The Lazy and Ambivalent Bible Scholar

Isley all fired up this morning.
(photo P Volker)

I am listening to the fire in the woodstove crackling as I settle in to write. Our first morning fire. It’s like an old friend that I haven’t seen or heard from for half the year. October is here in all it’s fog and glory. I think I might be hearing a foghorn but it may just be the tricksters in my head.

October means football and we have a Seahawks game starting at 10AM. Before that Catherine will be here to walk and pray and we will go off to church for Communion. Sort of a prayerful football morning.

I finally got to my Bible Guys Zoom yesterday after missing it for two weeks. Have been going so long that not going leaves a blank space in my personal week. Yea, and we are working on the long list of miracles and we did the fish with a coin in it’s mouth. It is a very private miracle just involving Jesus and Peter and is a demonstration for Peter of keeping up with responsibilities in life and the province of God. To tell you the truth I don’t know if I ever heard of it before as it is not of the big hoopla kinds of miracles like the feeding of the four thousand or five thousand.

Anyway, Peter needed some extra training apparently so he was singled out for this lesson. But that is good as he will play a major role in the early church. Such a major player that we Catholics think of him as the first Pope.

I guess I needed some extra training also, that why I was visited by my friend Cancer. Not that I am causing any major waves in the world but perhaps I am lucky enough to be of some help. Somehow this morning as I did chores and hunted around for breakfast I was thinking about my lazy approach to my Bible Study. I have been thrown in with guys that really really hit the books. I seem lazy and haphazard in comparison. Somehow that seems to fit me but a somewhat rumpled fit it is.

We all approach God differently as our personalities dictate. No one right way as there is no one right Camino. Oh, I feel better now. I guess I was comparing myself too much with the serious students. They do let me hang around and they give me somewhat of a pass thinking all that heat and wind of pilgrimage has somehow altered me from the norm.

altered from the norm loves, Don Felipé de Viana.

2 thoughts on “The Lazy and Ambivalent Bible Scholar”

  1. Hi boss,

    We seem to fall in the gap of “not feeling enough” from time to time, right? But my antidote for that thought is that we are only expected to do the best with the “talents” we were given… (and I like this word, because while it was the name of the currency at the time the Reading was written, today, both in spanish and english, it is the word for our “gifts”; likely the use we give it nowadays comes from that? I don’t know…)… but essentially, to me, it means that if we will measure the success of a fish to fly, it will be scored as a total failure…

    And the other thought that came to my mind when I read this, is the opportunity we give others to express their generosity. Let me explain this better: to me, when we are “short of talents” to do something, we essentially give the others the opportunity to be generous; because if we need the help, and they come to help us, it is because of generosity. If “our talents” are always abundant and enough, we would never need help, and we would never allow anyone to be generous… I think our “short of talents” has that purpose, really…

    Anyway, love is always abundant in these lands…
    Cris

    PS: Watch “Pope Francis: A man of his words” movie… Love is also joyful!

    1. Cris ~ I don’t know what it is exactly that I was trying to get at yesterday but perhaps I will try another run at it today. Felipé.x

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