Author: Bill Schulz

they just keep existing

/ Bill Schulz / 1 Comment

I went out on the porch before dawn to think of these things, and of the words of Ezekiel (22:30): “And I sought among them for a man that might set up a hedge and stand in the gap before me in favor of the land that I might not destroy it, and I found none.” And while I was standing there, quails began to whistle all over the field and in the wood. I had not heard any for weeks and thought sure they were all dead, for there have been hunters everywhere. No, there they are! Signs of life, of gentleness, of helplessness, of providence, of love. They just keep existing and loving and making more quails and whistling in the bushes.

From Thomas Merton’s Journal – November 7, 1965

gnats & camels

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

Another of Jesus’ nonnegotiables is the work of justice and generosity toward the poor and the outsider. That’s quite clear, quite absolute—page after page of the Gospels. Yet Christian history, even at the highest levels of church, has thought nothing of amassing fortunes and living grandly (while others starved), and rather totally identifying with power, war, and money (they tend to go together).

At this point in history, when most people can read Jesus’ (and the Bible’s) clear and consistent bias toward the poor, the foreigner, and the marginalized, it can only be ignored with a culpable blindness and ignorance. Most Christians have indeed been “cafeteria Christians” when it comes to this. Usually they will markedly emphasize something else (often a sexual issue) to divert attention from what Jesus did not divert attention from. As Jesus himself put it, “you strain out gnats and you swallow camels!” (Matthew 23:24). The issues never change in any age, as long as the same old ego is in charge.
– Richard Rohr, ofm
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(photo: Portland, ME – February 2019)

lost sheep

/ Bill Schulz / Leave a comment

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(photo: Greene, ME – January 2019)

What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?
And when he does find it,
he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous people
who have no need of repentance.
– Luke 15:4-7