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Church of St. Brigid Fairfield, 200 S. Main Street, Fairfield, IA (2026)

Everyone (and we really do mean everyone!) is invited to experience the sacrament of Holy Eucharist with us at 10AM on Sundays. Brigid Church is an ecumenical Catholic community where women and men are priests; where the sacraments are available to all; where you are welcomed. We emphasize Original Blessing over original sin, Gender Balance over Patriarchy, God as both Father and Mother (and more)

, Dialectical (both/and) over dualistic (either/or). Brigid is a part of the Ascension Alliance, one of the largest Independent Catholic churches in America. Brigid of Ireland, whose life and activities are both demonstrably historical and pleasingly mythological. In both she encompasses an inclusivity that embraces both heaven and earth, and everything in between. This Celtic sense of spirituality is one that sees the goodness of creation and recognizes that people are created by God as unique creations to be as they are: multi-racial, multi-sexual, multi-lingual, multi-cultural. Just as the sun shines on all, the rains and the fruits of the Earth nourish all, so does God love all. The Celtic sense of spirituality is one that sees that God is in all things in creation, and is an ever expressing creative presence in both nature and in human lives. God is seen not as remote and judgmental, but closely companioning, accompanying and blessing every step of our journey.

02/01/2026

Homily, fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today's Gospel is the familiar sermon on the mount of Matthew chapter 5. In all of the New Testament, nothing so clearly spells out the central teachings of Jesus as do the Beatitudes. These several verses, consisting of nine statements, are the central core of the Christian tradition—a core that all too many self-professed Christians forget. They contain within them all of the knowledge necessary to grow on the path that the Divine has offered to humanity.

We’ve all heard them many times in our lives, and we’ve heard the story around them. In today’s America, happiness is unfortunately often centered around external things: self-reliance, material wealth and accumulation of things, along with the necessary assertiveness and action to achieve them. Yet happiness is often measured in terms of comfort, popularity and power. The end result of this is typically spiritual decay, exhaustion, ambivalence and isolation. Even those who are self-professed Christians often fool themselves into believing that they are living the life that they believe Jesua wishes for them.

So what is it that Jeshua tells us in the beatitudes that stands in opposition to these ideas?

To truly understand these nine short aphorisms, one has to understand that Jeshua spoke that day to people who were in a class called “anawim”—those without power, those without wealth, and those without comfort. Those that followed Jesua onto the mountain that day were social outcasts in the eyes of those in power—people who had little to lose, and everything to gain. These aphorisms are not new commandments; they are not new things that people need to do in order to experience the Divine. They are actually reflections of what those awakened into the Divine life will experience, they are traits that will be exhibited rather than prescriptions for attainment.

“Blessed are…” Matthew wrote his gospel in Greek, and the Greek word used here is Μακάριοι, (makarioi) translated into Latin as “beatus” but Jeshua spoke in Aramaic, and so would have used the word “Toowayhon”, which contains a richer meaning: happy, fulfilled, blissful. This Aramaic word connotes something far deeper: the capacity to enjoy union and communion with the Divine. It is an active word, a word that inscribes relationship and encompasses a sense of wholeness. This is very important to remember as we explicate these nine verses.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This verse has always confused people, for how can those poor in spirit live in the kingdom of heaven? In Greek, the word used for “poor” is πτωχοὶ (potokoi), which is a very interesting word. The kind of poverty here is meant to portray the dependence of a beggar, whose life is one that depends upon what is given to them. Jesua is telling his listeners that knowing that all things come from the Divine relieves people from having to worry about where the next meal will come from. This is reminiscent of what Jeshua tells people in the next chapter of Matthew 6: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Poverty of spirit is faith, it is the lived experience that the Divine takes care of everything even if we think it’s impossible or improbable. The awakened heart knows that it is the Divine that supports us and that we live and breath in the Divine.

Blessed are those that mourn, for they will be comforted. As this is being written, America is in the grip of government sponsored terrorism that defends the shooting and killing of citizens as a matter of course and policy. Americans are beginning to wake up to the injustices being forced upon them, for even in the middle of national strife, those whose hearts are awakened are mourning injustice, mourning sin, and mourning the brokenness of the world. It is the awakened heart that longs for balance, longs for justice, and longs for equanimity. Those that wander or are in emotional turmoil will receive comfort from within. Nothing outside of our awareness will comfort us, only what comes from within will satisfy the wandering or broken hearted. The awakened heart turns within and finds the blessings it needs in love.

