Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

American journalist and writer, P. J. O’Rourke, once said, “Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”  I agree with him - family love is very messy, and the messiness too often becomes systemic, passed down through generations.  Quite honestly, life is very messy.  And, the Bible is brutally honest about this messiness as it contains stories of all kinds of people in the depth of messiness and dysfunction.  One of the beautiful aspects of scripture is that it speaks the truth about our very lives, the truth about the messiness that creates all sorts of systemic problems within families and communities, the messiness that prevents us from living in relationship with others, the messiness everyone experiences in some form.  And, it is so fascinating that, when looking at the messiness in our own lives, our reaction to it, or our inability to thoughtfully respond in a healthy manner, is usually rooted in some aspect of fear. In today’s gospel reading, we meet