Bless us O Lord, and these thy Gifts

I've said it for years. I try to say it every day. It needs no introduction. Grace before meals is actually a good analogy to explain the meaning of the word "ubiquitous".

It's closest association for me is Thanksgiving.

Preparing a Thanksgiving dinner is a big task. On Thanksgiving day, it seems at times that the kitchen could be better described as "Mission Control". It wouldn't surprise me, in the years to come, as the hyper-techno generation comes of age, to see mothers with wireless headsets in the kitchen with a palm-top PC-type thing on their hip giving them a full readout of the temperature and "taste status" of up to 24 different dishes being prepared simultaneously, perhaps in different rooms of the house, with real-time updates of "estimated time to completion" and audio alarms in event of corn-bake boilover or Turkey meat low moisture levels.

Thanksgiving (or really any meal for that matter) these days is largely a matter of opening packages - cut the turkey out of the bag, open the can of corn, open the can of cranberries, take the potatoes out of the bag, open the cheese package for the potatoes, etc. When we sit down to say grace, the language seems somehow apropos "Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts". Everything came in package, just like a gift.

But grace before meals predates food packaging, and the modern of conveniences of plastic "safety pop tops" and shelf lives lasting months may have cost us a spiritual lesson. I try to imagine thanksgiving dinner 100 years ago. Dad is out hunting, the whole day, for a turkey (I've never turkey hunted, but I'm told it's challenging, even with modern rifles). It's November, and cold. Maybe he gets a turkey on the first shot, maybe not. If he does, he carries/drags it back to the shed. Then he has to cut the head and feet off, "gut it" and pluck all the feathers (I used to listen to my dad talk about his mom doing this). Meanwhile, mom has got water boiling on the stove (which is fired with wood dad has been chopping all summer long) continuously. She boils the corn and shaves the kernels off the cob by hand before mixing it with flour from the mill and milk which dad has milked himself earlier in the morning in order to make corn bake. She's peeling the potatoes she picked herself out of the garden by hand. She's been soaking cranberries all night long along with beans before sitting down and making side dishes with them by hand. And not to mention the bread and pumpkin pie that she is making from scratch.

And when this is all done, and everything somehow makes it onto the table at the same time, they all plop down and say "Bless us O Lord, and these THY GIFTS which we are about to receive, from thy bounty (means: "riches"), through Christ our Lord."

Wow.

See you on the other side...

...but beyond that we can't go into detail

My personal life in Christ has been an experience of constantly being surprised (or, more appropriately, reminded - maybe "re-surprised"), that the stakes of this life are infinitely higher than can be imagined. So much of my day-to-day life consists of "shades of grey" - sometimes it's darker grey and sometimes lighter grey - but everything is basically grey. But, each day, as I sit down and "plug in" to my life in Christ in prayer, I am brought again into the mystery of the Christian religion, and the grey begins to recede and I begin to perceive an underlying substrate of black and white. This process isn't a retreat into shallowness and an abandonment of appreciation for subtlety. Rather, it's a peering into profundity. This isn't a black and white that means what I think is right and what you think is wrong, it's a discernment of ultimate truth that reveals a promise of fulfillment that exceeds expression (as in "eye has not seen, ear has not heard...") and a potential, indeed a threat, of disappointment that is literally unspeakable (as in "worm dieth not..." etc.). The futility of my intellect to grasp either of these extremes is a burden and it helps to name it such. I cannot understand, but not for lack of trying.

I am sometimes puzzled that we don't hear more about heaven in Church. It seems like it should be on the agenda for each mass. But it isn't. I think that there is a "sense" out there that people already know all about heaven. But do they? Can they articulate the Christian teaching on heaven with the same effectiveness as something related to their job?

One problem I have with heaven is that any time I try to conceive of it, the conception can't hold up under the requirement to satisfy a person to eternity without turning into hell at the limit. For instance, I love coffee, but the thought of spending eternity at a Starbucks starts to turn around and go the other direction and sound something like the Hotel California. I love Christmas, but don't sit me in front of a lighted tree forever.

