Good News

Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it’s impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It’s been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It’s so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we’re being punked. It’s filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don’t think it’s an ideal system. -Anne Lamott

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Mark 1:14

In these days, God taught me as a schoolteacher teaches a pupil. -Saint Ignatius

Repent. In Biblical Hebrew, the idea of repentance is represented by two verbs: שוב shuv (to return) and נחם nacham (to feel sorrow). In the New Testament, the word translated as ‘repentance’ is the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia), “after/behind one’s mind”, which is a compound word of the preposition ‘meta’ (after, with), and the verb ‘noeo’ (to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing). In this compound word, the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by ‘after’ and ‘different’; so that the whole compound means: ‘to think differently after’. Metanoia is therefore primarily an after-thought, different from the former thought; a change of mind and change of conduct, “change of mind and heart”, or, “change of consciousness”. metanoia: change of mind, repentance Original Word: μετάνοια, ας, ἡ Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine Transliteration: metanoia Phonetic Spelling: (met-an’-oy-ah) Short Definition: repentance, a change of mind Definition: repentance, a change of mind, change in the inner being.

I remind myself that there are things God has to teach me yet, and ask for the grace to hear them and let them change my mind, change my inner being.

And I was all prepared this morning to write a sweet piece about sleepovers at Mimi’s, and snuggling with Simone and Rosie in the bed boat in front of the fire while Everette slept, and our conversation about purring, and how that was the most perfect purring moment, at complete rest and trust and contentment imaginable.

But instead I have been thinking about breakfast tacos and resolutions with Dre, and about Adam stepping into writing, and about soup and quesadillas with Scott last night, and his quiet questions, and an article I read now five times by Anne Lamont about what is true about life now that she is old and wise, and it’s like she was wandering among my thoughts and she put them into the exact words, except for the bit about dark chocolate, and then, when I read today’s scripture I remembered all of the sermons I have heard about the word “repent,” about how it means to change one’s thinking… and that is what God is doing in me these days, changing my mind, my inner being.

And it’s a good thing and it can be full of joy and freedom and embracing. If one sticks to it, and doesn’t turn back home to look over the new oxen or say goodbye to how it’s always been.

Remember Jesus always calls this repenting stuff “Good news.”