I must pay attention to the strangers who arrive in our midst especially when I find myself sitting under a tree in the desert. Like Abram, when I perceive the 3 strangers coming toward me, it is better that I welcome them and call for the celebratory banquet of welcome and sacrifice - the giving up of something in expectation of something to be better in future.
Perhaps as I prepare myself for the journey to follow the wandering Aramean where the holy mystery leads, I look forward to the spiritual direction course and further discernment of call. I yearn to be like Mary and sit at the feet of the teacher and allow the wisdom to emerge. Is such wisdom already there, and do I only need to let it come out like a doe and her fawns who wait by the water's edge to safely drink at the lakeshore? Can I give up my busyness - and distractions like Martha with all my attendent duties and obligations that I have entwined myself in as a result of my covenant and promise to settle amongst the people of the whispering hills?
Why is it when we want someone else to do something we ask Jesus or some other authority figure to do our asking for us. As I am discovering the idea of being triangled into someone else's issue is never comfortable for all involved. Why do we hesitate to ask directly? Fear of rejection - fear of not being listened to? Is the deeper fear of abandonment and how such request for them to join in what we believe is our duty or obligation somehow tied to our worthiness and acceptance?
When the holy angels or agents of the divine appear, how do we respond? Do we deny and ignore - so we do not allow ourselves to be hurt again by relationships gone wrong and hang onto the special intended lamb for the future that will not really sustain us or may never come? Do we let go - call for the celebration and in return be given the promise of a new birth - and Isaac the one who laughs in our midst in the near future? Such is faith - trusting in risking and welcoming and offerring hospitality?
Can a faith community become such a place of welcome - that in the days to come we will give up like a new parent the self-centered narcissitic life realizing our responsibility to the next generation and our brothers and sisters who dwell with us on spaceship earth? Will we give up our need to be voyeurs on the pain and sufferring of those who are not in our over-privileged status that we believe has been endowed upon us by reason of our intelligence and hard work and actually befriend them as holy guests? (one might consider a case for delusional living) and recognize the need for treatment and healing).
What will be your response to the visitors? Will you seek the spiritual dimension of eternal life and wholeness - sharing the banquet of life with all? Or remain distracted by duty and obligation imposed on us by the pharoahs and our own unconcious behaviors that lead to the abyss rather than life in all its glory, struggle and resurrection into the ever-birthing options that the holy - mid-wife births us into!!
To understand the world often one must look from the bottom up. We are who we are by how we treat the weakest, vulnerable, and voiceless amongst us.
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