At some point, I stumbled across a particular book with an ominous-sounding title: "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Dr. Ludwig Ott. (If that name and title doesn't bring a certain image to mind, I don't know what does.) But this book has been a fascinating read. In fact, it's a great place to go when I'm looking for a little more "complete" treatment of the faith. I found the following on page 491 regarding the state of the resurrected body in heaven. The "teaching of the Apostles" is that there are four properties of the resurrection body:


"1. Incapability of suffering... that is, inaccessibility to physical evils of all kinds, such as sorrow, sickness, death. ... It may be more closely defined as the impossibility to suffer and to die."


"2. Subtility... that is, a spiritualised nature, which however, is not to be conceived as a transformation of the body into a spiritual essence or as a refinement of the matter into an ethereal body. The archetype of the spiritualised body is the risen body of Christ, which emerged from the sealed tomb and penetrated closed doors. The intrinsic reason of the spiritualisation of the body lies in the complete dominion of the body by the transfigured soul in so far as it is the essential form of the body."


"3. Agility... that is, the capability of the body to obey the soul with the greatest ease and speed of movement. It form a contrast to the heaviness of the earthly body, which is conditioned by the Law of Gravity. This agility was manifested by the risen Body of Christ, which was suddenly present in the midst of His Apostles, and which disappeared just as quickly. The intrinsic reason of agility lies in the perfect dominion over the body of the transfigured soul, to the extent that it moves the body."


"4. Clarity... that is, being free from everything deformed and being filled with beauty and radiance ... The archetype of the transfiguration is the Transfiguration of Jesus on Tabor and after the Resurrection. The intrinsic reason for the transfiguration lies in the overflowing of the beauty of the transfigured soul on to the body. The grade of the transfiguration of the body ... will vary according to the degree of clarity of the soul, which is in proportion to the measure of the merits."

There is nothing here that contradicts anything I've ever heard in Church, I've just never heard it so concisely put. The interplay between the soul and body is particularly interesting to me. In this life, our bodies have the upper hand and our souls are in some sense held hostage. Death, interestingly enough, is defined as "the separation of the soul from the body". After death, when the soul is transported, by the Holy Spirit, through death to eternal life, and rejoined to the "glorified" (technical term) body, the upper hand will lie with the soul and it will be the body that follows.

I actually find this stuff helpful in my struggles to conceive of eternity. Shallow son of a suburbanite that I am, my conceptions of heaven tend to be strongly influenced by Hollywood. I can't seem to help picturing myself in heaven as some sort of Jedi master, or maybe Neo (again) from the Matrix, with my human potential fully developed. But, again, the reality of the promise escapes my attempt to flesh out the details. We won't be warriors in heaven because war will be meaningless (it's hard to sell aspirin to people with "incapability for suffering"). I won't raise my hand and be able to stop bullets in mid air, or "search the force" to see what is happening next. Concepts like travel and knowledge will have different meaning. And, as Louis of Granada describes in "The Sinner's Guide", heaven will be great because God's agenda will be to reveal his greatness to us (which is infinite) forever. Put simply, God will be out to "impress" us in heaven and what He wills he accomplishes.

See you on the other side...

Thanks Dad

There are many nuggets of wisdom that I received from my Father, most of which I probably can't recall explicitly, but are rather part of my subconscious. But there are three "big ones" that I do remember:

The first happened when I was about nine years old. I was riding with my dad in our family pick-up truck, it was just the two of us (I think we were on our way home from the hardware store or some such). At the time, I was being bullied by a number of kids in the neighborhood and I was having some doubts about my "toughness". So I asked him this "leading" question: "Dad, what does it mean to be a man? Do you have to be tough and smoke cigars (not sure why I threw that in there...) and get in fights and stuff?". I fully expected him to answer me "No, no, those aren't what makes a man. What matters is that you try your best every day." Or something like that. But, instead he said "If you want to know what it means to be a man, look at Jesus Christ." This "threw me for a loop". We were church-going folk, and my Dad wasn't going to tolerate any blasphemy around the house, but he didn't tend to bring up religious themes all that often. I remember really thinking about this - sort of getting absorbed in my thoughts (I'm sure my eyebrows were furrowed on my forehead - he must have been struggling not to smile). But that statement had a profound impact on me (I'm blogging about it now, aren't I?).

The second one came many years later on a Saturday afternoon at home. Dad and I were watching the football game on TV. He had just gotten our first TV with a "remote" and was getting a big kick out of being able to mute the sound on the commercials. We were talking about TV a lot, TV this, TV that... Then he was quiet for a little bit like he didn't like that. He shut the TV off and said "That thing is a wasteland" in reference to the TV. We got up and went outside. I remember it.

