Friday, April 25, 2014

Hey Yesterday!

Hey Yesterday, I’m waiting! Where did you go, Yesterday? I woke up this morning and you were gone. Just gone! I know I’ve made nearly every bad decision a man can make, but did you really have to just disappear into the past? You left me here with all I’ve made of myself.

I heard you could be making a return, so I’m waiting for you. I’m right here, right where you left me. I haven’t moved from this spot, this place in time. I keep looking at today, but I still have my feet planted firmly with you, Yesterday. I’ll be here, in the Today, for as long as it takes for you to return. So, hurry up and get here.

You know, Yesterday… Today, this Today, I don’t feel the need for you is as strong as some of my other Todays. Your vividness is fading from color to black and white, and this to grayscale. Your allure is losing its grip; I feel you slipping into a permanent past. And yet there is something about you, Yesterday, that keeps me yearning for you.

And while I’m still looking for you Yesterday, it’s not as often as I once did. Not as intensely as in those other Todays. I have another who is competing for my attention. It calls itself Tomorrow. I’m a little afraid of this Tomorrow, there seems to be a lot of uncertainty standing by its side. Perhaps that’s the allure of it, that whole not knowing part. I see pleasure and pain in this Tomorrow. Pleasure is a natural desire and pain is natural fact and both have roots in you, Yesterday. There’s a lot certainty with you Yesterday. I know where I stand with you. You never change.

Well Yesterday, Today is coming to an end. And I am fairly certain there will be another Today, waiting for me when I arise. It may well be true that you, Yesterday, are indeed not coming back. And this, Tomorrow, may not be as certain as it claims to be. Perhaps it’s better for me to live in the Today. Perhaps it is better I keep the lessons I have learned during our time together and otherwise let you go. Perhaps it is better for me to worry about this Tomorrow when it gets here, there’s a promise in this Tomorrow. So, perhaps………… Just perhaps……….



by David E. Gonzales

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Give your life for another?

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends”. John, 15; 13

Most certainly our men and women in uniform deserve all the accolades as possible for their sacrifices to all of us individually and as a Nation. This is more about a secondary meaning of “giving your life” than any attempt to disregard the traditional understanding of this thread of Holy Scripture. It is easier to give your life once in death than to keep on living to care for and to give of yourself to others. In life, Jesus gave his life to all in preaching and teaching his Father’s ways. In death, Jesus gave his life for our salvation.

This is about “charity” not so much about giving up your life to death, but is instead giving your life, in life, with service to the poor. To physically die to protect someone’s life is indeed a great sacrifice; to give your life in charity is a lifelong endeavor. To give your life to protect a life is a onetime offering; to give your life in charity is to give life throughout your life.  I believe that this is in congruence with the teachings of Christ. Jesus taught us throughout the Gospels to love one another. Charity is consistently taught to us as a personal lesson.

In the verse preceding John, 15; 13, Jesus gives his greatest commandment: “love one another as I love you”. In the following verses Jesus calls his disciples “Friends” and explains why he does so. (John 15; 15), “I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.”  In keeping chapter fifteen (15; 1-16) in context, it is clear that Jesus is commanding that we take of each other. He is teaching his disciples that love is expressed through acts of charity, and that charity is how we love each other.

In these teaching of Jesus we can extract a sense that Jesus in not teaching a collective type of charity. Jesus’ teachings were directed at Jews and the leaders of the temple in Israel. Jesus was teaching a personal sense of love/charity. At no time did he direct the government, any government, to centralize charity. Love expressed is the work of disciples and apostles of God, both individually and through the Church. Charity is the work of salvation, not salvation deserved, but instead salvation preserved.

May blessings of Love and Charity be in your heart.


All scripture is from the NABRE
by David E. Gonzales