This is the season of Lent. It is supposed to be a time of reflection and connection with God. Traditionally it is a time of penance and sacrifice. Unfortunately people have lost the purpose of the penance and sacrifice. it is meant to help us focus on God. It is not an end unto itself.

Lent is just one period in our life where we can seek out the essence of our soul, where we can search for who we really are.

The only real access to who we really are, is through our personal relationship with God!

Only when we set aside time and allow ourselves to rest in God’s arms

·       can we find the safety,

·       the spaciousness,

·       and the scary freedom

·       to be who we are,

·       to be all that we are,

·       more than we are,

·       and less than we are.

Only when we live and see through God can “everything belong.” All other systems, outside God, depends on

·       exclusion,

·       expulsions,

·       punishment,

 and protection to find identity for their members

Our God is not a God of exclusion but a God of inclusion!!!

My Dad

This is a picture of my Dad and I. Dad has been gone for 18 years now. When Dad was 4 years old his father died suddenly and his Mother placed him and his brother and sisters in foster homes. 2 years later Dad's younger brother died on the way to school one morning. Mom was the only person who loved Dad and didn't abandon him. The day my sister Irene died dad took a stroke. This picture was a year after Irene died and and a year before Dad died. I love him more today than ever before. I only now have some appreciation for the difficulties and hardships he overcame in his life. I would be proud to be half the father to my children that he was to me.