Friday of the Second Week of Lent

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?

The builders are certainly the most qualified to choose which stones should be used for building. They have training and experience and tradition. Their craft is older than history; they were building homes, schools, temples and palaces during the Stone Age.

But sometimes even the wisest of this world are wrong. Their training, experience and tradition blind them to possibilities. They lack what Shunryu Suzuki called “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind.” The “expert mind” is closed by its expertise. It’s seen it all; it has tried every possibility and knows every avenue. It knows what you’re going to say before you say it.

Of course we who don’t build cannot see the possibilities of that rejected stone either. What good can come of rejection, failure, disease, defeat or debacle? Everybody knows these things are worthless. If the experts say there is nothing there, why would we expect anything?

But sometimes life or chance or God surprises us. Magic beans sprout into towering bean stalks. Sometimes a cough that sounds like a death rattle invites the smoker to give it up at last. I knew a woman who surreptitiously recorded a priest’s early morning Mass. When he heard his own wheezing, gasping, coughing, gagging and choking he heard what everyone knew -- he was dying. He quit smoking. He placed his last pack on Mary’s altar in Carey and walked away. No hypnosis, no nicotine patch, no Zybal or Habitrol. That was thirty years ago and he’s still with us.

God can open doors that no one sees. He creates possibilities that no one imagines. I visited my parents’ grave some years ago and reflected on mortality. I wondered why we should believe there is life after death. What realistic hope is there, beyond the doctrines of our faith?

Then I remembered that, from the evidence of protozoa and ameba, no one can predict mammals. Nor should mammals evolve into self-conscious rational beings. There is no obvious road that leads from one step in the evolutionary chain to the next. The earth seemed content for a billion years with the most elementary forms of life, until something new, unexpected and unpredictable appeared.

Life teaches us to wait and trust in the saving mercy of God who creates credible possibilities where only hope exists.


[Thanks to Allegheny Art for the drawing]