“Six Seeeeeven” is the obnoxious cultural trend that makes announcing a basketball game, teaching algebra, or just trying to have a conversation with an adolescent practically impossible.  Though this phenomenon might commonly be attributed to the random impulses of a brain rot generation, it is hard to deny that these two numbers have a unique way of summing up our salvation: Jesus, specifically on the sixth day of the week, mounted the cross in order to draw us to the limits of human existence and into contact with eternity, symbolized by the Sabbath, the seventh and final day of the week.  This moment itself was an expression of an earlier event, the creation of the world, when the seventh day of the week was established as the spiritual bookend to the drama and complexity of the preceding six days.  Such complementarity of earthly and transcendent is, indeed, the truth of things, and it is therefore no wonder that in the ancient religious mind the number six, on its own, was considered evil (Hence the use of 666 to signify the devil!).  As this Lenten season draws to a close, let’s ask for the courage to trace the seemingly nonsensical projections of our daily lives back to the primordial paschal pattern that is implicit in all things.  We shall happily “six-seven” with the teenyboppers and be at peace.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica. 

The Aldi grocery cart system offers a very interesting analogy for the human journey toward communion.  The carts are linked together by chains that can only be released when the shopper inserts a quarter into the slot which is mounted to the handlebar.  That same quarter, which stays in the slot for the duration of one’s shopping, is returned to the shopper when the cart is escorted back to the other carts and the chain is reinserted.  This very utilitarian arrangement, which is meant to offer patrons an incentive for maintaining order in the parking lot, is transformed when a single person chooses to return their cart without taking their quarter back.  The next person goes to retrieve a cart but doesn’t have to go through the trouble of finding a quarter, and when that person is done shopping, she or he can just leave the cart so that someone else might experience this same gift.  A single quarter, in this way, can service dozens of shoppers in a given day!  And so it goes with the Christian life: Jesus breaks the cycle of worldly transactionality by paying the price for us.  Ours is to simply pass along what has been given to us as a pure grace (1 Cor 4:7).  Such stewardship produces humility and gratitude which links us together in the blessed chain of our salvation.  Let’s spend some time this week contemplating this spiritual truth and find creative ways to pay it forward. Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Nouns do not exist!  Everything, according to the best and most current theories of quantum physics, is constantly in process, continually evolving, verbal by nature.  When we have an idea in our minds, it may seem static and definitive, but such an abstraction is only representational, an approximation of that which is always taking shape and becoming something new.  This is precisely why the biblical tradition claims that the one true God is pure act (“I am who I am,” Ex 3:14) and that idolatry, confusing the transcendent for something that can be contained and controlled on the altar of our left brains, is the first, worst and most dangerous of all the sins (Ex 20:4).  During this season of Lent, therefore, let’s have the courage to acknowledge our anxious and clinging ways.  Let’s start seeing nouns as opportunities for surrender, dying to the self we think we are and to the things we think we possess.  We shall be met by a flowing river of grace from on high and be broken open to a life of change and growth.  We shall rise again and again to new expressions of our humanity and verb our way into eternity.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

“Playing war” is an appropriate pastime for little boys who, as human development goes, are perpetually stuck in an ego-drama that pits them against anyone they encounter.  They have not quite crossed the psychological threshold of the self into real contact with others, and so spend their afternoons arranging green plastic soldiers, constructing weapons out of popsicle sticks, and running around the yard making “pow pow pow” noises, all in an effort to protect and assert themselves in a world that feels unsafe.  Such primal confusion (which is the root meaning of the word “war”) is perfectly consistent with a human life in process and the journey toward self-actualization.  The problem, however, is that when little boys get stuck in this state of confusion, they never grow up and tragically mistake their versus mindset for reality.  It’s not just that they are open to war as a necessary evil in a fallen society, but rather seek it out, crave it, and need it, unconsciously creating circumstances that fuel the false narrative of their inner turmoil.  During this season of Lent, let’s make the decision to stand with the one in whom there is no confusion, who wages only peace, and in whom all things are reconciled (Col 1:15-20).  Our inner little boy or girl will become an adult man or woman, and we shall be saved.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.