The Gospel of John is a wonderful text at every level of reading and understanding. It is poetic, it has amazing narratives such as the Samaritan Woman at the Well (today’s gospel), and more. It is also a quite nuanced text. Consider the following segment of the conversation:
16 Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” 17 The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I do not have a husband.’ 18 For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Continue reading
I was looking ahead on the parish calendar to see what the month of March would bring apart from the celebration of Lent. It was then I came across a simple marker “Mother’s passing.” It was four years ago now – hard to believe that much time has passed since my mom passed away. But that is the way of things as one grows older oneself; loved one are lost and time passes at an ever-increasing rate.
From today 
From today 
Today’s 
In our well-known account of the Transfiguration, Peter simply says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here.” Of course, he could mean Mount Tabor all in and of itself. It has an amazing 360-degree view of the Jezreel Valley, the mountains of Samaria, Mount Carmel, the Golan Heights, Mt Gilead, Mt Horeb, the whole of Galilee, all as far as the eye can see. On a clear day it is where heaven and earth meet. There atop a mountain, the place where man has gone to meet God, where human and divine touch, the meeting place of the temporal and the eternal. Matthew, Mark and Luke describe the miraculous event of the Transfiguration, as does 2 Peter 1. We celebrate the event that was the revelation of Jesus’s divine nature, exalting him above the Law/Moses and all the prophets/Elijah, foreshadowing his death, and prefiguring his Resurrection. Maybe Peter understood what was unfolding or maybe he was flummoxed and all he could come up with was “…it is good for us to be here.” I am not sure I would have understood what I was seeing much less think of something to say. 
From time to time, I am asked “if the parish could use…” and what follows is a litany of things old and beloved, unusual and familiar, new and used, useful and whimsical, and the occasional, “I don’t know what it is, but it seems like it is holy.” The conversation is hardly ever (perhaps never?) with a person from the millennial or Gen Z demographic. At this point in their lives, they live unburdened by too much stuff and do not yet have the same emotional connection to things as did the generations before. They are a mobile group and thus don’t want a lot of stuff when moving house or moving to a new city. IKEA will do just fine until things settle. 
friarmusings 