12-02-25

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
December 2, 2025
Yesterday, while my wife and I were on the phone with the insurance company, attempting to get our 2026 medical insurance figured out, the person to whom we were talking was unable to provide us with any answers. We were told that we would receive a call back within 24 hours. Funny thing, I had made a call to them on a completely different matter back in April, and I was told I’d receive a call back within 24 hours. I did not. So I was a bit skeptical. After we got off the call, my wife says to me, “Do you know that in situations like this, you come off angry?” My first reaction was to be defensive, spinning it back on the situation and the lack of results. But as I continued to think about her comments throughout the day, and I don’t believe she was exaggerating, I was sort of confronted by something I didn’t like hearing. Yet I was glad she told me how I am probably heard. Oh sure, there are times when I have been angry, and so sounding angry might have simply been an accurate assessment. But yesterday, I was speaking to a representative of the insurance company who probably had near zero power in the organization. She was simply doing her job, at least as she was trained to do it. She was pleasant at every point in the conversation, in spite of probably dealing with dozens of people just like me, or some whose anger might have spilled over into name-calling or who knows what. Yes, I was frustrated, and though she was the only person on the phone to whom I could express my frustration, I do not believe she was deserving of the “anger” my wife perceived. I can still hear my grandmother, as some of you may remember hearing from a relative, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” And though I do not know what my situation has to do with flies, I wonder if our whole culture would be served well if everyone took it down a notch. Now maybe you’re that person who has already taken it down to near zero. If so, thank you! But despite there possibly being some reason for my frustration, the woman on the phone might have gone home frustrated, and there would be a pretty good chance that I was the source of her frustration. I’m not going to overplay the butterfly effect here, but Jesus didn’t tell us to love the world. Instead, he told us to love our neighbor. To love the world feels very theoretical and impersonal. So when Jesus told us to love our neighbor, he followed it with an example of a single human being demonstrating love to another single human being. It’s some pretty good advice.

As we prepare to receive anew your gift of love enfleshed, allow the power of the gift itself to be transformative to who we are as people seeking to follow Jesus. We make this prayerful request to you, O Incarnate Gift of Light and Love. Amen.