Thursday, February 01, 2024

Was Jesus an Introvert?

This week's gospel text is from Mark 1:29-39. Check it out. 

It is a little comforting to know that after a day of being around and serving people, Jesus needed to get away from it all and find time to connect with God.
Is Jesus connecting with God the same as people connecting with themselves?
Isn't that connecting with self, God, grounding, mindfulness the kind of discipline that we learn both in the Judeo-Christian practice of prayer and the Eastern practice of meditation?
Isn't getting away from people to recharge/refocus a defining introvert characteristic?

Maybe not.
Maybe it is a human need that introverts are just better at than non-introverts.
Maybe we all have the need to regularly connect to God/the Universe/our inner being but we don't all recognize just how important that connection is to our spiritual well being.

I have to admit -- the Jesus/God thing sometimes confuses me. Did Jesus go away to pray because it was something he needed?
Or was he teaching us how to deal with the stress of being around people because he knew that we would need it?
Does God retreat to a quiet corner of the cosmos whenever God gets weary of our endless prayer lists of the things we want/need? 
Maybe that's when bad things happen.

Just my Thursday morning thoughts.

John

P.S. Another Thursday morning thought -- it's a good thing I'm not really a preacher anymore. These weekly thoughts would make for terrible sermons!

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