversity -- boiling water -- but each reacted
differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting, but
after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became
weak.

The egg was fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid
interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside
hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. By being in the boiling
water, they changed the water.

He asked his daughter, "When adversity knocks on your door, which are
you?"

I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. Psalm 62:1
For everything there is a season…..a time to be quiet and a time to
speak. Ecclesiastes 3:1-7

Food for Thought:

Be….. Still… Know


It looked foggy that morning. After the sun burned away the mist, we
could see the beautiful hot air balloon.


I wondered if it was quiet up there in the basket, under the balloon.
I’ve not ever been up in one, but when I tried paragliding, the noise
of the wind currents surprised me. I had totally expected silence.

Quiet. Not an easy thing. A prayer I find myself saying often (maybe
too often!) is for my mouth to stay closed at the right times, and not
say anything, as well as prayers to say the right thing.

It’s difficult for me to be still. Period. I’m a fairly active
person; If I’m not up and doing something, I am thinking of what I
will do when I do get up and going.

I was reminded, about two weeks after seeing the hot air balloon,
about this ‘being quiet’ thing. We were visiting friends who have a
retreat in the North Carolina mountains. As we sat in the very, very
silent chapel of QuietReflections, the verse from Psalms 46 came into
my mind: ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’


Be. Be still. Then know. Hmmmmmmm

Sometimes God speaks loud and clear. This was one of those times.

Thank you Lord, that you care enough about us to get our attention,
and speak to us in ways that we can hear you. Help us to hear You
today, with the ears of our hearts. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Ten Commandments for a Long and Peaceful Life
1) Thou shalt not worry, for worry is the most unproductive of all activities.
2) Thou shalt not be fearful, for most of the things we fear never come to pass.
3) Thou shalt face each problem as it comes. You can handle only one at a time.
4) Thou shalt not cross bridges before you get to them, for no one yet has succeeded in accomplishing this.
5) Thou shalt not take problems to bed with you, for they make very poor bedfellows.
6) Thou shalt not borrow other people's problems. They can take better care of them than you can.
7) Thou shalt be a good listener, for only when you listen do you hear ideas different from your own. It's very hard to learn something when you are talking.
8) Thou shalt not try to relive yesterday for good or ill. It is gone. Concentrate on what is happening in your life today.
9) Thou shalt not become bogged down by frustration, for 50 percent of it is rooted in self-pity and will only interfere with positive actions.
10) Thou shalt count thy blessings, never overlooking the small ones for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one.

Closing prayer will be a Morning Prayer:

A Morning Prayer



I call upon you, O Lord,
and in the morning you hear me.
In the morning I offer
you my prayer,
watching and waiting.
I lift my heart to you, O Lord,
to be strengthened for this day.
Be with me in all I do, my God;
guide me in all my ways.

I will carry some burdens today;
some trials will be mine.
So I wait for your help, Lord,
lest I stumble and fall.

I will do my work, Father,
the work begun by your Son.
He lives in me and I in him;
may his work today be done.
Amen.

Good night eveyone and sweet dreams to all - God bless your Saturday!