do ..

2 pictures
they say a lot ..

i've historically been anti-roman catholic ..
i cared not for their history of abuse
nor for their theology
   particularly as it concerns the mass and transubstantiation
  on which ( in my opinion ) the entirety of  RC theology rests

i was one of those pharisee people that shoots first and asks later ..

the man in the pictures is helping to change my attitude
once you start moving in the direction he's moving
you got me

you can talk all day long
postulate and fabricate and theologicate ..
but when you get down in the trenches and embrace the hurt yourself
you got me
you got me right there

like mother teresa
dorothy day

i'm more than happy to learn from people like that
i'm happy to get in the gutter with people like that
regardless of their history or their theology
while holding my own close to my heart

know why  ?
because they are doing Jesus ..

i am also reading his encyclical
Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel
.. the man is well worth reading
his is a knowledgeable Biblical and well-historied mind
... ...    .

christinaity has taken a well-deserved hit in recent decades
people are walking away rather than towards its doors
doors closed for far too long to certain of us - ones that don't so this or that do that ..
as if we are God ..

we are not God
the church on Earth is the body of Jesus
he is the head, we are the body parts
and one thing is crystal-clear
Jesus was flat-out an embracer
regardless
he didn't countenance sin
      how could he
      he would give his very life for the cosmic sin issue
but he embraced all regardless of their particular sin ..
 .    .     .     . . .
and
do
i
have
sin
  ?   ?     ?

do you  ?

i'm not God ..   .
.. .      .    . . .

point being
when some form of the church begins to realign itself with the Jesus Way
opening its doors to all
embracing all
serving all without caveat
   no preconditions
   no test to pass
   no blood test to pass
in Jesus' name ..
well then i'm attentive
i'm all ears and eyes
   and hands and feet
because that's precisely where i'm headed

and ' do ' may well be my new word for 2014

do

when i look at the look on Francis' face as he kisses a deformed man
i see the heart of a man who cares
who compassions

you got me right there ..

shalom