Understanding

Understanding is the second gift of the Holy Spirit. It may be hard for us to understand understanding as a gift. Wisdom allows us to know things about God while Understanding allows us to grasp the essence of the truth about our faith in God. The more we use our Wisdom, the more we come to Understand how all of this is God’s plan for us and for humanity.

The Old Testament can sometimes seem like it has nothing to do with the New Testament. We also can wonder how the history the people of Israel has anything to do with us today. If we use the gift of Wisdom and learn about the Old Testament and the Israelite people, we can come to Understand that they are not a lot different from us today. They had God lead them out of Egypt, open up the waters of the Red Sea to allow them to safely cross to the other side. Then God destroyed the most powerful army in the world at that time with the waters of that same Red Sea right in front of the Israelite people. Only a few days later, as Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments from God, these same people fashioned a golden calf and began to worship that false idol.

How could they do that we ask ourselves? In Egypt, where they had been living for the past four hundred years, the Egyptians had worshipped gods represented by animals and the things of nature. These Israelites were going back to their old Egyptian ways when they made the golden calf. God was furious with them, and wanted to destroy the whole nation, but Moses interceded on their behalf. Some of them were still destroyed, and only one tribe was allowed to remain priests. God had planned for each tribe to be a priestly people, but that changed at Sinai.

Why did God have them sacrifice a lamb at the first Passover - because it was a crime punishable by death to kill a lamb in Egypt (one of their false gods)? This was a way to have them break a law in Egypt to close that chapter of their lives. Why were they forbidden to eat pork – because it was a staple of their diet in Egypt?

Many of the laws for the Jewish people in the Old Testament seem foolish to us, but if we study their history more, our gift of Understanding allows us to know why they had those rules and laws. Understanding allows us to see the parallel between Abraham being willing to offer his only son to God upon God’s requests as a test of his Faith to God offering us His only Son for all of our sins hundreds of years later on the same hill! It is all truly a part of God’s plan for mankind, but we need the gifts of Wisdom and Understanding to full appreciate the plan.

Make it a great day! Tomorrow we learn about the gift of Counsel. 

Wisdom

          This past Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate when the Holy Spirit came to the twelve Apostles of Christ while they hid in an upper room in Jerusalem. They were afraid of what the Jewish people would do to them if they came out of hiding, so they gathered and hid in a room, not knowing where to go from there or what to do. The Holy Spirit came upon them with a loud rush of wind and tongues of flame hovering over each of their heads. Once the Spirit was with them, they received the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. With those seven gifts, the twelve Apostles went out into the streets and began to proclaim the Word of Jesus Christ to all present. Those present were of different nationalities and languages, yet each of them understood what was being said to them as the Apostles spoke.

         We were in Omaha on Sunday, and attended Mass in one of the suburbs of that area. The priest had a great sermon, which got me thinking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  He asked us about how much time we had spent planning for the Memorial Day Weekend. He talked about how people planned picnics, trips, and memorials for our fallen veterans. He spoke of this planning and said that was good, but then he also asked how many of us had planned for Pentecost Sunday in a similar way. Memorial Day is a special day and should be celebrated, but how many of us neglect the holidays of our church and think mainly of the secular world and its holidays?

         Anyway, I digress. Those seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are 1) Wisdom 2) Understanding 3) Counsel 4) Fortitude 5) Knowledge 6) Piety and 7) Fear of the Lord. I thought I would share some thoughts and ideas on one of these seven gifts in each of my next seven Blogs.

1)   Wisdom: Wisdom is the first and highest gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the perfection of Faith. With Wisdom, we begin to properly value those things which we believe through our Faith. These truths of Christian belief are far more important than the things of this world. Wisdom allows us to put the things of this world in their proper place and lets us better understand our relationship with creation and with God. The beautiful things of this world are good in that they are a gift to all of us from God. They did not happen randomly or by themselves, they are all a part of God’s plan and God’s gift of creation to each of us. It is part of God’s plan for each of us that we grow each day in our knowledge of God while we are here on this earth.

Make it a great day and get out there and use that gift of Wisdom! 

May 21, 2012

          Margaret and I went for a walk this morning down along Skunk Creek and the bike trails. The weather was great, and only a slight breeze, so conditions were almost ideal for a nice walk.

As we walked along the creek, I noticed a lot of birds singing their songs, but I also noticed the song of a red cardinal in the background. He was pretty persistent, but by no means the only bird singing as we walked along. That got me thinking about how God tries to talk to each of us each day, but there are so many distractions and other noises that we sometimes do not recognize God’s voice in all the daily “noise” we are in. We need to learn to recognize God’s voice and to listen to what He has to say to us in our day to day lives. That ability to listen to God’s voice takes prayer and time on our parts to learn to recognize God’s voice.

