Wednesday of Week 6 in Ordinary Time (Year I)
Genesis 8:6-13,20-22 | Psalm 115(116):12-15,18-19 | Mark 8:22-26
The man, who was beginning to see, replied, ‘I can see people; they look like trees to me, but they are walking about.’ (Mark 8:24)
I had lunch yesterday with my friend at the stall of Ali, of whom I’ve previously written. As always, I inquired about the condition of his leg, on which he’d had surgery performed over a year ago.
He revealed that he still feels a bit of pain, and that the healing process has pretty much slowed to a trickle. Still, he continues to bless Allah for giving him the ability to walk almost normally now.
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My own journey in faith seems to be slowing down as well. Tonight, I actually struggled to find something to write.
Still, I take solace in the above passage, of the blind man who wasn’t cured all at once. I get the impression that, had Jesus simply stopped halfway, the man would still have been grateful to at least be able to make out the shapes of nature around him.
So I’ll continue my own journey, not expecting to be blessed by an angelic halo any time soon, but still grateful for how far I’ve come around from my college days, when I’d all but wandered away from God.
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As I was pondering a title for today’s entry, the phrase “slouching towards Bethlehem” suddenly popped to mind. Intrigued, I looked it up, and was reminded that it was from an ominous poem by a brilliant poet, William Butler Yeats’ The Second Coming. It’s a poem I’d read several times before, but I can still only remember the more vivid phrases from it: “the widening gyre”, “things fall apart; the center cannot hold”, “the blood-dimmed tide”, and of course “slouching towards Bethlehem”.
And so I now see myself plodding towards salvation, not running frantically around yelling “Jesus! Jesus! JESUS!”, but taking the time to study, to understand, and finally to love.
Amen.