What Can One Do?

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Awakened, awareness, caring, challenges, concern, mindful, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Last night we had a thunderstorm that rumbled for quite awhile and poured torrents of rain on our land as if every cloud was ripped open and burst all at once. I had a moment of wishing to go out and stand under the rain to be washed clean but the lightning convinced me to take a safer path. Looking out the window into the dark was not as fulfilling but definitely a more adult option.

Suddenly there was a thunderclap that woke those who were asleep and called us all to gather in one place in the house. Had a tree fallen? Was there an electrical outage? It truly sounded like two giant boulders smashing into one another. There was nothing to do but sit in the dark and wait. After some moments we expected nothing more than a continuation of the rain, the weakened effort of the the thunder and lightning, and a surrender to the night. But were we changed?

Anything can be a call to awareness. There are places in our country where the storm that disturbed us for a moment was wreaking havoc for inhabitants as a hurricane. Were we concerned for their safety last night? If we had been living in one of the war zones in the world, that moment might have been catastrophic. Are we mindful of the “hotspots” in the world? Do we consider the dangers that some people face every day of their lives? We are living now in the midst of a pandemic. Has it changed us for the better, made us more mindful and caring of people less fortunate than we are? How do we meet the challenges of each day now?

I wonder what one thing I will do, one thought I will think today to make someone happier…to care for someone in need…to be grateful for my life.

Fully Human

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apostles, burdens, compassionate, concern, generous, human, humanity, Jesus, Mark, ministry, rest, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Over the past century we have come to know – because of advances in science and theology – that Mark’s gospel was the first of the four to be written. As such, there is more of a slant toward the humanity of Jesus than, for example, in the gospel of John (the last of the four) which did not appear until the beginning of the second century and was highly influenced by Greek philosophy, tending toward the divinity of Christ. This morning Mark gives us two examples of the humanity of Jesus (MK 6:30-34).

The apostles have come back from a missionary trip and are reporting “all that they had done and said.” Jesus, ever the compassionate one, says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest awhile.” It’s as if a pastor noted all the work his staff had put into the activities of the Lenten season and said to them during Easter week, “Let’s find a place where we can have a nice lunch and maybe go swimming or catch a movie…” just to be together and be at peace. It might be easier to accomplish that now than in the situation of the apostles when the crowd saw them leave in a boat, figured out where they were going and followed them, so that when they disembarked there was a “vast crowd” already gathered. Scripture tells us that when Jesus saw them all “his heart was moved with pity for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.”

These are images of a fully human Jesus who recognized the burdens of ministry and tried for some “down time” with those closest to him. Couples who have babies know what that’s like as do AA sponsors or doctors or maybe even all the rest of us. It’s hard not to be moved by the needs we see around us and do our best to respond. I hope that there was enough time in the boat to be restorative for the apostles and Jesus, just as those little breaks sometimes refresh tired souls in our day. We need those moments, as Jesus knew, to refresh ourselves and carry on.

This morning I’m grateful for Jesus, the fully human man, who was always concerned for those he loved and those he had never met until one moment when they showed up in a crowd. I want to be like him – compassionate and generous and, yes, knowing also the need for rest.