Dear All of Us,
Hi-Hello!
A heads up.
This is going to get
real personal real fast.
SO
did you ever go on
a blind date?
Admitted or not,
down deep it's freaky scary.
You just don't know
what the heck
you're going to face.
It's like so much of life.
You head out to work
Monday morning and
there's no telling
what you'll face
all week.
We check the news and
it's even more freaky scary.
Look at what we are facing as
nations and a world?
For all the vagaries,
frights and fears
in front of us,
it's rip roaring,
flat out divine
coming
Face to Face
with
God Wonderful
Goodness
in person
It makes a
world of
difference
literally!
Please let me
jump around a bit here.
Concept can convince the mind,
but never the heart.
Only personal experience does that.
That's why we have Jesus,
God in person,
rather than some sort of
divine treatise about God
dropped down
from the high heavens.
Now, I know tons and tons
of theology about God.
Good stuff.
Not good enough, though,
to capture and convince
my core
as in the Latin "cor"
"heart"
I am a Christian
because I have come
Face To Face
with God
alive and loving
in people
and
community:
My Mother, my Wife,
Catherine Craenan,
farm mother and mentor,
the wonderful and for real
nuns and priests of
my childhood and youth,
the community of my novitiate
with the Christian Brothers
at Barrytown, NY,
the dear souls of
St. Catherine's ,
the small, black church
of my deacon apprenticeship
in Port Tobacco, MD.
None were letter perfect.
All were sweet to salty real,
God Full Faced People.
FACE TO FACE
with them has meant
seeing and sharing,
being wrapped into
God lived love,
real, personal,
practical, communal.
Interfaced with them,
Cor Convinced
I wanted in
having met God
Face To Face.
Given what we're getting
these days more like
night freight,
given what we're facing
in this agitated tumbler world,
a big question and call in
of our spiritual lives
individually and
as a church is
When people see us,
what are they facing?
Better put,
Who's facing them?
They so need
people and church
incarnating,
personalizing,
living
The Love That Is God
people
Face To Face
with God
in
community
and
service.
Folks don't need a lot
of talk,
of theology,
of churchy stuff.
They need God
FACE TO FACE
real
in us
with us
Together we can then
face up to whatever
the heck comes our way
GOD GOOD FACED
God isn't taught.
God is caught
It all happens
FACE TO FACE
******
Thanks for making
our little community possible
here at
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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THANKS TO
Nancy Boyer
for her most helpful
editorial help.
Looking forward to us all
being together here next week.
Love to all
John Frank
******
