Master of All

"Anything you can do, I can do better" says the Lord God. Why do I always seem to think that my way is better than His?


In chemistry, He turned water to wine (john 2:1-11)
In biology, He was born without normal conception (matthew 1:18-25)
In physics, He overcame the law of gravity when He walked on water and when He ascended into Heaven
(matthew 14:29, and Acts 1:9-11)
In economics: He disproved the law of diminishing return by feeding five thousand men with two fish and five loaves of bread (john 6:10-11)
In medicine He cured the sick and the blind without administering a single dose of drugs (matthew 15:30 and John 11:37)
In history, He is the beginning and the end (revelation 1:11)
In government, He is King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15)
In religion, no one comes to the Father except through Him (john 14:6)

I needed a little reminder.

To Be His Keeper

Almost imperceptibly over time we have lost a true appreciation for creation. Sleeping through the sunrise, staring at the sidewalk, using ipods to block out the birds' sweet melodies. It is a bleak lifestyle, but one I subject myself to without argument. Yet God, in His patience, is ever ready to open my eyes to the wealth He has laid before me. Quite suddenly, waves of quiet praise will kiss the shores of my heart. It is in these moments that mundane affairs are abruptly suffused with irrevocable charm. It is a great blessing (one I surely don't deserve) to see beauty with my fallen eyes. For days now I have been marveling over the wood of the trees. I find myself imagining gentle hands tracing every leafy vein and erecting living beams to point our eyes to the heavens. The tenderness in His work is enough to break my heart. Knowing that every seed was carefully lain for the good of His greatest work.. You and I. Everything we need to support ourselves has been provided from the dawn of the world. As I rest my hands on the pew before me in Mass, I'm baffled at how even His trees are gladly hewn to become tools for worship. I look over my head and wonder as creation houses creation. The inanimate seems to pulse with life and I chide myself for ever feeling even a twinge of loneliness. The thrill this brings to my heart, to note even the simplest manifestations of Providence! And the daunting realization that we have been appointed caretakers over the vastness of creation.

Jesus told us in the gospel of Matthew that we must become the salt of the earth. Until very recently I couldn't even begin to grasp the magnitude of that statement. It's like trying to make a newborn grip a jar of peanut butter. Salt flavors and preserves. That's easy enough. But where is the parallel? Well, when you put it in your food, the salt doesn't change. It alters the flavor of what it's added to. As salt, I must not be changed by the things around me.. I must change/enhance the hearts that come into my sphere of influence. Me? That's almost laughable. Salt stands for power and effectiveness. Steadfastness. As if acting out this mission weren't hard enough, salt also preserves. Without salt food will rot. It putrefies. If I dont preserve creation and the people in it, the world we know will decay. The masterpiece I wonder over, the great garden that gives me life will fall into a state of unyielding deterioration. We already live in a shadow of the splendor of Eden. Heaven help us, that the shadow might not slide into utter darkness.

Smoke and Mirrors

Twenty nine days. A small wrinkle in time before my prayerful passion manifests itself in relentless action. Soon I will be flying to Seattle, Washington to begin a trek bearing witness to the dignity and sanctity of every human life. I will be traveling with a group of missionaries through an organization called Crossroads (crossroadswalk.org). The plan is to peacefully and personally educate our brothers and sisters in Christ on the Culture of Life, as well as appealing to the masses through radio, television, and newsprint interviews. 

I often hear the pro-choice movement laughingly state that the Catholic Church only cares about you as long as you are developing in the womb. What a sad twist Satan has used to harden their hearts. It's no secret that the Declaration of Independence proudly proclaims the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. From the very beginning, our nation claimed to hold these truths self-evident. Do abortion activists realize that before any other right can be obtained, the Right to Life must come first? I dare not insult their knowledge of history, so I will assume that it is a wretched misconception of what Life is. 

Life. It sounds so general. People like to say (as if it were obvious) that of course we all know what is meant by the word "life"... but how would you define it? I suppose there are as many meanings as there are people living. Oh, Meaning. I know one one day that I will die. There is no doubt, there is no hope to escape it. So I live with this truth, bumbling on in my own little bubble of a world. But to leave a doctor's office after hearing that I have only three weeks to live.. Well, I gain an entirely new meaning of what it is to be alive. You see, there is a difference between factual and relational knowledge. And it is the same for children in the womb. What if I told you that right now, someone is about to choose whether you are going to live or die. What if I told you that this choice wasn't based on what you could or couldn't do. It wasn't based on what you had done in the past, or what you would do in the future. And what if I told you that you could do nothing about it? Thousands of children are in that very situation right now. Someone is choosing, without even knowing them, whether they are going to live or die. Every day 115,000 children are lost to the world because of abortion. All that potential, all that hope in the future.. gone. Some argue that it's not really killing. After all, those growths aren't really human, right? To those lost souls, I would ask... are you only human if you are wanted?