The awakened heart is one that simultaneously sees cruelty yet seeks to heal it through love, knowing that the way of the Divine is love. Only through love can injustice be balanced. The awakened heart knows that eventually, through love, those estranged from the Divine will wander home, and the comfort comes from knowing that all things have their time.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. There is something very special about this verse, for in Aramaic there are nuances of meaning in words that are completely absent from English. “Ripe are the gentle; they shall be open to receive strength from the earth”. The connotations in Aramaic here are special: the meek are those who have softened what has been hard, or surrendered to the Divine. Only in those who have softened the ground of their being can the work of God be manifest. The power of the earth or universe can then flow through such a life; the power of the Divine expresses as a fertile and unbounded expansion of growth. The meek therefore inherit the expanse of all of creation itself.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. There are two levels of meaning inherent in this aphorism. The first is on the level of the individual, and the second is on the level of society. The awakened heart yearns for ever greater experience of the Divine, and turning within, find that the Divine is not separate from us, but integrated as the basis of our very being. Righteousness is not a description, is it a result. In first century Palestine, a righteous person is one who displays the love and wisdom of the Divine because they have found it, not just as one who seeks it. In Aramaic, the expressions of this verse include resting in the perfection of waiting intensely, that is, to wait intensely is to experience stillness and silence. Doing so is completing to the soul when it is watered by the spirit’s creativity through stillness.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. In Aramaic, this would be translated as “Ripe are the compassionate; upon them shall be compassion.” There are deep connotations in Aramaic that need to be reinserted into these words, for contained here are ideas of the warmth of the womb, and the image of birthing mercy. The awakened heart experiences compassion because it embraces compassion from inside. The awakened heart knows that people behave in ways that are often unexpectedly vicious or cruel, yet realizes that the only response is compassion upon those who need it the most: the angry, the lost, the sad, the frustrated, those whose lives seem far from the Divine as well as those whose lives seek the Divine. By birthing mercy into the world, compassion heals the broken, salves the savage, and encourages the despondent.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God. Those awakened hearts who through lives of compassion, birth mercy into the world, are those who learn to see the Divine in others as well as within themselves. The awakened heart eventually learns that there is no difference between the Divine within and the Divine in others; that both are the same Divine. The Aramaic roots of the words in this aphorism call up the image of a flower blooming because that is its nature, and it has no other choice than to fulfill its own nature. The concept of heart here includes a center from which radiates life, vitality, direction and courage. The awakened heart is one that radiates the light of life, but see that light in others.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. The awakened heart is a peacemaker, for it experiences peace. From peace comes peace. The world is always in chaos. But the awakened heart is a center of “shalom”, and from this center emanates love, compassion, strength and acceptance. In this sense, the children of God are the qualities of the Divine that the awakened heart radiates, such emanations are Divine creations.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The awakened heart is one that vibrates with intensity—the intensity of silence, of stillness, of creative potential. The awakened heart can soothe or disturb; it can heal or agitate. The world is one of chaos for the chaotic, while for the awakened heart the world is one of potential. In the presence of the awakened heart, the slumbering heart may feel uncomfortable as it is urged to awaken. Those who live in stress, confusion and chaos have always preyed upon those who seek balance and justice in life. The awakened heart knows that the Divine is within them and so no matter how chaotic the world is, nothing can take that away. Being free inside, the awakened heart cannot be chained by those who would try, and cannot be suppressed. Love cannot be denied, delayed nor hindered. The awakened heart already knows the kingdom of heaven is inside and outside if one buts looks to see that light of the Divine in all things. By living as an awakened heart, love can be contagious, spreading from one person to another. Enough awakened hearts can change the direction of time and society.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. The awakened heart sees the world very differently than the sleeping heart. While the awakened heart sees the world—even a broken and chaotic world—as the place where the Divine can live, the sleeping heart experiences nightmares and pain, fear and powerlessness, and seeks to impose pain and fear and powerlessness upon others by dehumanizing and trivializing them and devaluing their lives. The sleeping heart insulates itself from others by labeling and devaluing others, and by doing so further isolates and devalues itself. Eventually the pain of isolation and the misery it causes cannot be mediated by continuing to cause pain for others, and the sleeping heart is often jolted into beginning to wake up precisely because nothing else is working. When that happens, there is often an awakened heart that comes into their lives to help guide them back home.

