What are you looking for?

When you clicked on this blog, what were you looking for?  It is a good question.  So good in fact, Jesus asked a similar one to his soon to be apostles in the Gospel of John (Jn 1:38). Aside from the blog part, that is.

We are all seekers. We are all looking for something whether we know it or not.  Yet due to the violence so many people have been experiencing during the past months, that I am sure that will continue, the question of seeking has been lost among the seemingly endless tally of body bags ruins, burned out buildings, our Facebook friends' irate ramblings and media overload.   

Or maybe the question is not lost at all.  Maybe it is just hidden like the treasure Jesus mentioned once in his parables.  You know the one.  A man was plowing in a field and he stumbled on a treasure.   Immediately he set off in order to buy the field.  Then there is the parable about the merchant in search of fine pearls.  When he found the perfect one, he sold all what he had and bought it (Mt 13:44-46). 

Then what happened?  Your guess is as good as mine.  And perhaps that was the point to both stories.  Perhaps Jesus wants to remind us that life like the kingdom is both a gift and something to be sought after. 

Not all Facebook postings are angry.  I got one today that was a Pablo Picasso quote along with a picture of one of his paintings—a beautiful child holding a dove.  “The meaning of life is to find your gift.  The purpose of life is to give it away.” Even if Picasso is not your favorite visual artist or approve of the lifestyle he led; the quote still echoes Jesus’ teachings.  But here’s the rub.  Life and the kingdom are also on the lookout for you, for all of us.  In fact, I read one commentary on the merchant in search of fine pearls parable mentioned that we are the perfect pearl.  Thus, we are also the treasure and everything was sold to buy us back.  That everything was Jesus. 

Several years ago, the book The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren became a best seller.  If you have a copy, perhaps you could get out and read it again, or for the very first time.  Then there is the book Let Your Life Speak:  Listening to the Voice of Vocation by Parker Palmer.  Or you might want to make some time to ponder St. Paul’s famous line, “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor 13:1-13).” That, too, has lost almost all of its challenge to modern ears. 

May I suggest two alternatives for your pondering?  Reread all 13 verses and change the word love with the word class.  Or you might peruse the word hope for hope is what many people are looking for; especially during these seemingly hopeless times.  If you do, take this thought with you: hope thrives when one’s gift is found only to be given away.  

“What are you looking for” is not scattered like the ashes of our time but the grace among violence itself.  Today is meant to give away as well as for a lifetime of tomorrows. Such grace is also the gift of being found.  Treasure.  Perfect pearl.  Life.

Oh, I almost forgot, thank you for clicking on my blog.