Listening for God

"So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11. 1 - 13

In our Reading Between the Lines class, we are "reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting" short stories and where and when humans listen for and hear God. In a recent class, we discussed Andre Dubus's "A Father's Story," a remarkable tale of where and how we might experience forgiveness. If you haven't read it, I urge you to, and then follow it up with Dubus's son's book House of Sand and Fog, which is also a movie available on Prime Video.

Without giving any of either story away, I would commend to you this passage from the gospel Luke as a foundation for understanding forgiveness and answered prayer. As a parent, child or friend to what extent would you go to help/forgive the one you love? And if we believe in God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer of all Creation, how much more, how much farther, how much stronger must his/her love and forgiveness be. Both writers master storytelling, full of extreme examples of love and forgiveness in situations that challenge our human ability to believe. Through the use of everyday sacraments and blessings, the characters listen for and find God in ways far beyond what they could know or ask for.

It is not a coincidence that the protagonist in "A Father's Story" is named Luke...

PS. If you would like to go a little deeper, take time to watch this little video in which the senior Dubus' children talk about their father.