THAT SLIVER OF GOLD IS GRACE

For those of us given to exaggeration, take heart! 

Fr Richard has given us some fabulous stories to check out, i.e.:  St. Colman’s monastic inhabitants—a rooster, a mouse, and a fly—ministered to him. Otters ministered to Cuthbert when he spent a night in the cold ocean waters praying, by warming his cold feet with their breath, even drying them with their fur. A bear helped Gall build a fire when the saint had twisted his ankle in a fall; a white bird guided Brendan on his voyage to the Promised Land, and the whale, Jasconius, provided his back for Brendan’s boat to rest on. . . . 

And Fr Richard's question is: Whether we read these stories literally or symbolically, the important question is only this: 'What allowed story tellers or writers to think this way?'

Look at the stories told in the Bible that to the material mind are impossible to be true, such as Jonah and the whale, the walls of Jericho, the parting of the Red Sea. All had a purpose, often for the uplifting of the hopeless, those at the edge of fuhgeddaboudit, those in serious need of a better way to view their world.

I freely admit that I talk in exaggeration...after years of shame, denial, pain of my own personal persecution, I can freely admit that. One fine day I was taking incoming snark about it from a friend, and I simply said, "I talk in exaggeration...accept that or get on down the road." 

[Aside: To those who choose to speak only the literal truth because anything less is bald-faced lying...first, literal truth is impossible according to me, and second, bless you, for you are limiting your own mind...clipping its wings to fly.] 

Just reading that question, 'What allowed story tellers or writers to think this way?', opened me to the never before considered gift of my exaggerating. It has allowed me my fantastical stories without fear of being made mock of even when I've been made mock of. 

Feeling down? Got an ugly problem? Find the sliver of gold in that sucker...trust me, there is a sliver of gold in everything. Find the sliver of gold and there is God's gift...that sliver of gold is grace.  

Thank you.