[ March 13, 2010; March 20, 2010; March 27, 2010; ] Laborers are few but the need is great. Let’s get a jump on spring!

Join the crowd and come equipped with gloves, shovels, trimmers, hoes, saws, power screwdrivers, and enthusiasm for getting muddy and getting stuff done. . . .

So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:7-9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. Isaiah 55:8.

Today, as soon as I finish writing to you, I must face that dreaded dinosaur: the annual parochial report. Yes, I realize that I’m late. It was due yesterday. Ignoring the advice of a colleague to turn the thing in on April Fool’s Day—thus exercising the prophetic voice of my diaconal call—I am committed to getting it off my desk this week. . . .

” . . . And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Luke 13:35b.

Every town has its prophets. In Santa Rosa, California—the town where I was born—our prophet was named Pepper.

As a child, I didn’t fully appreciate Pepper’s occupation, but looking back I’ve pieced together the innuendos. . . .

As we begin the season of Lent, it seems appropriate to revisit one of Fr. Paul’s reflections on the season and the promise it holds for us:

We hear from Jesus in the Ash Wednesday liturgy: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” This comes to us during Lent both as caring and compassionate warning and advice—be careful which treasures you set your heart upon. . . .

. . . Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. . . . Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” —not knowing what he said. Luke 9:28b-29, 33.

When my mother was dying, one of my deepest fears was that I would forget her face. We sorted photographs for the memorial service, and I realized I had already forgotten. I couldn’t remember what she looked like before the cancer, before the chemo broken her body under its toxic weight. It had been so long since she had really been herself. . . .