John Mixon recently sent me a story that beautifully illustrates so much about
how we think about both the content and practice of spirituality. I'm certain it is
not politically correct but most of Jesus stories weren't either.

Boudreaux was driving down the street in Breaux Bridge in a sweat because he
had an important meeting and couldn't find a parking place. Looking up toward
heaven, he said "Lord, take some pity on me. If you find me a parkin' place, I'll go
to Mass every Sunday fo de ress of my life and give up drinking beer and chasin'
wimmen." Miraculously, a parking place appeared. Boudreaux looked up again,
and said, "Never mind, I found one."

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Remember that I am suggesting that a place to start on a regular basis in our
spiritual work is with a reminder of "how things are." When we see "where we
are" and "what is" I believe we are more motivated to live our lives with meaning
and purpose. I have talked to you about four things that, to me, sum up how
things are in the world. If we ignore or deny these things we fall off the path.

Life is inconceivably precious.
Life is short and death is certain.
Life contains inevitably difficulties.
Life is shaped by moral choices.

Just this past week I read these words by David La Chapelle. He is a
photographer of some renown who does some rather incredible work. Listen:

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There are four points I have suggested that we keep constantly in front of us.
We can begin our daily meditation practice - you do have one don't you? - with
these things in mind:

1. Life is inconceivably precious.
2. Life is short and death is certain.
3. Life contains inevitable difficulties.
4. Life is shaped by our moral choices.

Seeing these truths as realities about life is designed to wake us up. The
assumption of all great spiritual teachers seems to be that people are going
through life sleepwalking. So their message is - wake up!

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I am embarrassed to tell you that when I started giving sermons - when I was
way too young to do so - I thought the thing to do was to try to scare the hell out
of people. Or, to scare them out of hell.

This is what I was taught: the most important thing in life is to have the right set
of beliefs and to be able to defend them - to the death if necessary - so that at
the time of death one is assured of eternal salvation.

As you have heard me say before, I grew up in an evangelical church. One of
the most important things about church was "winning souls for Jesus." We had
revivals twice a year.

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