From The Deacon's Bench

Words can do so much.  At times they can provide more healing than the most skillful Doctor.  At other times, they can provide more pain than the most of us have ever experienced in our lives. Finding the "right" words to say can at times be quite a challenge.  As a result, too often things go "unsaid".  Yet, at other times saying too much can cause more confusion or pain than was intended.   Sometimes we use too many words to make our point.  So, this month I'm going to use these few words to remind all of us to always choose our words wisely and to always be aware that our words do matter.

This month, in searching for a "new" topic for my blog post, I was becoming frustrated and after several starts and revisions and finally rejections, I was afraid that I would have nothing to write about.  Then it hit me, why not write about fear!  Surly, given the state of the world both politically and environmentally, there is much to be afraid of. So, I thought to myself, why not...and I started to do a little research.  One of the first things I did was to lookup the definition of fear.  I came across something that truly made me stop in my tracks, something that, while I' know I heard of, I never realized that I was completely wrong about.  Here are the definitions of fear from merriam-webster.com. 1 a: an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger   b: an instance of this emotion   c: a state marked by this emotion 2: anxious concern : SOLICITUDE 3: profound reverence and awe especially toward God 4: reason for alarm : DANGER I am

  As I sit down to write this month's blog post, I am in the middle of taking care of several pre-vacation chores.  Planning what clothes to pack, deciding which ones need to be cleaned, checking the weather at our destination to decide if something is too heavy or too light.  How many of each item of clothing, what will not get too wrinkled or take up too much luggage space.  How "dressed-up" do I need to be? Thank goodness, my wife Sarah is the super-planner who takes care of reservations, transportation and travel documents and every other aspect of planning, I would be totally lost and late without her. During Morning Prayer today, I read Luke's Gospel 10:25-37.  As I reflected on that Gospel lesson where the man is left half dead on the side of the road after being beaten and stripped by robbers and people just passed by and didn't even "see" him, it struck me... how often do we get caught up in planning, preparing and all of the other "jobs&q

Sometimes a little space can make all the difference in the world.  Take a look at this... May Day : a day we in the northern hemisphere have historically reserved for fun springtime activities, like the maypole and picnics; a day when we can see summer and sprinklers and Popsicles right around the corner. Mayday is an internationally recognized radio word to signal distress. It's used mostly by aircraft and boats, and most of us are happily only familiar with it through TV and fiction. It appears as both an interjection ("Mayday! Mayday!") and to modify a noun ("a mayday signal"). What a difference a space and capitalization of letters can make! This is not what I originally had in mind to write about this month, but due to circumstances beyond my control, time got away from me, and I realized it was May 2nd and I had not gotten any farther than a title for my post.   That's when the MAYDAY signal went off in my head.  But what was I going to do?????  Well

Wow, all of a sudden, I realized that it is already March, and I haven't even started to work on my monthly "From the Deacons Bench" blog post.    Even now as I am trying to put this together, I am distracted by other things happening all at the same time.  I am feeling pulled in many directions at once. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am NOT comparing my life with the life of Jesus or me to Jesus, but all of what is now happening in my life DOES help me to better understand the "Human" life of Jesus. Jesus was at times pulled in different directions, by others around Him, and struggled with keeping a sense of balance.  One prime example of this are the events that happened at the wedding banquet in Cana.  Jesus was not yet ready to publicly show his miraculous powers.  Yet his mother prevails upon him to help save the reputation of the bridegroom because the wine was running out and the banquet was far from being over.  Mary knew that her son would "

 My computer is located on a desk in the loft of our home, in front of a window that looks out at a group of trees.  Most of the trees are evergreens, but a few are deciduous.  Right now, that means I can see some green mixed with bare branches. The grass areas are also a mixture of green and brown.  For the past few days, the sky has been overcast and gray.  It has been raining on and off.   This view out of my window and the current weather conditions combine to offer up a rather depressed view of the world.  Add to that, the news reports of multiple acts of gun violence and mass shootings, the war in Ukraine, thousands of deaths due to a virus and the downward spiral seems to continue. Where does one turn in times like this? There is no simple, clear-cut answer to that question.  The answer to that question is indeed as complex as the causes of the depression.  Our emotions bounce from outrage to fear to confusion or to a numbness of feeling.  It is times like this that quite often