Great opportunities are close

The great curiosity of people is an amazing gift. This need to know drives development and discovery. It can inhibit growth in the spiritual area of trust. The deep love we experience for someone can result in our movement toward them and their requests without hesitation and without analysis or curiosity. It may be a measure of the depth of our love. The story of Naaman in 2nd Kings from the Roman Catholic Lectionary contains some of this element. He has leprosy. The directions of the Prophet for healing puzzle him. He is reminded that had the prophet made a more difficult request, as he expected, he would have complied. The yearning of the psalmist to experience or re-experience the Presence of God is very clear. Perhaps his yearning will eventually move him to searching and finding that the Presence he seeks is close by in his being. Luke relates the experience of Jesus when he speaks of the phenomena where we do not experience the Presence of the Divine in the areas and events from which we have chosen to exclude our searching and looking. There is no “Prophet” welcome in his own land. The reaction of the people of Nazareth to Jesus is typical of this thinking. The response is so often anger. Is this anger the result of a reflex which perceives the request to look and experience the Divine with an attempt to “put one over” on our intellect and necessary precaution? Leap!