Five Minute Friday: Catch!

I know it's no longer Friday. Friday was given to hymns and scripture, prayers and flowers, the fellowship of the body of Christ and the comfort of the grieving. Now it's Saturday morning and I have but five minutes.

Perfect.

And so, on Saturday morning, as always happens after funerals, I find myself thinking about life and the big picture and the deep meanings for the time we have here. 

Lisa-Jo, writing on this week's Five Minute Friday prompt, "catch," says, "I write in this space because sometimes our stories are the best translation of the Bible we’ve got to offer someone else."

Hmmm. Why do I write in this space? Why do I do anything the way I do? There's a great question.

As a rule, Catholics are not encouraged to translate the Bible on their own for someone else;-). It just doesn't come to us as second nature to think in those terms.

Really, though, isn't that precisely the point?

Isn't life--each life individually--our own translation of the Bible? Aren't we supposed to speak His every word and let them become so tangled with our own words that no one knows where His words stop and ours begin?

Catch. Hold.

Breathe Him in and let Him exhale from every pore. Aren't we supposed to know Jesus so well that we know ourselves only in Him?

Paul writes, "For me, to live is Christ and death is gain." To. live. is. Christ. Four words. Nothing extra. The whole point of living right there. 

What is my translation of the Bible as it is lived out in my own home and at the ballet studio and on the soccer sidelines and here in my small corner of cyberspace? Is it Christ? Is that obvious? Can you catch it? Does the way I live toss Christ high into the air in a million sparkling pieces of grace so that they fall about me everywhere and on everyone to be caught, even sometimes unawares?

That is the prayer of my life. 

[Disclaimer after the five minutes are up: When I went back and re-read this piece after the first few comments here and on Facebook, I worried that it sounds like I'm fishing for compliments and affirmations. I'm not. My point was to share with you what's inside my head, the things I'm thinking and asking myself. Usually, I let things rumble around in my head, then I put them in draft and think some more, then I tinker. I genuinely did this in five minutes and I guess there's a bit of danger in that;-) I beg your pardon if it sounds other than I intended. Have a beautiful weekend, friends! I'm off to --ahem--encourage a brood of children to pull more than their weight in weeds.]