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Who takes care of me?

Luke 10:25–37 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” That is, “Who must I love if I want to inherit eternal life?” And then Jesus hit him with the story of the good Samaritan: A man is robbed and beaten. A man just like the lawyer asking the question, perhaps? Two upstanding citizens walk past without helping, but a Samaritan (read: outcast) bandages his wounds, gets him a room at a hotel, and leaves a credit card in case the man needs more help. Jesus asks which of the three is a neighbor to the man who was robbed. The Samaritan, of course. Neighbor = the one you must love if you want eternal life. Neighbor = the amazingly generous outcast who isn’t too busy to help the story’s “me” (the man to whom Jesus is replying). Therefore, the one you must […]

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In my right mind

Luke 8:26–39 Jesus cast a squadron of demons out of a crazy guy. And then… …they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. At the 8 a.m. contemplative mass at St. Cuthbert’s, a twenty-minute silence follows the reading of the gospel. I listened to the story about the lonely, unclothed, crazy man who had broken his own chains again and again, but still wasn’t free, and how it was only Jesus who could clean up the nasty mess of his life. And then I sat there for twenty minutes at Jesus’ feet thinking and feeling this: I am in my right mind. I haven’t always been and might not always be, but for now, I am in my right mind. And I am grateful. At 9 I headed off to visit a place […]

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