We do not choose the world into which we are born.  The ways of the world are thrust upon us.  The status quo has a power that can be consuming.  What matters most--persons, sustaining life, care for the vulnerable--often is swept aside.  For thoroughly acculturated people, Scripture reads like notes from outer space.  Who speaks such language any more?   A mistrusted being, God is less real than the fleeting price of oil.

Paul reminds us that we are not helpless: the practices of faith have the power to move our lives.  Scripture opens up a deeper understanding of what is real and what matters.  In following Christ, we enter into a totality where self and world reveal the sacred.  We learn to think, feel, and act as persons set free.  In this freedom, we are not alone before the bonfires.  The Word illumines reality and brings hope to the shadows.

Modern thought so often deals in dualities: the self is severed from community, fact from value, suffering from joy, transcendence from immanence, faith from reason.  With these splintered forms, much is lost.  The practices of faith heal divisions of all kinds; they restore our ability to think and awaken us to the goodness of this world.