I am a retired layman who is a son, brother, husband, father, grandfather and friend. I've worked as a journeyman in a number of trades and practice areas over the decades. I've mastered a few.
Now, like Amos, I am but a simple farmer. Well, a netizen who enjoys tilling a few web-based "hobby farms." They come and they go. This is one of them. It is more likely to stick around through time than some. There are, and will, be others.
What is of vital interest to me is what was of essential concern to Newman. How do we maintain our faith in a time of widespread faithlessness in the West?
People believe many things. But, do they believe in the things of Eternity which they cannot manipulate or control? Do they reverence that which sustains them in life? Do I sufficiently? Can you be both a person of faith and a seeker of truth, reasonably? Or, are we too busy to care, too content with the things that we see with our eyes, to espy that which we cannot?
A fragment from the Gospel According to Luke, chapter seventeen, the twenty-seventh verse, often comes to mind these days:
They did eat and drink, they married wives and were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.
It is probably a good idea to work on our arks a little bit each day. Newman can show us how:
I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve him in my calling. "Hope in God--Creator", Meditations and Devotions, emphasis added.
With the canonisation of Saint John Henry Newman now accomplished, I'll be posting once or twice a fortnight. I have other fields to tend! I am happy to live life like that wonderful character of Cecily Hallock, Barnabas Job. I once knew a man just like him; we enjoyed his homebrewed beer together. May he Rest in Peace.
I can be contacted via:
rick-dot-hayes-at-linuxenlivens-dot-com
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