Let me share an image of myself as an immature child at Christmas with an undervalued gift.
Taking both the gift and the love of the giver for granted
It may not be surprising, but as a young boy the birthday or Christmas gift that I definitely did not appreciate was clothing. I wanted toys! I took clothing for granted.They were gifts that I did not appreciate because they were not what I wanted.
More significantly, I often missed the more important gift… the love that was being shown through the gift. My parents were only later able to afford a better life. At an earlier stage of their life journey, they sacrificed much to give my sister and I the gifts we needed … and wanted.
In short, sometimes I neither appreciated the gift nor the love that the gift symbolized.
I thought of this as we near the annual celebration of “Earth Day.
Awareness of the gift we take for granted
I am finally becoming aware of the gift I have taken for granted all my life. The home we call Planet Earth. I suspect I am not alone in this
I never paid attention to the Arctic. I knew there was a lot of ice. I never thought of the possibility that ice would melt at the ever-increasing rate that is now being documented..
Far less did I think of the implications of rising sea levels on low-lying coastal areas. We are just beginning to experience the impact of rising sea levels in our recreational playgrounds such as Florida. A day is coming when the Everglades will be beneath the sea.
The day is already here where whole islands in the Pacific are already underwater and the indigenous people who inhabited them have had to abandon their homes and way of life.
We have taken for granted life as we know it will always continue.
Going beyond a secular celebration of Earth Day
Pope Francis has written some things that stopped me in my tracks and made me think more deeply.
- Significantly, our common home is also God’s own house, permeated by the Spirit of God from the dawn of creation, where the Son of God pitched his tent in the supreme event of the incarnation.
- It is in this common home that God co-dwells with humanity and of which we have been entrusted with stewardship, as we read in the book of Genesis [2:15].
- The contemporary ecological crisis, in fact, lays bare precisely our incapacity to perceive the physical world as impregnated with divine presence.
- We have swapped the lofty vision of the physical world as God’s own abode, sanctified by the incarnation of the Son of God, with the one-dimensional mechanistic outlook of modernity.
- Accordingly, the physical world gets reduced to a mere storehouse of resources for human consumption, just real estate for market speculation. . . . Through pollution of the planet’s land, air, and waters, we have degraded our common home that is also God’s own home.
- We have turned this sacred abode into a marketplace.
The last sentence invites reflection on Jesus’ reaction to the money changers in the temple.
I now ask myself is my concept of “My Father’s house is too small?
We live in God’s house as God’s children. But as children we haven’t matured yet. We neither appreciate the gift itself, nor the love of the giver.
About “My Father’s House”…
- Is my concept of “my father’s house” too small?
- Do I see our global home as God’s gift?
- And then the “Vincentian Question” …What must be done ?
Click below for an early audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
I take confession for granted however I do believe bread and wine becomes Body and blood of Our Lord
Father, your Mindwalks are such a great stroll down a corridor while discovering what lies behind each unmarked door. This Mindwalk seems more like a fast-paced tour of a great mansion. So much, almost too much, to take in with one reading.
Just a few thoughts that need much further reflection on my part:
– undervalued gifts – we are imperfect givers and receivers – sometimes we don’t appreciate the value of what was given because we can’t recognize (as you point out) the sacrifices that lie behind the gift – on the other hand, sometimes the giver doesn’t appreciate the needs of the receiver and adds distress to an already chaotic situation – I need to work on recognizing both sides of that and how to make those more in sync
– pitching his tent – I have heard the phrase “dwelling place” many times but never looked upon Mary’s role in Salvation History as taking on the transient nature of a tent – not to discount Mary’s role whatsoever, but that tent has to be pitched in each of us on a regular basis – and to teach others the intricacies of fashioning tents that can withstand changes in weather – and to appreciate living in the open, under the stars
– arctic – so often, I don’t realize that the seemingly innocent actions taken in one part of our environment can have devastating impact on others – perhaps I never before examined global warming from the perspective that it can be as displacing as the recent turmoil in Eastern Europe and the Middle East – “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they do”
– house too small – for non-believers, God seems to be running a “homeless shelter” for all those who can’t find peace in this world and in this life – some perceive that as manufactured religion and not divine-oriented, but I am coming to an appreciation that we all have to embrace that we too are a homeless shelter for those who might need a respite from the ravages of the storms and extremes of this life
Father John, thank you for the wonderful gift of sharing with us your faith journey – I hope you find some love in how we respond to your example.