Morning Connection

Today is Thursday, December 12, 2013.

Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Good Morning.



A thought for the day:

Respect God ... but don't be afraid of Him … He loves you.



The Church’s 1st reading:



Isaiah chapter 41 verses 13-20:



For I am the LORD, your God, who grasp your right hand; It is I who say to you, Do not fear, I will help you. Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you maggot Israel;

I will help you—oracle of the LORD; the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer.*

I will make of you a threshing sledge, sharp, new, full of teeth, To thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff. When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off, the storm shall scatter them.



But you shall rejoice in the LORD; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory.

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain, their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open up rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the broad valleys; I will turn the wilderness into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water. In the wilderness I will plant the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; in the wasteland I will set the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that all may see and know, observe and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it.

* * *

So I told big bully Billy Button that I was not afraid of him when he cornered me on the playground at school. But I was. Afraid of him, that is. But either I hid it well, or he had bigger fish to fry that day ... meaning that I escaped a beating by my bluffing (something that has served me well on any number of occasions, since). "Don't let them see or smell your fear," they told me ... with reference to both animals and enemies. So I didn't. Still don't.

But I have them. Fears, that is. As do you. They may change with the years. Even lessen with the years. But none of us lives fear-free. Monsters under the bed become monsters in the bed ... whether it be the marital bed, the hospital bed, the death bed, or the bed your mother told you about when she said: "You made it; you go lie in it

Fear comes naturally to us all.

Fear (in and of itself) blocks intimacy. If we are afraid of something (or someone), we don't get close to it (or them). Instead, we withdraw. Start simple. Start with stoves. When we are little, we are told to avoid them. Why? Because they're hot, that's why. They could burn us, blister us, ruin our tender little skin. Then one day we touch the stove at the wrong time, in the wrong place (like the burner), and we learn a lesson. Leading us to shun stoves, for safety's sake. But if we dwell in that fear forever, we will never cook. And maybe never eat. We will never learn the art of baking a wonderful bread or stirring a wonderful sauce. Instead, we will live (eternally) in a land of cold cuts and Hostess Twinkies. Either that, or we will spend a fortune eating out.

Obviously, we have to learn that the stove is our friend. And how do we do that? By converting fear to respect, that's how. We take a painful lesson and let it teach us. Don't touch here. Don't touch now. Don't touch without the protection of a potholder. But do touch. Because nobody ever cooked a wonderful meal on the stove by keeping at arm's length from the stove.

Fear ... no. Respect ... yes. It's the difference between being a gourmet and a Twinkie junkie.

God bless,

Father Pat