Dt 4:32-34, 39-40
Rom 8:14-17
Mt 28:16-20

When I was in college I had an opportunity to be an intern in South Chicago as a community organizer. I was green behind the ears and had a lot to learn. During both my application process and my actual internship I asked God for signs to guide and direct me.

I grew up in a small town and the job I applied for was in an area in South Chicago that was quite different in so many ways. I don’t know if I was more worried about being accepted or about not being chosen. God was very gracious to me. I asked for a certain amount of money for the summer, I received it. I asked for a safe place to live, I was housed in a convent.

Throughout the summer there were little angels who would show up as I worked in the neighborhoods. It might be the smile of a stranger or a community person willing to help organize change in their neighborhood. Over and over again my days were punctuated with God’s guidance and love.

In the readings for June 7th we are invited to enter the journey of the Israelites through the desert into the Promised Land through hindsight. The writer of Deuteronomy is inviting the people to remember the extra-ordinary faithfulness of God in their journeys. From the sounds of the reading the chosen people needed to be reminded of the specifics, for they had entered a new time of ease having reached the Promised Land and the old days were not in sight.

I have had times in my life, like community organizing in Chicago, where I was so attentive to God’s response to my needs that each answer at that time was like a tattoo on my heart. However, I have to admit that there have been many times in my life when I forget to be attentive and begin to take for granted God’s goodness. I begin to forget if you will “the wind beneath my wings” and my praise to God for God’s steady presence falls to the way side.

In order to become the carrier of the Word of God, I need to keep the awareness of the grace and presence of God in my sight. So as this new week unfolds, my hope is to be as attentive to the extra-ordinary presence of God in the ordinary as I tend to seek God’s presence when I am in need.