Juxtaposition 2014.04.10

We start today with the Common Meditation, to which my initial reaction was "yes, of course, everyone knows that." Certainly we are judged, both for our acts and our omissions, and we frequently are our own worst critics. In fact, we tend to be dismayed and offended by behavior in others which seems to show that they fail to criticize themselves when they ought. But this begs the next question: knowing that we live in a fishbowl where we will be weighed and measured, what should we do?

SF author Lois McMaster Bujold once had one of her characters note that "reputation is what the world knows about you; honor is what you know about yourself." It seems to me that today's gospel answers our question by telling us to know ourselves, to know what we are doing and why we are doing it, and to pick reasons that we feel, as our own critics, are good for us. In that way we can increase our honor, and the more we, for good reasons, honor and revere ourselves, the more capable we become in offering honor and reverence to those we surround ourselves with.

This hits rather close to home. I have what I think are excellent reasons for blogging. Since I also really enjoy every indication that someone else likes it too, I clearly also have some reasons that are rather more suspect. 

Common Meditation for All Souls

We are all of us judged every day. We are judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror. We are judged by the faces of the people we love and by the faces and lives of our children and by our dreams. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.(Frederick Buechner, 1926 - )

Revised Common Lectionary

Jesus said, "Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
(Matthew 6:1-6,16-21)