Today’s first reading from Acts opens with Paul and Barnabas fleeing from Iconium because the people are about to attack them with stones. In the next paragraph we see the two in Lystra, where the townspeople think they are gods. They call Paul “Zeus,” and wait with garlands and fatted oxen to venerate him. Paul rips his garments, and rushes into the crowd wildly asking “Why are you doing this?” trying to explain that he is just a human as they are.
I’ve have often found myself standing with the people of Lystra, holding a garland and waiting for a god to come by. When I am not in the mood to look, it can be hard to find my own, real, loving God who waits in the center of my regular days.
All of us wish life was a little less complicated and if we see something new, popular, shiny, more sparkly or magic, we might want to make it the new center of our lives. Do we make a god of our own self-image, our jobs, clothes, homes or education? Things that are basically good – like health, fitness, wealth, and family – can become our own little gods. In a self-satisfied world focused on me, I might not notice the poor and marginalized.
Yes we might make gods out of honors and riches, but we can also make gods out of issues in our lives – like a long-term argument where we are certain we have been wronged. We carry our grudges like a shield and refuse to consider the healing that is necessary. It has become our little god that we incorporate into our lives and carry proudly.
Even in a marriage, we can gather all of the wrongs our spouse has done to us, and create our own little god, and feature myself as the wounded spouse who shares my pain with friends and relatives and but does nothing to make it better. “It just can’t change.”
In today’s gospel, Jesus offers advice to us that is fairly simple. “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”
Whoever loves me will keep my word: To love God and love our neighbors. That’s not always easy to do or easy to remember to do when we are tired and stressed. But if we can love Jesus as he asks, it means that the Father and Jesus will “make a dwelling” with us. They will dwell in each of us, live at such a deep level that they become a part of who we are and guide us to the peace we each long for. That is when we can let our arms down and drop the immense weight of the false gods we have been carrying, and fall instead into the warm embrace of the God who loves us endlessly.
Maureen McCann Waldron
The most important part of my life is my family – Jim my husband of 47 years and our two children. Our daughter Katy, a banker here in Omaha, and her husband John, have three wonderful children: Charlotte, Daniel and Elizabeth Grace. Our son Jack and his wife, Ellie, have added to our joy with their sons, Peter and Joseph.
I think family life is an incredible way to find God, even in (or maybe I should say, especially in) the most frustrating or mundane moments.
I am a native of the East Coast after graduating in 1971 from Archbishop John Carroll High School in suburban Philadelphia. I graduated from Creighton University in 1975 with a degree in Journalism and spent most of the next 20 years in corporate public relations in Omaha. I returned to Creighton in the 1990s and completed a master’s degree in Christian Spirituality in 1998.
As our children were growing up, my favorite times were always family dinners at home when the four of us would talk about our days. But now that our kids are gone from home, my husband and I have rediscovered how nice it is to have a quiet dinner together. I also have a special place in my heart for family vacations when the kids were little and four of us were away from home together. It’s a joy to be with my growing family.
Writing a Daily Reflection is always a graced moment, because only with God’s help could I ever write one. I know my own life is hectic, disjointed and imperfect and I know most of us have lives like that. I usually write from that point of view and I always seem to find some sentence, some word in the readings that speaks right to me, in all of my imperfection. I hope that whatever I write is in some way supportive of others.
It’s an incredibly humbling experience to hear from someone who was touched by something I wrote. Whether the note is from someone across campus or across the world, it makes me realize how connected we are all in our longing to grow closer to God.
