I just read today’s meditation in Frederick Buechner’s Listening to your Life, which I’ve referenced before. I don’t know what I would do without St. Fred. On days in which not much seems to happen (again, not that I’m complaining!) and I’m searching for inspiration, his writings never fail to offer some new angle on life and faith. I love his thoughts on what the parables of Jesus say about the kingdom of God, in terms of it not being a new world order or a mechanism to make us “good,” but rather a place or a state of joyful surprises, in which the lost are sought and found:
“What is the kingdom of God? Jesus does not speak of a reorganization of society as a political possibility or of the doctrine of salvation as a doctrine. He speaks of what it is like to find a diamond ring that you thought you’d lost forever. He speaks of what it is like to win the Irish Sweepstakes. He suggests rather than spells out. He evokes rather than explains. He catches by surprise.”
I really don’t feel like I have anything intelligent to add to Buechner’s wonderful commentary, but since I’m committed to writing a poem a day—good, bad or ugly—here is my haiku:
His is a kingdom
of surprises: lost sheep,
coins and sons, sought and found.
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