A look over the Gospel readings for this week, and some of my Creighton colleagues’ reflections earlier this Eastertide, gives the impression that the events in the Gospels show a bit of challenge.  I’m drawn to the line where John tells us that some followers said:
 
              “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” 
 
I hear this a lot.  My students say something is hard that I think is a piece of cake. I have a different perspective than they. We balk at doing things that seem easy years later.  Later, of course, we have a different, hopefully more mature, perspective.  We spend more time thinking of why we cannot do something than simply doing it.   Too often difficulty becomes itself an obstacle.  We let “it’s hard” prevent us from seeing what’s possible; what seems hard, later seems trivial in context.  

A hint (and a cliché): think out of the box once in a while—the daily box, and perhaps the spiritual one as well.