I have been hearing and seeing cardinals almost daily. I hear them singing about every time I get out of the pickup or walk around in the outdoors. Do we have a great influx of cardinals this year, or am I just learning to listen for their song?

Has God just started to speak to me, or has He been around talking to me all the time and I had been too busy and tied up in life to listen for Him. Listen for Him – He is out there and talking to you and me each day.

May 19, 2012

          It is Saturday night, May 19^th. I have not been as faithful in my blogging as I had been earlier. It seems I have been busier, the healthier I feel, and more tired during these last few weeks, so I have not spent as much time typing as I perhaps should have. I think we all get busy in our lives sometimes, and tend to spend less time in spiritual thought and on our spiritual selves when we are busy with the things of this world. They are important as well, but we can easily get caught up in spending too much time on the things of this world and letting our spiritual selves grow stagnant. It is important to have a healthy balance in both of these things.

          We need to set aside time each day to make yourself a better person, spiritually, and to spend time with God, thanking Him for the many gifts He gives to all of us, and asking for His guidance in our day to day decisions. It gets easy to say you are too busy and to not spend that time with God.

I know, as I have had that happen to me many times throughout my life. The times spent talking with God are more important to me now, and that is part of why I feel my prognosis is a Gift. It makes you focus on your life after the life we know on this earth. It seems we, as humans, tend to find God when things are not going well, but we tend to forget about Him when things are going well. We need to be mindful of His gifts each day, and to thank Him each day for the many things he gives us.

We had Margaret’s brothers and sisters here this weekend, which was nice. They do not get together as much now, so it is nice when they can all get together for a couple of days to visit again. Margaret’s family lives in four states and my family all live in the same county.

This is the week of Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven. He had to go back to His Father so that his disciples would go out and teach the world about Christianity. If He did not leave this world, they would not get out and spread the good news. He also could then send the Holy Spirit to guide His disciples and to give them the strength and courage they needed to continue building His church here on earth. 

I had a red cardinal taking a bath in the water fall right outside my office window one day this week. I have heard them almost every day, and seen them quite often now as well. God has to let me know He is watching over me each day. Look for Him in everyone you see, and the way you look at them will change. Make it a great week.

May 13, 2012

         Mother’s Day 2012. It was a beautiful day for all of the mothers in this area to enjoy the warm sunshine and pleasant temperatures. We went out to Humboldt on Saturday night for a family rosary and some time with my parents. We had a nice visit with a pretty good turnout of family members.

         Today, we had brunch at our house for my wife, three of our sons, and two of their fiancés. Matt had called us on Saturday night to announce that he is now engaged as well. Two weddings coming up in the near future! Margaret got to plant a few pots and spend some time outdoors today. After we had finished eating brunch, we all moved out onto the deck for a few pictures, and a red cardinal landed in the ash tree right off the deck and began to sing to all of us!

         Then, this evening as we were unwinding a bit, another red cardinal landed in about the same area of the same tree and sang to us once again! God is good and wants to let us know he is watching and knows what we are going through each day.

         Make it a great week, and God Bless! 

May 11, 2012

          It is kind of cold and windy today, but not too bad overall. As I sit here and type this, there is a male red cardinal sitting at a small bird bath right outside my window getting a drink. I had hung up a bird feeder about a week ago that has three different compartments. I put seed for all birds in one, seed for finches in one, and seed for cardinals in the last one. I have actually been seeing some cardinals feed at the feeder. Probably cheating a bit about bringing the cardinals to me, but I need all the help I can get. I still see them as a reminder from God that He is watching over me each and every day.

          I have been reading a book by Tim Gray and Jeff Cavins called “Walking With God”. It is a book that explains how the Bible all ties together with God’s plan for us and for the world. This is a great book, and really helps the Old Testament to make more sense as a part of God’s grand plan for all of us and for our salvation. The greatest prophets and leaders in the Old Testament each had their trials and tests from God. They did a lot of dumb things that we would probably do as well. Their errors make me feel more human and more able to be able to achieve heaven in the end, even though God knows I will screw up a lot of things while I am still here.

