September 13, 2020 – Genesis 41:25-33, 37-40, 50-52; ISSL Reflections, Post 3

This week’s Scripture –

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2041%3A25-33%2C%2037-40%2C%2050-52&version=NRSV,CEB

VI.
The passage for this week begins, “Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, ‘Pharaoh’s dreams are one and the same; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do.’” (Genesis 41:25)

Notice the connecting word, “Then.”

The scene in Pharaoh’s court comes after a lot of things have happened to Joseph. It seems something is always happening to Joseph. Weather at the hand of his father, his brothers, Midianites, Egyptians, and now Pharaoh has Joseph brought from prison to stand before him and to offer an interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream.

In some ways Joseph is presented to us as passive. Yet, no matter where he is, he keeps on being who he is. To me there seems to be a consistency in how he deals with wherever he finds himself. He doesn’t appear to struggle, he is just who he is.

VII.
What might there be in the core of his character that gives him the grace to act consistency from that core?

Does he meet God at that “place”? Does God accompany him from there as he meets what the world brings his way?

Thomas Merton offers a few insights on what might be at the center of the being of each of us. I encourage you to give Merton a hearing. He may push you to consider things in ways you have not done so before. Merton is very good at helping us expand our perceptions.

“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak His name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely … I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is every- where.” (From – Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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