And I say: Blessed are those who endure, for they will, hand in hand, help walk others home.

12/08/2025

Homily Second Sunday in Advent 2025

Our first reading today is from Isaiah, chapter 11, and is the famous prophecy in which Isaiah foretells the emergence of a righteous ruler, but more importantly, describes the characteristics of such a person. Isaiah tells us that such a person would come from the lineage of Jesse. While most people focus on the “root of Jesse”, and hence try to establish the genealogical connections to Jeshua, that is really not at all what is important about this wonderful piece of scripture.

What is important is what Isaiah tells us about what characterizes a person of righteousness. The qualities ascribed and associated with this person are indeed both desirable from a political as well as a spiritual point of view, as Isaiah was highlighting the importance of both roles being fulfilled by such a person.

These, then are the qualities and characteristics which one may see in such an enlightened person:

Wisdom and Understanding.

Empathy and ability to effortlessly communicate.

Unwavering steadiness and equanimity of personality.

Deep knowledge and experience of the life of the Spirit.

Love of knowledge and God.

Balance and fairness tempered with the desire to see all succeed.

Violence and unsettledness turn to peace in their presence.

Conflict is resolved in their presence.

In their presence, knowledge and understanding blossom.

These qualities and characteristics describe far more than what the simplicity of the language used here suggest: for as these things are visible externally, they become internalized by those in that presence. In other words, they become both an internal experience, and a goal to strive for.

Isaiah was telling us that not only would such a spiritual leader emerge, but when such a leader arises, not only will they display these things and many more, but the generational impact of such a leader will be like a purifying fire of spirit that will warm those of good heart and mind while simultaneously burning those whose lives and actions convict them of failing to use the opportunity to grow.

There are many ways to interpret this passage, and depending upon your theological proclivities, or doctrinal constraints, you may for example assert that the passage refers only to the advent of the person of Jeshua as the Messiah and nothing else is possible. As this is advent, this is the perfect time for the church to emphasize this part of Isaiah.

Yet consider looking at this a different way. Embrace the power of “both/and”. Yes, Jesse was the father of King David. And Matthew chapter 1 details the lineage from Jesse to Jeshua. But hidden in this passage from Isaiah is the Hebrew word for “root” (sheresh) which connotes a living root that remains alive, viable, vibrant, verdant and eternally active. Within this word is room In which more descendants may emerge.

And this is where it gets interesting. For if the “root of Jesse” is both literal and metaphorical, what is being described is not simple genetics. It is a spiritual foundation, a pool of spiritual clarity and wisdom and connection with the Divine that transcends physicality and embraces the entirety of creation, both seen and unseen. It is as much a spiritual tradition as a genetic one.

If the quality of “sheresh” is indeed eternal and alive, then so is the likelihood that not just one, but many righteous people will arise, and that the lineage is not a genetic lineage leadimg to a single individual in time, but a spiritual lineage in which those who grow to fully reflect the wisdom, understanding, empathy, deep experience of God and knowledge of life will continually arise to bring balance and fairness, in which conflict resolves into peace, and in which this Presence of God becomes radiant in life.

To loosely paraphrase the last line of our first reading then,

“On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the peoples of the world will seek out, for the house of God—the luminous and joyous space of God’s Presence—which will be the glorious and shining house of Love”.

May we seek to nourish our roots, that we may grow to embrace spirit of the root of Jesse in our own lives.

11/05/2025

All Souls Day Homily
Mother Shane Harris

Today is All Soul’s Day on our liturgical calendar. Traditionally, it is a day we Christians focus on hope, hope that is grounded in love. As you may already know, this is the last day of a three-day celebration beginning with All Hollows Eve, followed by All Saints Day and ending with All Souls Day. Each day is dedicated to the remembrance of those who have passed before us and who have shaped, blessed and illuminated our lives.

This three-day event was based on early pagan worship in N.W. Europe. Many of our ancestors came from this area. The Celts set aside three days to celebrate the last of their Fall harvest. It was the time they brought in their cattle and prepared food and stores for the winter. It was a time they gave thanks, once again, to Mother Nature for her Summer season of abundance. It was marked as the beginning of the New Year, with the welcome of the Cailleach, the Mother of Winter cloaked in the darkness of a starry night. The Cailieach presided over the cold snowy months of Winter. Winter being the time of rest and gestation in preparation for the following birth of Spring.

