choose life

Readings: Deuteronomy 30: 15 – 20; Luke 9: 22 – 25

In our first reading, God sets a choice before the people, “life and prosperity, death and doom.”  While we are encouraged to “choose life”, God won’t force it on us.  And then Jesus reminds us in the gospel that it does us no good to “gain the whole world” yet lose ourselves in the process.

Yet that seems to be what our culture has opted for.  We seem to have collectively said that we want material goods regardless of the cost (to ourselves, to others and to the earth) and our ability to know what is truly life-giving seems clouded by consumerism, addiction, constant distraction and profit margins.

Wendell Berry, the great farmer and philosopher, said that, “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us.”

What choices are we making that are good for the world?  How do we know that they are good for the world or for others?

These are questions of our faith.  These are Lenten questions.  Perhaps today we can sit quietly and listen deeply to what arises when we dare to pause and ask.