My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts

Dear Friend,

“My thoughts are not your thoughts,” says the Lord to the prophet Isaiah and thus sounds the strongest current running through this Sunday’s readings. It’s an invitation and a challenge: consider, ponder, take hold of how and what a prophet hears and sees, for true prophets operate under the sometimes terrifying influence of Holiness itself. First and foremost, she or he gazes deeply not into the crystal ball of the future, but into the often-confounding present. Prophets challenge us to realize that we’re all born with the capacity and even the desire (sometimes latent) to see the world differently and more truly than our surrounding culture would have us see things. Prophets challenge us to use our imaginations to probe what might indeed be God’s thoughts.  

All this comes from my experience last week of watching a baby look into my eyes, her thoughts so far from mine. What is this strange face? the infant seemed to ask? What am I seeing?  What do I make of you? seemed to be her question. I wanted to gesture all around me, the world, the whole enchilada, I wanted to respond, what to make of any of it! You’ll be asking that question every day of your life!

And I want to say to the baby, you’ll read Jesus’s parables some day and they might really confuse you. They dramatize God’s vision, and in the process traumatize some listeners, especially those who think they have things all figured out. Stay with those parables and abide with Jesus, the greatest parable and prophet of all! You’ll hear him say, “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you’ll find rest.”  

Ah, but the learning comes slowly. Our imaginations strain to be enlarged! 

 Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm, Pastor