It was believed that the transitional seasons of Autumn and Spring created a liminal threshold between the worlds and allowed people the ability to commune with their loved ones who had passed. Or to receive guidance and prophecy, from their wise ones and spirit guardians.

Yesterday, All Saints Day, is a day of reflection on the lives of saints and is spent remembering and giving thanks to those who share fully in the presence of God. But today, the reflection and remembrance is focused on those souls still on the journey. Traditional Christianity believes that these souls are still in transition - purgatory - and are going through a process of purification. They reside somewhere between earth and heaven, having not fully ascended or merged with God. My belief is that until everyone of us has reached God Realization, we are all, spiritually speaking, somewhere floating in that process of purification between earth and heaven.

Our journey to the feet of our Holy Mother Father God is fired by the Holy Spirit who creates the alchemical process of purification through which divine love flows into us and creates awakening. This flow and process is not always an easy, look at the lives of the saints! But we are promised that we will get there! In our readings today we are told: “As gold in the furnace, He proves us and as sacrificial offerings he takes us to Himself.” The soul’s process of purification is often associated with the alchemical process of turning lead into gold. It is a step by step process, exacting a bit of sacrifice along the way, but that is what our celebration on All Souls Day is all about. Hope. We are given the promise that no matter how far we stray, whether we are still on earth or somewhere in between, we will all be lead, step by step, through the fires of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s Love, to merge with our Creator. We are reminded today that death does not end this love. That with the help of the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ, we will return to our heavenly home.

When we pray for the dead, we express our faith that the bonds formed in Christ are never broken. Our prayers, our worship, our acts of mercy, are signs that we remain connected with those who have passed before us. We entrust them to God’s infinite compassion, confident that His mercy is greater than our weakness. Let us remember that even for those souls who are bound by the darkness of fear, greed, or lust for power and control, that they too are people who hope and have love.

Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, where heaven and earth meet - the living and the dead are united in the body of Christ and of His love. As we remember our beloved in the silence of our hearts, let our prayer be one of gratitude and trust: Gratitude for the lives that have shaped us and guided us, and trust in God’s promise that we will someday be brought with exceeding joy before the presence of God’s luminous glory.

10/05/2025

Homily 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the verses preceding the Gospel selection from Luke that we heard today, the disciples were told the following:

“Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive” (Luke 17:1-4). "

It's interesting—and not surprising-- that in today’s Gospel, which is Luke 17:5-10, the disciples ask for more faith. Given what Jeshua said in the preceding verses of Luke 17:1-4, it’s no wonder that they would want the certainty of being able to forgive without being personally affected, for they all knew that they get frustrated, angry, hurt, and have to struggle to remember that Jesua taught them that they are more than their emotions, they are loved deeply by God. Yet they doubted. They doubted they could rise to the need of the moment to forgive, to help others when they are in need. Theologian Paul Tillich once stated that “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.”

How does Jeshua respond? He tells them that if they had the faith of the mustard seed, they could ask a mulberry tree to relocate itself to the sea and be planted there. And in this Gospel passage, it is the mustard seed that is the key to understanding what the disciples were being told that day.

In the geographical area they lived in, the mustard plant was something of a nuisance plant. It was (and still is) a very successful plant that thrives in harsh conditions, and grows to enormous sizes depending upon the variety. Some varieties grow dense and sprawling shrubbery that takes over all of the space it can expand into. Some varieties grow into very tall trees with thick trunks and expansive canopies. Yet what the various cultivars have in common is that they have extremely small seeds—far smaller than almost any other plant in the region. Therefore, the dichotomy of seeing a very large or expansive growth of plant resulting from the smallest of seeds is an allegory that is impactful, that provides a powerful backdrop for this passage in Luke.

In the Gospel of Thomas, in Logia 20, the Disciples ask Jeshua “Tell us what the kingdom of heaven can be compared to?” He said to them, "It can be compared to a mustard seed. Though it's the smallest of all the seeds, when it falls on tilled soil it makes a plant so large that it shelters the birds of heaven."

In a very real way, then Jeshua was not telling them that faith, or experience, or groundedness in Being, is something that can be given in the way that somebody might give a person a birthday gift. It’s not an object. It’s not a finished product. It’s something that grows, and grows dynamically. Like the mustard plant, it grows and expands and envelopes and continually changes and reaches into many different directions all at once. It gathers light from all directions, and gathers moisture and nourishment from deep in the soil, establishing strong and extensive roots. The winds may blow above, but the roots below are silent, strong and protected.

