love

What to do when life hits us with surprises, deal with it, face it and deal with it. Not the storm and after, which for us has been and continues a relatively minor inconvenience of being displaced and dealing with things - - Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure - - but about the wrench thrown in the gears of our life expectations that our eldest, daughter, a highly intelligent RN, would see to it we were properly cared for in our extreme old age when/if we came to that. But tables turn in life and it's precisely opposite. Two octo's anxious that she be okay, which she is not. Many families face this, more generally between aging spouses as we may yet, but there's no reason, theological or otherwise, why we should not, why our lives should not have taken this turn; instead of child becoming parent as anticipated, we are still parents and child. 

The collect, by things heavenly I don't suppose it means Venus in springtime's predawn sky, but it could mean that for me, a sometime amateur astronomer decades earlier in life and, per Hebrews 11:1, certain of nothing, for faith might be mentioned as opposite to certitude. Heaven is sun and moon, stars and planets; the kingdom of God - - or as Matthew has it, kingdom of heaven, is here and now if we choose to walk in its Way. Thus, per collect, I am to be concerned about heavenly things, which is love, where perhaps the Beatles were right, love, love, love, all you need is love, love is all you need.

T
  



Collect for Proper 20, Sunday closest to September 20th

Hebrews 11:1 11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.