“I, John, looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him a hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” (Rev 14:1) And so begins today’s readings.
In her story “Revelation,” Flannery O’Connor tells a tale of a vision of salvation being encountered by the smug Mrs. Turpin. Her idea was that heaven was an exclusive banquet with just a few guests. The story had told of her unpleasant encounters with the “unsaved” (aka “not like me”) during the day. Later while sitting on her front porch at sunset, Mrs. Turpin is granted a vision from God. Despite all her self-assurances and beliefs, she was about to discover that God’s invitation is for more than just her and those she deems of sufficient moral character and behavior.
I hope you are someone who regularly engages Sacred Scripture, the Bible. And I mean someone who reads, ponders, muses, meditates and wonders about God’s Word. And more than just on Sunday at church. Maybe you are part of a parish Bible study, a small faith group that gets together at someone’s home, or are taking time to know and immerse yourself in the Bible. And don’t worry this post is not recrimination about why you are not doing those things, but just a thought or two about how lucky we are that the Bible is available to us in books, online, audio, and in software that can interconnect Scripture to exegetical and theological dictionaries, books that can help us with Greek and Hebrew, commentaries, and a whole host of other tools. We are lucky that literacy is common in our day. It hasn’t always been that way.
Imagine four persons in a room. The first is a powerful dictator who rules a country. He commands armies, directs the lives of millions, and his wishes become law and are enforced. He possesses a brutal power. Next to him sits a gifted athlete at the pinnacle of his physical prowess. This is one whose speed, strength, and endurance have few equals. His is a graceful power for which he is much admired and envied. The third person is a rock star whose music and charisma electrify sold out arenas. Her words can become the anthem for a generation. Her power is a soulfulness of the muse. The fourth person in the room is a newborn, a baby, lying in its crib, unable to clearly ask for what it needs. 
Recently I have written several posts about the common good as it pertains to wearing masks. Last night on the news a young man said that he didn’t like people telling him what to do and he didn’t see the need to wear masks. It wasn’t a clip from summer time, it was recorded in the midst of this massive second wave of infections nationwide. It just strikes me as an overly libertarian view that does not consider there is a common good. And the common good is a matter of our faith.
In 
Perhaps lost in the tsunami
friarmusings 