The mustard tree becomes steady and strong, resistant to winds, drought, insects and animals. Indeed, it becomes a home for all the birds of heaven.

What Jeshua was saying to his disciples, and continues to say to us today, is that faith is not static, faith is not given, faith is not donned like a shirt or shoes. Faith grows when there is light, when it is watered by spirit, when it is allowed to grow in its own way in its own time.

When faith, like the mustard tree, is established, one acts in the interests of the need of the moment, confident that what is done, is done in the most natural and best way possible. One might say that we don’t act, faith acts through us. We really did not have a choice in the matter, we acted in the best interests of life itself. Faith is the steadiness of the mind linked with the love of the heart. As we grow in faith, we sometimes doubt. When we do, doubt the doubt. Doubt is the realization that faith has grown to replace belief. The mind cannot experience doubt unless it also experiences what it is uncertain about. Instead, realize along with Paul Tillich that doubt is just part of the journey. There is a story about John Wesley, founder of Methodism, who is said to have gone though a rough period in life when his faith was very low. A friend told him that he needed to “preach faith until you have it. Then, because you have it, you will preach faith”.

And this is where some subtle understanding is needed. People often confuse faith and belief. Belief is a product of the intellect, but faith is the product of love. Beliefs can easily create illusion, confusion, and can become stiff, brittle, and unyielding. Beliefs can shape our perception and hence our understanding of life itself. Belief has nothing to do with truth or reality. It has everything to do with how we choose to see life. Beliefs can easily stunt growth in faith, because faith is found in the gaps between beliefs, and if a person is paying attention, their beliefs change when their faith—their lived experience—teaches them something deeper. If beliefs don’t change, then faith is not lived.

Belief is useful to the immature soul because it helps create guide rails that act to warden the behavior and impulses of the soul until faith begins to help the soul mature. This is why Christianity developed institutional creeds—to create beliefs that differentiated it from other religious systems and to create uniformity of belief, and hence understanding and perception of life. Whatever the politics were that surrounded the creation of such creeds—and the politics were indeed intense and deadly—the end result helped many souls to grow through belief until faith could replace it. In this way, faith often contradicts belief, and in the resulting dissonance, belief changes to match what faith experiences. While belief is observational, faith is apprehended from within. It is intuited. As the soul matures, beliefs diminish in meaning and importance until faith alone informs behavior, until one lives fully in faith, in surrender to the divine, which infuses all aspects of the soul’s life.

This is very much the way that the mustard plant grows: from small seed, challenged by wind, drought and heat, it nonetheless continues to grow in spite of the conditions around it. It simply adapts. So do we. While life around us may seem chaotic and challenging, faith can grow because we recognize it in ourselves, and if we recognize it, we nourish it. When we thus nourish it by our attention, it grows. Soon, it grows in ways we did not expect, in directions we could not imagine, gathering light and perspectives and understanding that we could not anticipate. Over time, we ourselves become a haven for the birds of heaven. It is not necessary that we command a mulberry tree to relocate itself; it is enough that we recognize that we have more in common with the mulberry tree than we first imagined. We each start from a seed of faith, take root, and grow. Through prayer, meditation, reflection, service, and devotion, we nourish ourselves and others. We learn to see that others are but reflections of ourselves and come to understand that prayer is seeing God in the world, meditation is seeing God in ourselves, but love is seeing God in the person next to us. Then faith has come full circle.

08/04/2025

Homily 18th Sunday in Ordinary time

”Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!
Here is one who has labored with wisdom and knowledge and skill,
and yet to another who has not labored over it,
he must leave property.
This also is vanity and a great misfortune.
For what profit comes to man from all the toil and anxiety of heart
with which he has labored under the sun?
All his days sorrow and grief are his occupation;
even at night his mind is not at rest.
This also is vanity.”

In the first reading, from Ecclesiastes, we are given a wonderful gift of wisdom, which is supported in the Gospel for today as well. This wisdom is something that needs to be highlighted in today’s society. Americans are taught that the purpose of life is to achieve the “American Dream”, which by definition means hard work and acquisition of property and goods.

