Just watching what seems a good series called Walking the Bible - where the host does a walking tour through the story in the Bible - amazing. He just left St. Catherine's Monastery (Greek Orthodox) in the Sinai. Oh, it's been there, inhabited by monks praying and living for 1,500 years. It teams with life - nearly a 1,000 monks are living there!!! Wait, no, maybe it was only 20 - yes, 20 was the number.
He then went on to the traditional place where it is believed Moses received the 10 Commandments - what is called now the Mountain of Moses. There is a small monastic dwelling way up there as well where he sat and spoke briefly with a priest. He asked, as he said he was now going to the summit of the mountain, "what should I listen for?" The priest answered, "the revelation of God is not something that can be predicted, but it is in holy places that we open our hand and it is in the open hand that we receive the gift."
That statement struck me in the heart. It is true. And it is not, as you notice, so much about the holy places (the priest smiled slightly and hesitated when he said that) but about us and our "open hand" - our internal openness to God. Perhaps it takes for us, a holy place for our hand to open. Of course, we then go off and ascribe to that place the power of God - as if it were the mountain that gave the gift of Life and Truth. Now, fine, let's go to our holy places and pray, meditate. It may help us - parts of the earth, we who are of earth. But let's not forget the Source. As if God can be limited by a mountain or a well or a bush. No. But He may use these things He created to wake us up so that our hands may open wide. Open our hands Lord and give us the Gift.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
123