This third one was on the way to pick up our tuxedos for my wedding. We had rented this white Lincoln Towncar to ride in after the church service and we were taking it out for a test drive. It was just he and I in the car. This time, I was driving. We talked about marriage. He volunteered: "You know, there were times when your mom would drive me just nuts, but I have to say I'm thankful for it now, because it was the things she did that drove me nuts that kept me from making you kids nuts." Sounds funny when I write it like this, but the point was well taken.

Thanks Dad.

Jesus and Neo

I have a confession to make - I am a closet fan of the movie trilogy "The Matrix". I own the box set.

Setting aside the pornographic sex scenes (if such can be set aside), I am curiously attracted to the themes of these films. I'm sure this has much to do with my interest in martial arts, which is presented in the films in a (literally) supernatural, over-the-top style.

But, in watching the movies, I am also given food for thought and the movies somehow shed light on my religious faith, in an indirect sort of the way similar to what I found in studying German in high school. In studying German, I came to a new and deeper understanding of English. For example, in looking at how Germans "do" syntax, I had a new reference point from which to look at how we do syntax in English.

In the Matrix, the central character is "Neo" (means "new") and the main supporting character is Morpheus (means "changed"). The premise of the movie is that the human race has been "hi-jacked", in some sense, by machines who have succeeded in interfacing so effectively to the human mind that they are able to physically isolate and control (and use) the humans bodies all the while the humans are none the wiser. The name for the gigantic computer simulation that keeps everyone deceived is called the Matrix. There is a small set of people who "wake up" to the deception and start to mount a resistance against the machines, who have them vastly outgunned. The resistance functions on two levels - they fight inside the Matrix and out. The kernel of the story of Neo is that he somehow is able to function in a unique manner within the Matrix and can break the "laws of physics" in regards to the computer simulation. There is a strong messianic component to the film. Morpheus is like a prophet announcing Neo's coming. And the movie is full of religious references: the "real" city of the humans, under threat by the "real" machines, is called Zion, Neo's love interest is named "Trinity". There are others.

The most interesting scene in the whole trilogy, for me, is one in which Morpheus, in reaching out to Neo to help him "wake up" to the deception of the Matrix, offers him two pills, one red and one blue, and explains that one pill will make him forget that he has ever met Morpheus and the other pill will help set him "free". The symbolism of this small act of the will and it's consequences is very interesting to me. There is a clear sense that the choosing the red pill for freedom will not be easy, but Neo chooses it because he wants to know the truth.

But the interesting thing, to me, is where the Christian faith differs from the Matrix. I get a better sense of the Christian faith by considering these differences (that German/English thing). And the difference are stark: in the sort of way that authentic human sexuality is starkly different from the sexuality presented in pornography. On the exterior, things may look very similar, the form may be the same, but inside they are radically ("Rad" being the Latin word meaning "root") different. The sacraments of the Church are radically different from the red pill of the Matrix, and the differences are, to me extremely relevant to today. For instance, when you receive the sacrament of baptism, you are supernaturally incorporated into THE BODY of Jesus Christ (a.k.a. God). But your senses are not heightened, you don't suddenly "feel" all the other baptized people (who are also in the body) all around you. Similarly, at the sacrament of confirmation, at the laying on of hands by the Bishop, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, creator the Universe, into your soul (kind of a big deal...). But you don't look up just afterwards and see everyone around you in scintillating waves of green (as Neo does in the Matrix), you don't receive supernatural powers (your martial arts abilities certainly aren't enhanced - I can attest to that!), and you certainly don't have access to the infinite knowledge that the Holy Spirit possesses. In fact, you may not even "feel" anything except for the oil on your forehead. When you receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, the body and blood of Jesus Christ, you don't suddenly see space distorted around you, you don't look up and see angels and demons that had been invisible, but now are made visible, you don't have insight "behind the scenes" into ultimate reality.

In fact, on the surface of it, these sacraments really seem to do nothing. You go to Church, you sing some songs, you get your sacraments and you go back home to the same old boring life.

