Author's reflection on page 5

Hello, all readers, helping the Mustard Seed Library,

Reflection

There is only one way to understand the gospel fully--on our knees. In other words, we must pass beyond gospel study to gospel prayer. We must cease being gospel spectators and become gospel participants.

Imagine you are the man in this story. Experience with all your senses everything the man sees, feels, and hears.

"Some people brought (Jesus) a man who was deaf and could hardly speak, and they begged Jesus to place his hands on him.

"So Jesus took him off alone, away from the crowd, put his fingers in the man's ears, spat, and touched the man's tongue. Then Jesus looked up to heaven, gave a deep groan, and said to the man, "Ephphatha," which means, "Open up!"

"At once the man was able to hear, and his speech impediment was removed, and he began to talk without any trouble....All who heard were completely amazed. "How well he does everything!" they exclaimed. "He even causes the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak!"
Mark 7:32-37

Me, writing now. I must say the meditation from yesterday put me off quite a bit. I didn't like the comparison about people who are deaf being like Christians who who aren't able somehow to talk and listen to God. The description of deaf life was difficult to read and it distanced me from the author but, the more thinking that came, the more I realized that--through this language--the author had enabled me to enter into the loneliness too, loneliness from being apart from the author, being closer to the deaf "Soon, you begin avoiding the hearing world, associating only with the deaf." (page 3) and realizing that I also would be one of the people in Mark 7 who would be "Some people brought (Jesus) a man who was deaf and could hardly speak, and they begged Jesus to place his hands on him." So many things help us to know we have needs to breakaway from the crowd and go off to a quiet place with Jesus.

God's Peace,
Sharon