Creation by Michelangelo

What does a planting pole bean seeds along a homemade trellis have in common with trying to communicate a simple idea by email? Except for being simple they do not have much in common. Planting bean seeds is straight, open and forthright. Communicating a message by email is a challenge and is open to misrepresentation and interpretation the way the receiver wants it to be. This is my observation today.

I heard a famous scientist on TV today say he thinks in conceptual ideas. I saw some NBA basketball players on TV today that express their message in hard physical play.

We are all guilty of thinking too much and not paying attention to the reality of what is happening around us. Today we had fancy dinner in nice hotel after mass to celebrate the closing next week of our Church. Our church was founded in 1897 in this area. In 114 years the neighborhood has radically changed. The neighborhood around the Church has changed from a rural white area to an urban, mostly African American neighborhood. Sadly the change of the church has not kept pace of the change of the neighborhood. I was reading during the dinner a brief history of the church on this spot. The early church adapted to the neighborhood changing, welcoming persons of all faiths to its activities and during the big depression of the thirties mortgaging the church to save neighborhood families.

Nowadays we are told we cannot even hold a St. Vincent De Paul conference meeting in a non-Catholic Church and instead of using the money from the sale of the Church to give to the poor and needy we talk about setting up an ‘outreach center.’ The very simple message of the Church and Gospel, love God and your neighborhood has become full of rules and regulations. We have moved the Church into conceptual thinking and away from incarnating the Church in the reality of our everyday lives.

While we talk and talk about ideas of serving the poor a number of people were shot nearby our Church the last few days. Where was the church, talking and confusing about concepts on email?

Jesus said when two or more are gathered in his name he would be there. We the people are church. We do not a building but could use the money from the sale of the building. Some in the Church are looking for a new identity and a new concept while people in the neighborhood struggle to survive physically.

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