The Grateful Leper
Continue to be aware of the areas in your life in which you experience greater freedom and in which some disordered loves linger. The practice of a daily Examen is very helpful in ongoing discernment and growth in freedom.
The Grace I Seek
I pray for the following grace: to know Jesus more intimately, to love him more intensely, and to follow him more closely.
Read
Read Luke 17:11–19 (the grateful leper).
For Reflection
Go through a day—or through a single hour—and discipline yourself to attend to each moment as it comes and to note what is praiseworthy in that moment. Try to build this habit of dwelling completely in the moment at hand rather than in the past or future.
The grateful leper, it is noted, was a Samaritan. I think that those of us born and raised in the church, in a particular faith tradition, take things way way way for granted. We are disadvantaged.
I remember being about six years old and a little girl came to visit our church. The group of my peers were utterly shocked that she didn't know the Lord's Prayer. Not in a mean way, but it had never occurred to us that everyone didn't.
I had an opportunity this weekend to work on the staying in the moment thing. Ken was ill Saturday but well enough Sunday to work in the yard. In the past, any exertion has meant he feels terrible shortly thereafter; but I had to let go of the outcome and let him work. I encouraged him to sit down and hydrate frequently. Nothing very much different than I usually do. However, he did not get the CRASH he usually does and ended the day feeling well. He feels pretty good this morning, too.
This won't always happen. But I am grateful that it did, so I could see the difference. Sometimes when everything is just low-level bad, good is hard to stretch up to.
