Blog # 105 Singular, Unique

Blog # 105 Singular, Unique Back in January of 2000 I didn't want just to throw away the beautiful Christmas cards I had received at Christmas and decided to use them as part of one of my bulletins to the inmates I knew at the State prison where I used to visit. I cut the cards into pieces with one piece for each bulletin. Each unique piece made each of the bulletins unique. I explained to the ladies how although several of them may have received a piece with the picture of a shepherd, or of St. Joseph, a camel, a palm tree or any of the other items and people we find on a typical Christmas greeting, the piece each of them received was unique. Others were similar , but there did not exist in all the world another of the one each of those received who received a bulletin that week. And you could not buy it, even if you were an artist or a photographer or you had a lot of money, because it was a GIFT ! I sent it to them and I had to be part of it forever. If we think of it, it is something like this with all of creation. There is one sun, one moon, and many stars. There are many shells on a beach, many leaves on a tree, many blades of grass in a lawn, many people living and working, many sick and many well here in Augusta any day of the year. Yet each time I see, touch, or even think of any one of them that experience is unique, never done before, never to be done again, by no one else but by me. If we identify such an experience correctly we see that it cannot be bought with any amount of money. In a similar way,ALL OF CREATION is a gift of the Creator of all! We have a part to play in order to make it real and complete. It is to understand it as a gift and to receive it from God's love. Simply that. One person is ninety years old. Another is three. One person is blind. I am deaf. God loves us that way! This may seem strange to you, and I admit it is unfamiliar territory for many people. But that is perhaps the background of God being a stranger to many. Holiness is not a question of good works but rather of being more and more aware of God's presence and receiving God's love personally and uniquely as our own. That is the root and reason for good works. "...as I have loved you." The fact is we cannot here on earth in our natural human limitations be conscious of God and be consciously loving God always , but we can be conscious of God and love God in and among the other things we do. THAT ,it seems to me, identifies authentic holiness and prayer