If you have noticed a lapse in my commenting and posting of Gospel texts the last two weeks- you are spot on. I was called to a family emergency which I am very grateful to report is resolving in healing and hope.
Looking over the text of my life these past eleven days I notice an amazing amount of grace in the midst of serious trauma and upheaval. It makes me think of our June 20th text. Jesus, the harbinger of peace and love and light showed up on the scene of what can only be described as utter chaos and suffering. Remember how Jesus arrived in the country of the Gerasenes and found the man who was tormented by a legion of spirits, whose life was so utterly out of control that he was exiled from his community? Did you notice that Jesus did not turn away from him even though in doing so he broke every social convention? Jesus looked straight at the suffering and named the demons that tormented the man. And in ways that are more mysterious than I can begin to fathom, in the power of the Spirit, the demons came out of the man, and were replaced by peace and calm.
It occurs to me that one way in which we may encounter Jesus' Holy Spirit is by looking straight at the suffering around us and engaging it. These past eleven days I witnessed my daughter and her husband be overwhelmed by trauma, look straight into it's face and engage it. With the support of faithful people, compassionate professionals and the grace of the ever present Spirit of our Lord, peace and healing were called out of the chaos.
May we all have the courage to look into the face of suffering and recognize therein the grace of the Spirit. Debra
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