For her graduation gift, our daughter took a trip to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands. She received a degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston. She had a great time and brought back lots of cool pictures of the wild life, the blue birds, the bright red and blue crabs, and the old tortoises. She enlarged some photos and gave them as gifts. We got a picture she took of the Amazon river. Now it is a 2' by 3' framed picture of the front bow of a boat in dense fog. It is all grey except for the red and brown bow of the boat pointing forward. There is a simple beauty to it. It is also intriguing. You cannot see where you are going. In front of you are only vague shapes and shadows. For me, this is a great metaphor of life. We don’t know where we are going. We have our ideas and our desires and needs. But do we really know where or how we will live tomorrow? Did my wife and I expect to be at St. Jane’s, living in Maryland ten years ago? Was this our master plan? Well, no. But here we are. This is where God has planted us. And it is here where we will grow. A deacon friend of mine says that the best way to get a laugh out of God is to tell him your plans! I believe that God has plans for us, plans of goodness and love and salvation. “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Let us take our boat into the fogginess of life, but with the reassurance that we go, not alone, but with hope in God, directing us.
Blessings,
Deacon Steve
“Let us live as the Blessed Virgin lived: loving God only, desiring God only, trying to please God only in all that we do.”
~ Thoughts of the Cure D’Ars
