October 23, 2007 was a wonderful day. I finally had the long-awaited opportunity to see the launch of the space shuttle on yet another mission to the space station. Two weeks earlier, we had toured the Kennedy Space Center while our motor home was being repaired. The launch was awesome! I really cannot describe it. Continue reading →

In the readings for the 28th Sunday in ordinary Time, the prophet Elisha and the prophet Jesus perform their roles as prophets—they comfort the afflicted and they afflict the comfortable. Naaman and the ten lepers will be comforted but they will have to do it the prophets’ way and not their way. Naaman, powerful military commander scourged with leprosy, is told to go wash in the Jordan. Why the Jordan? He protests that the rivers in his country are just as good if not better. Jesus will heal the ten lepers including one Samaritan. But he does not say, “You are healed.” He tells them to go show themselves to the priests. They apparently are then healed but only one—the hated, despised Samaritan—comes back to express gratitude for his healing.
There are so many themes we could deal with in these readings. Naaman is sent to the Elisha by a slave girl—distinctions between classes do not matter. Lepers were social outcasts but Jesus goes beyond the rigid Pharisaical purity codes to reach out and heal them. The gratitude expressed by the Samaritan leper is a core biblical value. Continue reading →

This morning I did what I often do. I read the daily scripture readings without due diligence. [I must discipline myself to do lectio divina right!] Then, I was hit over the head as I was reading James Douglass’ The Nonviolent Coming of God later in the day.
Douglass lists the people Jesus associated with—tax collectors, soldiers, prostitutes, and Samaritans. Jesus hung around with the outcasts of his society. In particular, the Jews hated and despised the Samaritans. Continue reading →

The readings for the Twenty-Sixth Sunday offer us some thoughts for consideration. Habakkuk must have been a peacemaker. He definitely wanted to restore justice and right order in a world run amok. He looked around and all he saw was violence. He cried out to God. God did not offer him immediate consolation—a quick fix. Rather, God referred him to the vision. In the accompanying Gospel reading, Jesus urged his followers to have faith and to be faithful. Paul encourages Timothy not to be bashful about proclaiming what he has learned—the good news of nonviolence. Continue reading →