But the wisdom we have heard today turns that idea upside down. The only difference between the wealthiest people in America and the poorest people is a bank balance. In truth, no matter how much property you have, or how much you crave, or how many things you have—cars, boats, houses, stocks and bonds, clothing and jewelry—you don’t actually own anything. You don’t even own your body. You don’t own the air you breath. You don’t own anything at all, and at any moment you can drop the body and leave all of it behind.

Yet those with wealth are often feverish and apprehensive and stressed and worried about keeping and extending it, sheltering and hiding it, preserving and maintaining it. Their minds are constantly agitated, constantly alert to opportunities and dangers—real or imagined.

Rare is the wealthy person who is not caught in the maelstrom of mental anguish over their wealth. Wise indeed is one who is at peace with whatever happens or whatever they do with their wealth. They are not common, but they do exist. Because they are at peace, they can find good things to do with their wealth—things that benefit others.

The issue here is not wealth. The vanity that our reading tells us about is not vanity in the sense of “look at me”. It’s the attachment of the mind and ego to the need to be seen as rich, opulent, and socially superior. The need of the ego and the impressions in the mind enslave a person to their goods. The mind that is enslaved does not realize that material goods don’t make a life worth living, it’s something else. The phrase “money can’t buy love” is an old and commonly heard aphorism, but worrying about these things prevents us from living more fully. It’s not the wealth. It’s the attachment.

In our Gospel Jeshua tells his listeners that what matters is not the things we foolishly think we own but in reality do not. It’s the things that matter to God, the things that the Divine asks of us. God never asks that we be rich in anything except awareness. What the Divine wants most is for us to experience that we are not separate, but are part of the One. A mind in separation acquires things to fill the apparent void—the gap—between its sense of small self and the wholeness of the large self. A mind resting in the Presence of God is fulfilled, and nothing can be added or taken away.

These are nice words and distinctions, but do our readings today point us to anything that can help us? Paul tells us in Colossians to:
“Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:
immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and the greed that is idolatry.
Stop lying to one another,
since you have taken off the old self with its practices
and have put on the new self,
which is being renewed, for knowledge,
in the image of its creator.
Here there is not Greek and Jew,
circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, slave, free;
but Christ is all and in all.”

It seems rather blunt. He lists quite a few things, but hidden here is the one thing that rules them all: desire. In the Greek, the word used in this sentence is ἐπιθυμίαν (epithymian), which more readily translates to English as greed. And unlike Gordon Gecko’s famous statement in the movie “Wall Street” that “Greed is good”, this is the hub around which ignorance of our true nature revolves. As we see today in the news everywhere, greed is once again in the ascendant, and is praised and extolled such that congress and legislatures are passing laws protecting and enhancing greed for the gain of the few. Yet greed is the fundamental point of this passage. By becoming happy, by becoming content in the presence of God in our lives, greed has no place. Nothing can be added to what we experience, and nothing can be removed. There is no longer any feverishness in the mind, no more burning needs that must be met. We are content with what we are given and what we have. And we learn that there is joy in no longer being attached to things. We are born into this world with empty hands. We will leave this world with empty hands. So why do we spend all of our time trying to grasp our hands around everything we can see? Again, things are not evil. We don’t have to give away all we have to others. But being content with what we have, being in the moment of enjoyment and appreciation of what we have, and more importantly, knowing that what we have is fleeting—this is wisdom. We come into this world as pilgrims to grow. We leave this world as pilgrims who have grown. In between we have the opportunity to understand that we are more than the things we have. Knowing that we don’t actually own anything is liberating. But knowing that in truth all things are made and created by the Divine as a part of God’s active and creative spirit means that we are relieved from the sense that we own something. God owns everything. Everything is in God. All we do is gain stewardship over something for a brief time. Knowing that its all God’s play frees us from the feverishness of epithymian, of greed, of attachment.

Life is too short. Ask yourself this: is what you are doing in your life useful to you and to others around you?

Life is eternal!

Because life is eternal, there will always be an opportunity to experience something, receive something, gain something. Knowing that life is eternal gives us patience, and patience enables us to be in the present more fully.

As we gain in spiritual maturity, we know that suffering in life comes equally from having too much as having too little, and wisdom is knowing that the Divine loves us and provides for us. The key is to marvel, enjoy, appreciate, and be present with everything around us. If we can do that, we have indeed stored up treasure in heaven.

(Photo by Chris Allen)

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