"CHANGES IN LATITUDES, CHANGES IN ATTITUDES"

“CHANGES IN LATITUDES, CHANGES IN ATTITUDES” –Jimmy Buffett

While on vacation back in July, I spent most of my time at my cottage and while there posted 3 or 4 pictures to FaceBook of the lake.  One of my friends commented that I should post other photos rather than the “same shot of the lake.”  Actually each photo was different.  One was before a storm, another was after the storm, another of a sunset and another of a sun rise.  All the photos were taken from the same perspective but the lake changed.  Every moment the view changes as the sun moves across the sky, as clouds billow and leaves change color.  To say that one photo captures all that the lake has to offer is to miss so much of the beauty that is there.  To enjoy the gift from God that is present, one has to keep watching.

It’s like music.  You don’t listen to a piece of music, love it and never listen to it again.  You listen to it over and over because with each hearing you hear something new.  Last Sunday we sang “Oh God Beyond All Praising”, one of my favorite hymns.  The tune is from Gustave Holts’ “The Planets” which has also been a favorite.  On Thursday evening, Jenna Mauro-Vetter, our music minister, told me that she loved meaning behind the lyrics.  I read them over and she was right.  They are beautiful.  The thing is I have heard, and sung, that hymn for years but never really “heard” the words.  If I had sang that hymn once and never again, I would have missed so much.

I have shared with you that this summer I re-read the book “The Source” by James Mitchner.  This was my third time reading it and I discovered so much more beauty and meaning than I had seen in the first two times that I read the book.  The book didn’t change.  The words weren’t’ changed but I was.  I am different than I was in 1999 or 1967 the last times that I read the book.

The same can be said for the study or religion or the reading of Scripture.  High School students will say that Religion Class is repetitious.  They just study the same thing that they studied in fifth grade, they will say.  While it might be true that the content is the same, they are not.  They have changed and grown and matured.  Hopefully they will look at that content with different eyes and see a deeper meaning.

The readings from Sacred Scripture that we hear at Mass repeat every three years.  I don’t think that the intent of that repetition is out of some fear that we may have forgotten them.  They are repeated because we have changed.  We are not the same as we were three years ago.  The words of Scripture, the telling of the parables take on new meaning and insight because we are not the same people we were three years ago.  That is why the Word of God is always alive – because we are alive and the Word speaks to us as we change.  To say that Mass or the study of religion or the reading of Scripture is “the same old thing” is to say that you are “the same old thing”.  It is to admit that ­you have ceased growing.  You haven’t stopped growing.  God speaks to you in so many ways to address the needs and dreams and hopes that you have right now.  We should never presume that God tells us something once and from then on it is just repetition.

I will keep taking pictures of the lake.  I may continue to post them on FaceBook or Twitter.  I my “friends” and “followers” see something new each time that would be great.  If not, then they can “un-friend” me.