Dt 11:18, 26-28, 32
…Moses told the people,
“Take these words of mine into your heart and soul.
Bind them at your wrist as a sign,
and let them be a pendant on your forehead.”

Mt 7:21-27
…”Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them
will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”

Feedings Our Daily Hungers
The other day I sat in the long hallway of a multistoried nursing home. I sat with one of our “patients”, who made a face and a comment about every person who walked past us. I encouraged her to “be nice.” She smiled back and made another face. Later we prayed and I gave her communion. As I left her to go see another patient on another floor, I wondered, “Where will I sit in another 30 years? What will my mind be like and at whom might I be making faces?”

Before I worked with the elderly who are on hospice, I worked with people living with serious cancer. With that job I learned the truth that cancer strikes all ages and impacts people who have done all the right things, as well as people who did all the wrong things. In both situations, my teachers walking with cancer and/or old age have taught me that one can’t necessarily predict where they are going to be in a year, five years or thirty or for that matter neither can they predict what their personality will be like.

However, I do have an opportunity in the here and now to make choices about how I take the word of God into my “heart and soul.” Who do I turn to in times of challenge? What beliefs guide my daily behaviors when I struggle to love others? Upon what have I built my house?