hope

What Is God Doing?

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

Last weekend, Fr. Brian Park delivered a wonderful homily on the Transfiguration from the perspective of St. Peter. He began by reminding that less than a week before Jesus, Peter, James and John ascended Mount Tabor, Jesus told His disciples for the first time that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Peter wanted none of this news and pulled Jesus aside to correct Him. The future saint simply could not believe that this could be God’s plan.

Father closed his homily with a stark declaration: There is no glory without the cross.

Sometimes I find myself in Peter’s shoes, listening to the Lord as best I can and trying to understand—then finally crying out in exasperation, “God, what are you doing?!” I look at the plan unfolding around me and cannot see the sense in it, so I stand in the breach, athwart God’s will, to challenge the One who breathed me into being.

O foolish man! I am no Moses—and God’s will is never thwarted.

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One-Track Mind

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Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

I am writing this column from my parents’ log house in rural Michigan. Yesterday our Airedale Bruno and I drove 12 hours to get here. Half the time I listened to the news on Minnesota and Wisconsin Public Radio.  

Public radio is in frustrating entity for me, and this long drive was no exception. On one hand, they interviewed interesting people about compelling topics and told wonderful stories that kept me awake and alert all morning and into the afternoon. On the other hand, nearly every story was presented with a left-leaning worldliness and a persistent godless optimism, as though this past year (and the previous three) were truly unprecedented and hellish, but now the right people with the right ideas, wielding power in the right way, can finally fix everything. Nearly all of the interviews were political, some were explicitly pagan—and none mentioned God in any meaningful way, except to reference the road not taken.

This is the divide that concerns me in our society. This is the fundamental, irreconcilable issue upon which there can be no compromise: Either God is real and created the universe and humanity according to His law and purpose, or He didn’t. Both views have profound implications on how we live together in this world.

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Frosty Morning Musings

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I dropped Trevor at Holy Spirit yesterday morning and took the scenic route home, past Pelican Lake. The sun was a blaze of yellow-gold in an ice blue sky, the snow was a hard gleam of white over the fields, and the shadows cast by bough, branch or blade cut dark blue gashes on the ground. The dawn was a study in brightness and contrast—the colors washed out or deepened until the world almost appeared black and white, the lines sharpened, the darkness more stark in the light…

…until a new perspective set the wild lands ablaze. I followed a sweeping curve, and the sunrise ignited the landscape. Woods and weeds, willows and reeds, glowed with a golden halo of hoarfrost—what looked as bitter and biting as last week’s election now softened and warmed in the golden light.

Isn’t it strange what perspective can do? Hard lines and shadows dissolve in the divine light, beauty blazes up, and with it goodness and truth. The night ends, the day breaks, the winter is long but finite; the Lord still pours out His life and love, still looks upon all the work of His hands and, smiling, says, Behold, it is very good.

We dare not hold that gaze too long, that look of love in His eyes. We feel ourselves a waving weed in a windblown winter field, exposed, insignificant, starved for His attention. Do we not see that, bathed in His light, each of us is beautiful, unique and necessary? We are ablaze with divine life, and the world is ours to warm.

Worth Living

/ J. Thorp / Leave a comment

I am blessed this morning to be sitting in the morning sun, overlooking a lake, drinking coffee and listening to an abundance of birds of all shapes and sizes squabbling over breakfast. Swallows and sparrows, redwings and robins, hawks, herons and hummers, filling the air with a cacophony of sound. The blue of the sky is reflected in the rippling water; all else is gold and green, as from my perch I watch three varieties of squirrel cross-crossing the grass seeking food: sleek grays, feisty reds and bold chipmunks.

That God would grace creation with even one prototypical bird or rodent is nothing to sneeze at, and here are so many different kinds, each beautiful in its way—and each created for us.

Do you realize? We believe that all of Creation in its incredible variety was made, out of love, for us. God worked for six “days” establishing the order of the universe and the wonders of the living world, and then made us in His image, giving us stewardship of everything.

And behold, it was very good.

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Wednesday Witness: Let’s Get Going!

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On some level, everyone I know is feeling the strain of the coronavirus quarantine. It’s a challenge to make decisions for own family—balancing basic needs and less urgent desires, physical health and emotional well-being, the fear of endangering someone’s health and the cry of our hearts for flesh-and-blood interaction—so I am grateful not to have the burden of deciding for churches, cities, states or nations.

I am also blessed to be busy with both work and family projects. But lately I find myself oscillating between excitement about the good things that are happening at our parish and home and feelings of futility when faced with an unknown future. Great things are happening at St. Michael Catholic Church and School; the Thorps are installing a long-awaited second shower and, God willing, new floors in our house; and we are preparing for our first granndchild and our third graduate leaving the nest—but what about this virus, the economy and the upcoming election? Can the parish maintain its positive momentum? Should Jodi and I be saving the money we’re investing in our home? What will the fall bring for our children and our grandbaby? Continue reading →