But the purpose of the sacraments is bring you into a relationship - a uniquely intimate relationship. In marriage, a man and woman come into a relationship of such intimacy that they can be rightly called one "flesh". But they retain their unique bodies. But in baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, the Christian is "incorporated" into the very body of Jesus Christ. We Christians are members of Christ's body, a level of intimacy I don't even have with my wife. And the stark question must (particularly at this time in history) be asked - so what is that worth? In our modern age, this is a difficult question to answer. Ostensibly, incorporation into Christ's body at baptism connects me to a channel of divine power (called Grace) that enables me to "rise above" (albeit with full exertion of my will) my inherent sinful nature. The Eucharist brings me into an ever closer communion with Jesus Christ and assists me in becoming more like Him (I have heard it said that the Eucharist is different from anything else we consume - everything else we consume becomes part of us, but when we receive the Eucharist, we become part of Him). And at confirmation, the gift of the Holy Spirit into my soul provides the power that will drive my life through death to the "other side" (the Holy Spirit, Who doesn't die, carries my soul through death).

The theological arguments are as strong as they ever have been (they don't change), but the popular "savor" of the message seems to somehow now be lacking. There is a popular sense that this Christian "thing" hasn't worked, the world is just the same as it always was. But can any of us really demonstrate that Christianity has failed? That the sacraments don't work? How would you show such a thing?

It seems that all of us, in the present time, struggle under the burden of personal experience with hypocrisy on the part of individual Christians. We all seem to have been adversely affected by "Church people" who somehow went through all the motions and yet were unloving, spiteful, unhappy and, in some cases, mean-spirited and just plain not nice. I hear so many stories about this it's overwhelming. The net effect of all of these negative personal experienes is that they erode the validity of the Christian message. All that business of being incorporated into God's body, having God in our soul and all that just really doesn't seem to be making a difference in anyone's life. How can it be true?

If ever there were a baby that was not to be thrown out with the proverbial bathwater, it would be the Baby that came to this planet one Christmas night 2000 years ago. The question for Christians is not whether we are brave enough to "wake up" and see ultimate reality, no matter how ugly it is, as Neo does in the Matrix. The question is, rather, whether we are brave enough to participate in ultimate reality without even seeing it (or sensing in any way, shape or form for that matter...). "We walk by faith and not by sight". Of all the fantastic possibilities that are engendered by taking the red pill, are we prepared for that most terrifying possibility of all - namely that nothing happens? No change? The same old, same old? Do we have the courage to return to the rigid smallness of our petty lives and search for a Holy Spirit, that we can't feel, inside of ourselves? Do we have the courage to be incorporated into a Messiah who "lost" every fight he ever had ("The God Who Failed" is what Metallica calls Him) and who commands us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors? Imagine that as a scene in the Matrix, Neo takes the red pill, nothing happens, he goes back home, does his job, and strives to love his kids and wife. I picture scenes of Neo up late a night with a cholicy baby, his scintillating green "Matrix-vision" showing him just where the bubble in the baby's tummy is that won't come out. And when the "agents" (the machine simulation bad guys in the Matrix) come to get him, he offers them no resistance and at the end he dies. Ahh! There would be a riot at the theater.

God, enlighten my blindness and help me to live as I myself have written.

Grace in the Nick of Time...

Church on Sunday is one of the trying times of the week for my wife and I. It's the "perfect storm" of conditions for our family - long periods of silence (with pews that resonate under little shoes like a bass drum and acoustics that encourage a 16-month old to test his voice) interspersed with people who are not particularly fond of children and a poor audio system for the pastor. While my wife and I both know better and can recite all the parental wisdom from "What to Expect - the Toddler years" by heart, we inevitably reach the breaking point. The breaking point means "disciplining in anger", that worst of parental sins that we must never do and which, in truth, I am guilty of on a regular basis. Every time it happens I go through a cycle of anger, defensiveness, regret, contrition and reconciliation. There are Sundays I'm moving through this cycle so often and so fast you could mount me on a pole and I could work like a fan to keep the room cool. I lay in bed at night imagining my kids laying on a pscyhiatrists couch 20 years from now saying "Church, oh, right, Church was the place where dad yelled at us the most..." Wonderful.

