Saturday in The Week of The 5th Sunday in Lent

I will not forget your Word.

--Psalm 119:16b

There are days when we just plain forget the Word of God. It's not totally erased from our memory, we just don't have conscious recall of it during certain twenty four hour periods.

It was tough, however, to forget the Word of God today. I find myself walking under a tent at a plant sale. Spring is in the air; the temperature is 72 degrees, and the sights, sounds, colors, and smells are delightful to take in. Here, amid the parsley, rosemary, delphiniums, geraniums, and people enjoying one another's company, one recalls the creative Word of the Lord that gave us so much to celebrate and care for.

But meanwhile, far away, fourteen lives are lost in a mass shooting. Thus, the dark, deadly reality of sin is juxtaposed with the wonder of creation, and, at this moment, my mind and soul once again have conflicting signals sounding all around.

But I aspire to more than endless conflicting signals in this life. I ask God that I never forget His Word. That Word has something to say about the tragedies of sin. And it also has something to say about those little flowers that I carried to the customers' cars.

PD