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| Looking Within! |
St. Mark! What a writer! We have to acknowledge once again how this evangelist had a way of addressing the basics of the Jesus-message. In capturing these words of Jesus about where a human being will find his/her source of what become psychological burdens (as well as joys), Mark gives us an opportunity to understand the driving force(s) within our lives. Thus, "Looking Within."
Are there not times when we ask ourselves: "What is bothering me at the moment?" or "Why do I feel the way I do?" We know well it is from the heart that our bodies find life. It is the heart that pushes "life" through arteries and veins. At the same time it is our heart, that intangible heart of our very being, our soul, that makes us what we are.
While Jesus' words were an attempt on one level to address Jewish practice about what foods to eat or not eat, he also takes his disciples beyond religious custom to a basic of human nature. Medical doctors and nutritionists today speak to our physical well being -- our bodies become what we eat, what we drink, what we breathe. Today's spiritual spiritual guides offer insight into what makes the "me" that I have become, the "me" that is the driving force of personality I present to the world both knowingly and unknowingly.
So how do the various evils Jesus mentioned come from the heart, that intangible heart, your very soul? How is it that we can hear a call to service of one kind or another and say "Not for me!" What can bring us to lie, to fabricate an untruth? What stirs a person to immorality, to unethical practices? Is this not a part of what St. Paul was writing in his letter to the Galatians in Chapter 2, verses 16 and 21: that holiness comes through faith in Jesus not the observance of the law? The "heart" can lead us around the "law" but it is the spirit within that leads us to faith in Jesus and the ability to follow him.
