<html><body><div>Part 2 for Sunday - of course, editing will happen! 8-)</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><font face="Arial" size="2"> “What good is that?” Moses may have muttered. And we may join him in frustration. But think about that for a moment. Imagine someone who’s been a tremendous influence in your life. Picture someone who’s opened our minds in what we thought was an impossibly dangerous and difficult situation. When we have that much respect for and security with such a person, we <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>CAN</u></b> recognize them from the back. We know how she or he holds her or himself, what gestures are characteristic of that person, or how others react in the company of that person. Even from the back, we still know that person and can be filled with love, and gratitude, and awe.</font><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So with God. Moses didn’t <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NEED</u></b> to see God face-to-face. Moses could tell, even from behind, that <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT</u></b> was God there. Of course, he had to be trained, he had to be receptive to the possibilities that that was how God behaved. In the first place, he had to be open to the fact that God was and always is present. That helps! So for us. We call out to God in our confusion, in our loneliness, in our frustration, in our pain. We want relief. We want God to sit down to share a good strong cup of tea and eat a scone with us, and to point out ways in which we can begin to approach what’s creating so many difficulties in our lives. It’s the personal thing, the proper way to deal with life, to make physical contact. And the good news is that God knows this; God appreciates and understands our positions. So, just as for Moses, God lets us catch the image of a familiar figure passing away out of our immediate presence or field of view.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This this leads to the second point of reassurance. When we, just as did Moses, see God from the back, we need to understand where God has been. God <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAS</u></b> been here; and there; and everywhere. Perhaps we didn’t know. It’s highly likely that we didn’t know it. As if a loved one had been in the room with us and it wasn’t apparent because we were too involved with other things and other people that we didn’t notice. Maybe we were decrying what was happening around us. Maybe we were too wrapped up with internal matters that we failed to notice the person in the same room. No matter how crowded the room may have been, surely we should have been able to sense the presence of the Other. I hope you all have experienced that, when the person you know so well, the person whom you trust and admire so much, seems to leave some sort of radar-like signal that you and I can sense, even without physical sight.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>But so we know how often it happens that it’s as the person leaves that we understand truly who the person is, and how important the person is. It’s only because of what that special person has done and has left behind that, all of a sudden, the light goes on, and we know in whose Presence we have been. Then we’re encouraged, we’re given hope because we know that that person cares enough to be with us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>So with God. God doesn’t want to destroy us outright with brilliance and glory. Discovering them fully simply has to wait for another time. So God may touch us so lightly that we don’t think much of it. God may whisper a word, or flash a smile, or laugh at a joke, and then move on, leaving enough for us to be able to face up to whatever people or situations are causing us fits, just as God did for Moses.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is what I find so helpful. Short of an audience, it can be enormously reassuring.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Yet there’s more. As we realise that God has been present and leaves us grace, so we may have our minds and eyes opened to discover that God may have been working through all sorts of people and events, and that they are symbols equal to anything else we may want and need. The wonderfully made people of God are part of God’s plan for us, no matter how strange, how different, how unexpected, even how apparently unattractive such people and events may seem; no matter how much we have been brought up to ignore or despise certain people or events, God’s Presence <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>IS</u></b> there and can provide what we long for, even if we’re taken aback by the messenger.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Let me give a reverse analogy. Remember Pigpen in the Charlie Brown comic strip? There were times when he was stationary, talking with other people, hair mussed, clothes ruffled, and so on. More often than not, though, his presence was marked by a trail or dust, and dirt, and many other objects sucked up in his path. I <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>DID</u></b> say that that was a reverse analogy! Yet what if God, moving through our lives and the lives of everyone in creation; what if God becomes known further to us by the sparkling stardust <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>OR</u></b> by the blowing dust and garbage? What if God appoints wonderful individuals to trail through our lives, perhaps stop for a while to engage us, and then move on down the road or across the street, even if those individuals are what we consider are far from what <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>WE</u></b> might consider “wonderfully made”?</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Nowhere does God say that we’re <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> wonderfully filled with the abilities to make a difference to ourselves and others. It’s simply a matter of expanding our imaginations, and being willing to look at everything from different angles and open minds.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I love the Monty Python film “A Life of Brian”. Partly it’s the ribald humour, but it’s also the way that God’s love can be displayed so disarmingly through what the characters say and do.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Towards the end of the film, the characters are sitting in a room at kind of a town hall meeting designed to devise ways to harass the Roman occupiers and throw them out of Israel. John Cleese’s character is leading and trying to arouse the crowd. He says, “Come on!<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>What have the Romans ever done for us?”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There’s some muttering and then one timid person pipes up, “Aqueducts.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>There’s silence, astonished silence.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Well, yes, I suppose,” says Cleese’s character, “but, really, what <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>HAVE</u></b> the Romans ever done for us?”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Again, there’s silence until a voice says, “Irrigation.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>John Cleese is getting exasperated. This meeting isn’t going as he’d planned, so he repeats the question a third time, only to hear someone at the back of the room mutter, “Sanitation”.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And then a few more people in the crowd – supposedly a relatively uneducated, pretty pliable mob – more people start to speak. “Roads”.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Well, of course they built roads. They had to build roads.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Wine”.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Public safety”.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And the list goes on for several minutes until John Cleese, feeling that the purpose of denigrating the Romans and building up people’s anger against them is slipping out of his control, finally shouts, “O.K. So, aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, education, wine, public baths, public safety and order,<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>medicine, fresh water system, public health, peace. But what have the Romans <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>REALLY</u></b> done for us?” <sup>3</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s like Jesus surrounded by those quizzing Him and trying to entrap Him. “O.K. Do we have to pay taxes?” </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Let’s see a coin.” And, horror of horrors, one of the elite is actually carrying a despised and, to a good Jew, defiling Roman coin. “Whose likeness is that?” asked Jesus? “Well?”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Where was God that day? Where is God this day? When will we see God? And how? And what has God done for us lately? </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Always look on the bright side!”<br style="mso-special-character:line-break"><br style="mso-special-character:line-break"></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTES:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Via “StoryPeople” by Brian Andreas, 13<sup>th</sup> October, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>2</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>“Wonder – Brother, give us a Word”,</span></i><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(32, 32, 32); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> Br. David Vryhof, S.S.J.E., 2<sup>nd</sup> October, 2017</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>3</span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“Life of Brian”,</i> Monty Python film, produced in 1979, directed by Terry Jones. </span><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjDz6_v6PrWAhUJ8WMKHQQJCZwQyCkILDAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DY7tvauOJMHo&usg=AOvVaw1CRKX7bzulJQhZkTfzsf-T"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 153);">Monty Python: What have the romans ever done for us? - YouTube</span></a><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span><span style='margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 102, 33); font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo"><font color="#0000ff">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7tvauOJMHo</font></a> </span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=16&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjDz6_v6PrWAhUJ8WMKHQQJCZwQFgh3MA8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmontypython.50webs.com%2Fscripts%2FLife_of_Brian%2F10.htm&usg=AOvVaw1WDXrxQpxCSw3887ByHgVM"><span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(102, 0, 153);">Life of Brian Script - Scene 10: Before the Romans Things Were Smelly</span></a> <span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(0, 102, 33);">montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/10.htm</span></span></p></div></body></html>