Psalm 24: 1-10 (links validated 10/25/22)

Richard Rohr is an American Franciscan priest and writer. Many of you have shared with me your appreciation for his thoughts on spirituality. On the subject of saints and connections, he says this, “Saints see things in their connectedness and wholeness. They don’t see things as separate. It’s all one, and yet like the Trinity, it is also different. What you do to the other, you do to yourself; how you love yourself is how you love your neighbor; how you love God is how you love yourself; how you love yourself is how you love God. How you do anything is how you do everything.” He continues “Faith is not simply seeing things at their visible, surface level, but recognizing their deepest meaning. To be a person of faith means you see things—people, animals, plants, the earth—as inherently connected to God, connected to you, and therefore, most worthy of love and dignity.”...

In a recent issue, The Christian Century had a fascinating article about churches opening up their sacred spaces to non-traditional uses. As congregations decline in numbers, many churches are under-used. So as an exercise in the stewardship of their resources and as a way of connecting with the larger community, the author of the article urged churches to make their spaces available to, say, dance studios, theater groups, yoga classes, and even other religious groups. Her church is used not only by young hipsters and two immigrant churches, but also by Muslims...

I was sharing with our Bible study this week that I was thinking about Mr. Rogers this week when we were talking about saints, because I’d seen a short video, about 4 minutes, with interviews from some of folks working on the upcoming film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, where Tom Hanks stars as Fred Rogers. If we had more time today I’d just play the video, and I hope we maybe take a church outing to see the movie when it comes out later this month. In this video, Tom Junod, the interviewer whose interactions with Mr. Rogers are portrayed in the film, says, “[Fred Rogers] had that amazing gift, of looking at a person and seeing what that person needed, that he was going to minister to that person … When I think of Fred, I often think of him in terms of what he did every morning, which was pray and think of the people he needed to pray for and write to those people.” Actor Matthew Rhys, who plays Junod, says, “His ability for empathy was enormous. What he could do immediately to any person with any kind of problem, any human condition, was relate to it.” Frank Warininsky, a lighting guy on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, said, “If you hit Fred on the right day, or Fredhit you on the right day, he could change your life.” Powerful words. And then, in a clip from the upcoming film, Mr. Rogers’ wife is asked, “How does it feel to be married to a living saint?” And she answers, “If you think of him as a saint, then his way of being is unattainable. You know he works at it all the time. It’s a practice. He’s not a perfect person. He has a temper. He chooses how he responds to that anger.”...