Witness of the Spirit for Feb 19, 2012

God meets us in the valley and is at work there.  We humans imagine that we must retreat from society in order to meet God, maintain purity in order to stand in God’s presence, or achieve some measure of moral or religious holiness in order to merit God’s attention.  Yet in Jesus the flow of action is reversed.  Rather than retreat from society’s needs he embraces them.  Rather than avoid those who are unclean or diseased he heals them.  Rather than condemn those who are sinful he forgives them.  When we meet others in solidarity at the places of disjunction and fracture in their lives and our own, we find God waiting for us.