fear not, it's wednesday

and on wednesdays jeff and josh and sometimes bradley and assorted others get together to get together, and we tell people we are a reading group reading something big and spiritual. we started to read the philokalia but that was too big so we moved to the way of the pilgrim which was wonderful but not big enough for us to keep getting together every week for as long as we wanted, so we started reading and discussing the psalms, but jeff throught that was too weird, so we settled for slowly exploring the gospels, as if they were not very big and very weird.

and this morning as usual, jeff brought up the really engaging question/point of entry for being together: fear. he shared a dream in which he kept going down a long hall and opening doors, just with the power of his mind, but then he got to one he was afraid to open, because he knew it was the door behind which was god, and that was good and scary.

jeff is an unusually honest person: when i reach that point, i usually make "excuses in excuses in sin," as psalm 140 reminds me in the septuagint.

all of this was within the context of our discussing the story in the fifth chapter of mark in which a woman was healed of her haemorrage by touching the clothes of jesus, "after [years of} long and painful treatment under various doctors." then jesus and the people arrive at the house of the president of the synagogue whose daughter is presumed dead, and he says, "do not be afraid, only have faith." another, i think better translation, is "do not be afaid, only have trust."

the good news (the gospel) in the words of jesus is that the kingdom of god is at hand. it is the work of the deceiver (satan) which makes us wonder whether we are going to hell when we did. fear not. what is behind that door is good. it is god. we are encouraged to enter the kingdom.