Recently, one of the children was feeling particularly "independent" (in manner very similar to the way that the communists felt "independent" from the Czar's government in Russia in 1917). I had reached the breaking point about 15 minutes into the mass and it was going to be a long ride. I was reduced to sitting in that slightly-leaned-over position that you see in parents of small children, with a look on my face like the coach of a football team that has just lost the Superbowl by 100 points. My wife, on the other hand, was running from one end of the crying room to the other like there were spinning plates at both ends and it was her job to keep them going.

When mass was over, we came out and I "informed" the children that we were not going to get the complementary donut that accompanies good behavior at Church. They were dumbstruck and reacted as if I had told them I was going to leave the family for good. We got into the mini-van and the "leader" of our family insurrection began "the scream" - meaning that high pitch that only children can hit that actually, besides hurting your ears, somehow penetrates into your skull and hurts your brain directly. This went on for a few blocks and I lost it. I pulled the van over and my countenance changed from "pleasant" to "frightening". I said a few choice words.

No effect.

In my anger, I got out of the van and was headed around the back of the vehicle to come in the side door on the passenger side and put the fear of God into this child using any and all of the physical tools at my disposal. I flung the door open and entered. I saw the other kids watching me with scared looks on their face. I took my glasses off for fear of breaking them and I locked eyes with my daughter.

And in the locking of our eyes, in less than one second my heart changed from rage to compassion.

The whole machine shut down. 6'-1", 250 lbs, 20 years of karate, sleep deprivation, frustration, stress. All done. All gone.

I gathered myself for a moment and the countenance went back to "pleasant". My daughter cried harder. I brought my (relatively) gigantic-sized head nose-to-nose with hers and I started saying all these father-type things in a soft father-type voice that were exactly "right" for the moment. I don't even remember what I said, but when I finished, she had stopped crying and the day went better.

I got back out of the van, stared at the ground for a few moments, shook my head, put my glasses on and drove the family home.

What's the point? There is no reasonable way to think that the 180-degree shift of my mood originated in me. The sheer speed at which happened flies in the face of biological and any other science for that matter. And where did I come up with all these things to say? There wasn't any rehearsal and I don't even remember exactly what I said, I just remember when I was done I was certain I had said the right things.

The only explanation, in my opinion, that really fits the situation is that the God somehow intervened.

As I drove home, I reflected on how close I had come to doing something I would really have regretted. I had been praying all along at Church not to get so worked up, I knew I wasn't thinking right but my human weakness got the best of me. When I see how close I can come to blowing it, I have this tendency to want to "play it safe". But the story of the talents in the Gospel came to my mind. I'm not called to play it safe, I'm called to take what God has given me and try to make something more out of it. This involves risk (a point that gets lost in the Gospel telling). The apparent risk for me is that some day I won't do the right thing and I'll wind up with regrets.

I'm learning that Grace comes sometimes in the nick of time. But so far, it's come when I've needed it.

My Spiritual Trifecta

In another one of my "Miscellaneous Musings", I want to share a little bit about what I've been reading lately. Looking back over the past few years, my reading "tastes" have settled on three main categories: History, Spirituality and Prophecy. I'll try to give a little discussion on each.

The first "type" of book I've been reading is the historical. I've been particularly drawn to the historical works of Warren Carroll. He is a Catholic author who writes, in his own words, from an "Incarnational Perspective". One of his central points as an author is that history becomes a caricature unless the spiritual underpinnings of the players are considered. His discussion of the of the rise and fall of Israel, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, Islam, Communism and others is, to me, riveting. And his sober historical treatment of the historical timing of the prophets in Scripture is, to me, fascinating and sheds tremendous light onto parts of the bible that are otherwise inaccessible to me. In reading Carroll, I get a better perspective of what it has meant down through the ages to live on this earth. I have come to the realization that not everyone has grown up in this "holiday from history" known as the U.S.A. I am learning that the history of this planet is riddled with evil acts too heinous to be shown in a Hollywood movie (which is saying something). In relating these real world historical tragedies, he does an effective job of creating, through good story-telling, a qualitative sense of the deep-seated, (literally) anguished yearning of the ancient peoples for Truth, for some understanding of why their lives were so hard. And he also relates how, in the midst of wars, persecutions, famines, disease, earthquakes, men and women have risen up, under the inspiration of God, to do incredible things. As I read these stories, I am inspired by the heroism of our ancestors. The truth is, Carroll's books are like candy to me, I can't put them down, but they aren't an end unto themselves and his effective story-telling skill also has a tendency to disconnect me from the reality of my life.

