Connections&  
May 6,  2001--Fourth Sunday of Easter

• "My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me... no one can take them out of the Father's hand."      John 10: 27-30
  

     Many of you comic strip fans may remember the delightfully quirky strip Bloom County by Berke Breathed.
     One of the central characters of Bloom County is a penguin named Opus.  One day Opus decides he wants to give up television and become more learned.  As he walks up the steps of the 'Publik [sic] Library," Opus   announces:
    "Attention, dark world of electronic gratification... 
   I would like to announce my intellectualization!
   No more TV!  No more boob tube-a-roo!
   'Twas turning my noodle to video goo!
   Yes, there's something much better for smart chaps like me&
   From what I've heard, it's known as 'to READ'!
   Books!  I'll read books!  Be they large or quite dinky!
   Straight from the shelves all musty and stinky!
   Faulkner!  O'Neill!  Twain and Saul Bellow!
   I think I'll curl up with one of those fellows!
   Yes, I'll soon be well-read!  Such a fab thing to be!
   I've allowed plenty of time, at least an hour& or three."
     Opus then stands bewildered in the midst of shelves of books that climb to the sky.  The shelves appear to be closing in around him.
   In the last frame of the cartoon, poor little Opus is back home, munching on a snack, in front of the cursed television, as a voice calls out from the set, "Gilligan!"
     [From Bloom Country Babylon by Berke Breathed.]

CONNECTION:  Many of us share Opus' experience.  With determination and conviction, we seek to learn, to think, to reflect, to resolve to do what is right and just and good; but when we are confronted with the sheer magnitude of how much there is to learn, with the many complexities and nuances of every word and act, with the many shades of gray in what we thought was a simple black-and-white world, we shrink away and seek comfort in the happy mindlessness of life's Gilligan's Islands.  But if we strain to hear, if we listen with open hearts and spirits, there is that one voice that rises above the cacophony of voices demanding our attention and the noise of so many theories and lifestyle choices that clamor for our recognition.  The voice of Christ the Good Shepherd can always be heard, speaking to us a word of hope and grace in the love and joy, the pain and anguish, the cries for mercy and justice of those around us, a voice calling us to compassion, love and forgiveness that is the very miracle of Easter.