Another thought for another day - SS Peter and Paul's.

Here's another wee reflection I got sent:

 "In a search for God and a search for self, I always end up coming home. Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, when asked by Glenda what she learned on her journey, replied, "I learned that if I ever lose my heart's desire again, I won't go looking past my own back-yard because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with." Dorothy's search for the wizard ended in the discovery that he was only a man behind a curtain, with all the needs and frailties that she, herself, had.

I can make my journey endless by seeking God or self outside of me in people, places and things, or I can shorten it by turning inward and looking for them where I am most likely to find them. Exactly how I get there is of little import. Ultimately the path will fade away behind me, anyway. It is the being there that matters; my willingness to know that my search begins and ends in the same place, within me.

I am the man behind and in front of the curtain.

This is the grand atonement, the being in touch.  D. H. Lawrence"

Next to knowledge of God, knowledge of self is the key said Herbert Hamilton Kelly, founder of the Society of the Sacred Mission  (better known as the Kelham Fathers).  Actually, neither is possible without the other. Only when we know the reality of God do we finally realise that we ain't him/her/it!  Only then can we live life as it ought to be for us - the life we are called to and promised in Baptism.  St Peter and St Paul knew this: both were stripped of their self delusion of controlling their world - Peter in the courtyard when he betrayed Christ, Paul on the road to Damascus when he encountered the reality of God in Christ