Directional Control

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today on our journey through Lent raise the question of the control of our direction. The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah tells of the prophetic warnings of Jeremiah to the people of Israel that the trust and control they were placing in the hands of men and politics was going to have consequence in their lives. As Friar Jude Winkler points out, we readily cast blame for our set backs on others. The control of our lives is seemingly better exercised by circumstance and external forces than by our own decisions. Winkler is reminded today of the choice in Deuteronomy between life and death. This choice in the moment is presented as which direction our desires carry us, toward greater intimacy with the Divine or away from that goal. The psalmist exhorts us to listen to the voice of God and rejoice in our status as sheep of His flock. The decision to hear the shepherd is ours. When we harden our heart it is our movement. We are not under control of an external force that "made me do it". The division which is necessary between the direction toward the freedom from demons in the Presence of the Divine and the possession of our plans by our desires for self is clearly made by Jesus in the passage from the Gospel of Luke about the impossibility of a divided "kingdom" continuing to exist. Decisions are required.