One way to know if you are following Jesus or not is to check your heart. By that I mean, is there a longing there for something more?

A young husband I shall call John, with a wife and two young sons, was just diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer. It was inoperable, terminal, and he was given just six months at best to live. In spite of growing up in the church where his parents and wife were still active, he became indifferent about his faith in God. That was until he received this diagnosis and John became very angry with Him!

A couple of times in his sermon from August 1, 2021, Canon Christopher, reflecting on the Mary and Martha passage from Luke, said we needed to come close enough to hear Jesus. That begs the question, how do we come close enough to hear Him? How close is close enough?

When I was a young mom in my late 20’s, I was a church attender, but not involved in anything but my presence each week. My son, Ian, was an infant and we frequented the nursery and a church pew. One day, out of the blue, I received a phone call at work. Fr. Andy, our Assistant Priest, wanted to meet me for lunch to discuss a problem. Curiously, I said “Okay.”

Admit it....sometimes we see something, make an assessment, and judge... in a few seconds...sometimes harshly. I know I do it, subconsciously and sometimes blatantly outright. You know what I mean–like, when I was a teenager and saw a really hot guy. I automatically assumed he was probably very cool in every other way as well; I would size up someone based on what I could see on the outside. I also believed others would decide what they thought of me by my clothes, whether I was fat, or even by my hair. As an adult, perhaps by my car, my home, my job, my family, my education...still my hair! You can put anything in here....I know you must have at least one thing you have judged people on, or feel you have been sized up by. Well, there is a time still sharp in my mind when I made some judgments and so many assumptions, and boy, did God get me!

“And Who is my neighbor?” WHY DOES HE DO IT? Two days a week, our trash goes out to the side of the road. On one of those days the recyclable containers are added. Once the cans are out, they are forgotten, even if the big noisy collection truck is heard. Later in the day, the emptied cans appear near our garage. Who brings them up? It has to be one of our neighbors.

Resurrection reactions move from fright to frivolity, or we might say from fear to freedom, for the disciples. The death of Jesus shattered the community of followers. They were fearful. ‘Strike the shepherd and the sheep scatter,’ as the prophet says. Hiding, gathering in secret places...in the minds of the disciples the death of Jesus not only ended his physical life but murdered the truth he believed in. In one final stroke the cross poses the ultimate religious question, which throughout his life Jesus had witnessed to! “Can the last power of life be gracious if this man is crucified?” Was the joyous confidence which characterized Jesus merely whistling in the dark? Was Jesus Wrong? Was he wrong? Does the sparrow fall and no one cares? Are the hairs of our heads left uncounted? What manner of love allows this? Pilate dies in his bed and Jesus is nailed to the wood? “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” is not only the taunt of the high priest but the deepest question of the disciples.

The final week. If you’re a follower of Jesus you know it as Holy Week. It was a petri dish of experiences that Jesus lived his final week here on earth.

A blog on mercy seemed such an easy task until today’s sermon. It has been a hard week. Actually, ten days. That was when I received a message that a co-worker, a brother, a friend, had been picked up and taken in for questioning. This injustice took place in a country where sharing about the hope of Jesus will get you arrested, and worse. The means used for questioning are not things I want to write.

A life free from worry. To some of us, it sounds like Shangri-La: wonderful and impossible to find. But we aren’t doomed to be worry's prisoner. Read on if you would like to know “How do I stop worrying?” I am no stranger to this topic. Over the course of my life I have chewed my nails to stubs, bitten the skin around my nails, pulled out my eyelashes, and stress-eaten cheese, chocolate, and jellybeans. I have stayed awake countless nights, playing out different horrible scenarios. I have had panic attacks and crying jags. It’s not pretty to admit, but I have let worry take over my life. If someone had said to me in a time of intense worry, “I know the secret of how to stop worrying,” I would have laughed (bitterly) in his face.