The second type of book I read is the spiritual. These are a little less "sweet" - more like really good organic broccoli - something I do enjoy, I know I should be eating more of, but still have to make a small "act of the will" to choose when I see a "Hershey's bar" (of history for instance...) sitting on the counter. The spiritual titles each come at conformity to Christ from a different angle and I have actually found benefit to "jump around" from title to title. I think the reason for this is that many of these books were written for people living in monasteries as monks and nuns whose life was pretty structured and far more concerned with strong commitment to a particular spiritual path. My life, as a husband and father, on the contrary, is about responding to whatever the commitments of love that I have bring to me on a given day. Thus, I find benefit in drawing from many spiritual perspectives - it's almost like I have to find the one that resonates to whatever situation I have that day. Up at night worried about the kids? Read the Psalms. Feeling like my work is pointless? (I'm not likely to be a key player in any big battle that will change the course of history...)? Read "Abandonment to Divine Providence". A lot of success coming my way with potential for great prosperity? Read "Preparation for Death". And read The Spiritual Combat every single day. (My intent of writing this here is to share some grassroots spiritual knowledge with anyone who is interested).

The third type of book is the one that raises eyebrows: namely, Prophecy. Prophecy is a concept that seems to me to be so foreign I don't even known how to bring it up. I'd rather not write about it here. But, the truth is, fully 1/3rd of my reading time is on prophecy (so my little secret is up...). What do I mean by prophecy? Well, as a Catholic, I mean, in particular, reading messages from Jesus and from the Blessed Virgin Mary given through modern day "seers" from all over the world. Yes, prophetic stuff is going on "all over the place" in our present time. In fact, of the three different types of books I am interested in, I expect that prophecy is the one that I will never exhaust. We live in a time with so much "authentic" (meaning "examined by appropriate authorities and found to be free from error") prophetic literature that it seems to me there is no one on the face of the earth who can keep up with all of it. My own behavior when I read prophetic books is so odd. If I am in public, I behave like someone who is reading a dirty magazine. Do I want to anyone to see that I am reading "Our Lady's Beloved Son's, Messages to the Marian Movement of Priests"? Heavens No! The scandal! The modern prophetic "current" is primarily (but not exclusively...) oriented around Marian apparitions began in the 1800's. There were prophecies of the first and second world wars (Leo XIII), the rise of Communism (Fatima), the papacy of John Paul II (Faustina Kowalska) and numerous other historical events. And they have continued to the present day, in places like Kibeho (check out the correlation to the Rwandan massacre in 1994), Akita (Japan), Medjugorje (who hasn't heard of it?), Betania, even right here in Minnesota! When I juxtapose my interest in history, in particular the historical correlation between the ancient prophets and ancient historical events with this modern onslaught of prophetic literature, the reason for my interest becomes clear. OK, having "teased" with this prophetic dimension, I can't give a full overview of what all the messages are saying, but the key point is that humanity in this present time is suffering in a manner unlike any other time in history. We are confused and disconnected from God. There is a spiritual vacuum and tremendous ignorance. And there is the active power of the devil. In our materialistic ignorance in regards to the spiritual, people are involving themselves in spiritual practices that can have real, devastating consequences. A great modern analogy I have heard is that our spiritual "environment" right now is the equivalent of what our natural environment would be if the Exxon Valdez crashed every single day. God is calling us to pray for everyone, and to make personal sacrifices to help so many people who don't even receive the most basic human element of life - love. We are literally in danger of losing the knowledge of what it means to love. And it also says to be prepared for the consequences of all our man-made problems to take effect "shortly" (unfortunately a thoroughly ambiguous term in regards to the prophetic). When I read this stuff, my personal focus is re-directed from retiring at age 55 and owning a fancy cabin up north somewhere to simplifying my life, disconnecting from the "noise" of our modern culture, learning to rely more on God and storing up treasure for myself in heaven by loving my neighbor. Unorthodox and strange as it may be, the prophetic is an indispensable component of my spiritual life.

As I finish writing this, the thought suddenly comes into my mind that the common element among these three types of books is again the presence of God - His presence in history, his presence in my life today and his presence in regards to the future. May all three lead me to Him.