September 18 (or there about), Chapter 4: The Drama of Desire

Greetings Fellow Pilgrims:

First of all, an apology for being late with this post. My earnest desire was to go to breakfast on Monday with my brother priests and then come home to write my blog post. Well, after breakfast a few of my brothers were going to walk the bridge. So I joined them.  When we got to the top of the bridge I knew something was wrong. I was short of breath, had a tightness in my chest and a numbness in my left arm. Exactly what I thought! So off to the emergency room I went. Several tests and a heart cath later, a new stent was placed in my Left Anterior Descending Artery. Modern medicine is amazing because I was home in less than 24 hours and feeling well enough now to resume many of my regular activities, including this blog. So here we go...

Last week we were talking about the patterns of life...and how to find ways to pattern our  life after the life of Jesus. Sticking with that theme I shared with your four patterns that I put on the walls of my classroom when I was teaching eighth grade. The idea being that any student who could figure out all four got a special treat. The first three were always discovered in the 1st week; the fourth one was never discovered. Here's the mystery one...8, 5, 4, 1, 9, 7, ... the next numbers are six, three, two and zero. I write them that way because the pattern is the single digit numbers in alphabetical order. Here's the thought. Everyone looks at the problem as a math problem, but there was another way to look at it, a word problem.

When looking for the patterns of Jesus' life, we have to sometimes "think outside the box." We can get so caught up in what we believe the patterns should be, or might be or must be that we limit our exploration of what the patterns could be. To truly understand Jesus...to truly pattern our life after his, we have to see him anew each day.

This week's reading capture that as well. Which tree do we desire: the tree of life or the tree of competition? Can we find contentment in following the pattern of Jesus or do we desire always the tree of what's next, what's better, what's in it for me?

I like the part in this week's reading where McLaren writes: "True, Adam and Eve grabbed for the chance to be like gods...but Jesus didn't grasp at godlike status...(pg 17)" this truth is given to us in the suggested reading from Philippians 2:5. "Have among yourselves the same attitude as Christ Jesus. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance."  It is easy for me to look back at my life and see when competition and the desire for something stood in the way of me seeing like Jesus would see, or being an image bearer for God.

But the good news is that like a stent in your artery makes blood flow again, the continual pursuit of a stronger faith, a better pattern of living, help us to become a better image bearer for God.