          It all starts with Adam and Eve. They have everything we all could want – living in paradise on earth, and that wasn’t good enough. They had to try for more and to not trust God completely. Cain kills Able because he was jealous of Able’s relationship with God. All through the Old Testament we find prophets, patriarchs, and people who God chooses to be leaders and they all are very human in their lack of faith in God’s plan as they journey toward their ultimate destinies. There is Noah, Noah’s sons Ham and Seth, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, and the list goes on. Each of these men is chosen by God, who then reveals His plan for them, and even having heard directly from God, they go off and take matters into their own hands and try to do things according to their timing, and not according to God’s timing. Abram was promised to have descendants more numerous than the Stars in the heavens. He doesn’t think his elderly wife could help with this, so he begets a child with his wife’s slave. That turns out badly for Abraham, and the stories go on. You will have to read the book. It helps to make a lot of sense of these stories we have heard about for years and maybe never thought much about.

          The lesson I see in all of this is that we, as humans are always trying to be in control of our lives and to make things happen on our time. When things go bad, we get angry with God and have trouble giving up that “control” we thought we had. I think God uses hard times to make us realize who is really in control. He has a plan for each of us. We need to learn to accept that plan and to live with it as best we are able to.

Make yours a great weekend, and remember it is Mother’s Day this Sunday.

May 8, 2012

          I have been feeling pretty good all week. I still get a bit queasy in my stomach, but that is getting better as well. I assume it will take a few days to get completely cleared from all the meds I was taking. I have been sleeping a lot better, which helps with the healing as well. My appetite remains pretty good, which doesn’t help my weight loss plans, but I am trying to deal with that.

          The weather has been pretty cool, but I get in a walk each day and a nap after lunch. Both seem to help. I mowed again today, trying to stay ahead of the grass growing in between rain showers. I have to get out in that garage and get going to finish my tool cabinet project. Once that is done, I can start on some grandchildren projects and a few bird feeders and bird houses.

          I have been getting to Mass each day, and that seems to help keep me on track with my spiritual life. I have had people stop me to say they like to read these blogs. I have backed off writing a bit, partially because I have been tired and partially because I did not have too much new stuff to write about. As I walked along the bike path yesterday, I realized once again what a beautiful place Gold has made for us here in South Dakota.

When I feel more ill, I tend to get a bit too whiny and not want to thank God for all of the gifts He gives to us. I have to remember to offer up these little sufferings I have to go through to Him and let them become an offering back to Him and not a reason for me to whine. As one card we got today said, we have to nail our sufferings to the cross to have the help of Jesus in getting through all of the trials we each face in our life’s journey.

Have a great day, and remember to look for God out there in your neighbor and the world around you. He is right there!

May 5, 2012

 

          It is Cinco De Mayo today. For those of you who are not of the Spanish ancestry, that means it is the 5^th of May, a day of celebration for our Spanish brothers and sisters. Many non-
Spanish people also celebrate this day.

          We met with Dr. Tolentino on Friday of this week. We also met with the research Nurse Practitioner on the same day. I am now off all radiation and chemo until the week of June 11^th. I get to try to wean off of steroids as well. We have to see how that goes, but I hope it goes well. I can take Nexium again for a while as well. I have noticed that I have had a queasy stomach for the last few days, but someone told Margaret that it will take a few days to let the chemo drugs get through my system, and the queasy stomach can be from getting off all of those meds. I took a Zofran today, and that seemed to help somewhat. I noticed that if I eat something, the queasiness goes away for a while.

          It is taking some longer naps to get me through the day, but I can handle that as well. Mark, Sara, and Kolbe are here for the weekend, so we are enjoying their company. We are planning to go down to Omaha for the Memorial Day weekend to enjoy Omaha for a few days. It will be getting harder for Sara to travel as the due date nears for that new granddaughter, so we thought we could bring the party to them for that weekend. Kolbe wants to show grandpa the monkeys at the Omaha Zoo anyway.

          I have put up a new bird feeder in the backyard to attract a variety of new songbirds. Margaret has a pet robin that sits on her rockers on the front deck each morning, poops all over the rockers, then flies into the dining room window repeatedly and gets bird poop all over the glass. I have tried to convince her to get her pet to not do this every morning, but to no avail yet.

          I am hearing the cardinals sing almost daily, but I have not seen one for a few days now. We have been busy with things these past few weeks, and look forward to a quieter time now for a few weeks. I will catch up on some things and get a few projects going and completed. I have blueberries and tomatoes ordered from Gurneys, so we hope to get those this week and get them planted. The rhubarb is going nuts. If anyone wants rhubarb, just stop by and help yourselves to some.

          Have a great week, and I will try to Blog a bit more frequently this next week. God Bless!