05/28/2026
- DAILY REFLECTION -
Today's reflection compliments of Greg Sturgill.
After a couple-year hiatus—and a nudge from my good friend Mary Regan—I’m back to share my (slightly unconventional) reflections with you again. I never really stopped writing; I’ve been posting daily over at Ex4minedL1fe.blogspot.com. But there’s something about returning to this space that feels like coming home. There’s renewed energy in sitting with these spiritual reflections and putting them into words with some consistency again.
In the past, I usually focused on either the first reading or the Gospel—rarely both—because they didn’t always seem to go hand in hand. But today is different. There’s a thread running clearly through both readings, and it’s not subtle.
It’s hunger.
Not the polished, presentable kind. Not the kind that waits its turn. The kind that cries out. Bartimaeus is sitting on the roadside, blind, begging, and overlooked. When he hears Jesus passing by, he doesn’t compose himself. He doesn’t wait for a quiet moment. He doesn’t wonder what people will think. He shouts.
“Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” The crowd does what crowds often do. They try to manage him. Silence him. Tone him down. “Be quiet.”
The part that grabs me: He gets louder. That line from the first reading echoes here: “Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk…”
That’s Bartimaeus. He’s not dignified. He’s not filtered. He’s desperate. Because when you know you need something—really need it—you stop worrying about volume. Somewhere along the way, we learned to be more controlled than hungry. More composed than honest. We don’t cry out anymore. We whisper safe prayers and call it faith.
When Jesus finally calls him, something almost gets missed: “He (Bartimaeus) threw aside his cloak…” That cloak mattered. It was his security. Identity. Perhaps the only thing he owned. It was what he sat on, what he wrapped himself in—his place in the world as a beggar. And he throws it off.
Why is this important? Because you can’t step into healing while clinging to the thing that defined your brokenness. That part stings a little, because we all have cloaks. Things we’ve learned to live in. Labels we’ve accepted. Patterns that feel safer than change.
Sometimes the invitation of Jesus sounds like this: “You can come—but you can’t bring that with you.” Jesus asks him: “What do you want me to do for you?”
On the surface, it feels obvious. He’s blind. But Jesus still makes him say it anyway. Why? Because naming your need requires honesty. Not vague spirituality. Not polished answers. Just truth.
“Master, I want to see.” Clear. Direct. No hedging. I wonder how often I miss something because I won’t be that honest. We ask for comfort instead of healing. Relief instead of transformation. Guidance instead of surrendering.
The first reading says: “You are… called out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Bartimaeus lives that in real time. Here’s the shift: He doesn’t just receive his sight and go back to life as usual. “He followed him on the way.” That’s the difference between a moment and a transformation. He didn’t just want to see again. He wanted a new direction.
“Like living stones… built into a spiritual house…” That’s bigger than a miracle moment. That’s identity. Bartimaeus wasn’t just healed—he was repositioned. From the roadside… to the road. From observer… to follower. From someone defined by limitation… to someone becoming part of what God is building.
Both readings press the same question, just from different angles: Are you still hungry enough to cry out?
Or have you learned how to sit quietly in what isn’t working?
Because the crowd will always tell you to tone it down. Your fear will tell you to stay where it’s familiar. Your “cloak” will whisper that this is just who you are. Jesus is still passing by. Still stopping. Still asking: “What do you want me to do for you?”
Once again, the answer isn’t complicated. It just has to be honest. Today’s take away might be, faith looks less like having it all together… and more like being unwilling to stay silent.
Social media has become a sea of silent scrolling—thumbs up, heart emojis, maybe a fire symbol if you’re lucky. But real conversation? Rare! So here I am, dusting off the old blog spirit (RIP An Examined Life, wherever you are) and diving back into long-form storytelling. Let’s see if we can s...
