The two ways

The psalm today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary is Psalm 1. The psalmist presents a choice for people to model their lives after the righteous or after the wicked. This dualism  shows the  possible directions for our spiritual journey. We spend our time between being slaves of sin and slaves of righteousness as Paul declares in the Letter to the Romans. The Gospel of Luke presents clarification from Jesus that there is tension and conflict between people who are moving in different directions. The inability of people to move in both directions, toward greater intimacy with the Divine in relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit and toward greater satisfaction of the ego and our self serving addictions causes division from those who do not share our decision to move in one of the directions detailed by the psalmist and emphasized by Jesus.