Last night I did not write a posting on the Diary of Worm due to the fact I had written myself out in an email I sent to members of Society of St. Vincent De Paul in Milwaukee. I write these posting for myself and if they make someone else reflect or be inspired, that is a bonus. I try to write some each night but decided that this week to take some breaks from writing, sought of a retreat, to step back and reflect. Often stepping back one can see more clearly what is in front of them and how to continue the journey.

I am inspired to write tonight by the second reading, from Letter of Peter (1 Peter 2:4–9) where the author ask us to come to Jesus, “a living stone rejected by human beings but chosen and precious in sight of God” and be like living stores to be build into a spiritual house.

Before this web page I wrote an occasional newsletter by email to friends called “Living Stones”. I just tried to share some of the inspiration, writing, reflections and people I was blessed with in life.

The part of being a “living stone” that I overlooked but now fully understand is the part of being “rejected by human beings”. In those days of the newsletter I was invited to speak at Marquette University to classes a number of times; some people called me a ‘prophet’, believe it not. I was respected.

Now partially thanks to my own design and the impersonal communication of email some of my friends from those days reject me, often by the most harmful form of rejection, ignoring the person so you do not need to deal with message. I am a flawed person as some of my old friends and new friends, who are mostly poor and ill, know. But my real friends these days do not put me in a box and stigmatize me. Being a ‘living store’ means being accused of having a hard heart where just the opposite, compassionate and solidarity with those most in need, makes you speak out from the heart, even if the message is “what you do not want to hear.”

One sign of being a true ‘living store’ rejected by humans but acceptable to God is that despite any suffering, insults and rejection there is a deep sense of peace if you doing what God calls you to do in conscience and faith. A living store is hard and determined but being living is soft and sensitive. It is better to be a ‘living store’ than a ‘dead stone’.

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