A phat day

       Today is fat Tuesday.  It might be nice to be part of some of the raucous revelry in New Orleans this fine day but that is really a diversion. Today might be better served in planning.  We are very special beings. Not quite angels as this passage notes but made in God's image and likeness. That gives us at the very least a rarefied and unique quality, every one of us. We are beloved, cherished, purpose built one might say.

         As I taught my children, with great gifts comes great responsibility. A major part if not the whole of life is the intention to cooperate and the attempt to fulfill all potential God has created in us. No small task. Certainly, such a task is not to undertaken in a slipshod, random fashion. If my child's talent is as a pianist prodigy, then lessons and plans would need to be laid out to nurture and cultivate that talent. So is life for all of us. Not everyone is a pianist but the gifts we are graced with are endless. 

          Lent is a time of repentance, cooperation and supplication.  I am not sure how we can really ask for anything knowing that the gift and grace of the Resurrection is at hand. But I fervently feel that we should do something on our part considering what has been done for us. At the very least an offer of thanks of some kind in action, in appreciation and in empathy. So today could easily be spent planning out a course of action. Some quiet time perhaps for what we will do for the upcoming 40 days until Easter.

         Currently I am not on the small Island that I call home. I find myself embraced by a beautiful small parish community that has a  firm ministry of welcoming travellers, transients, visitors and the like. On Sunday they published a list of 40 ways that we might keep Lent holy.  It is an incredibly thoughtful list and almost every item begs further examination because it could be the beginning of something really special for us in our Lenten journey and well beyond. Great ideas.  Simple ideas. Expansive ideas. 

          As we sit down today in some silence, reverence and thanksgiving we might think of more than something to give up unless it is anger, hate or retribution. We might offer ourselves and perhaps cooperate more fully with the examination of who we are and what we are supposed to be and do. Consider a prayerful discipline, one that touches you. Give a gift of your presence. Watch a sunrise or sunset. Work on a craft that speaks to who you are. Pray. Read. Touch lives. Allow yourself to be touched by others.  Appreciate beauty. Listen to complete silence.  Cleanse yourself. Be thankful.

       Sit in awe and wonder of God and yourself. God created you, revels in you, loves you. What do you do with that information?

Hebrews 2:1-10

Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will.

 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,
‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
   or mortals, that you care for them? 
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
   you have crowned them with glory and honour, 
   subjecting all things under their feet.’
Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.