A No-Never-Mind

A Reflection on the Second Reading for November 15th, 2020:
Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

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1 Thessalonians
5.1-6

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape!

But you, beloved, are not in darkness for that day to surprise you like a thief. You are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
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Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

“We live under wide open skies and know where we stand.” That’s how Eugene says it — the bit about us not being of the night or of the darkness. We live under wide open skies and we know where we stand. I hear this phrase and it’s like a wind picking up across a field, moving through the prairie grasses. I see myself standing in this flaxen sea and the breadth of the sky changes my breath. It widens it. The thief in the night becomes a no-never-mind in the movement of clouds across a wide open sky.


I had a good friend who was 91. Jean could be moving forward through a crowded church foyer with her walker on wheels, whip it around on a dime and turn it into a throne for a quick chat with people about Jesus. We’d tell people we were sisters, even though she almost doubled me in age. One of her favourite things to do was go visit the ‘old people in the home’ and read the Bible with them. Her heart started to slow her down and these doings started to fall away. The specialist said there was a surgery that could restore heart function, but it carried significant risks at her age and she might not survive it. Jean explained that the way she saw it, the surgery was a good deal. In one outcome she got to serve her Lord, in the other she got to see Him. To Jean, death was a no-never-mind.


Paul writes his letter to the Thessalonians, and to me, and to you, not to draw our attention to the thief in the night — to the unknown nature of the arrival of the end. He instead holds up for us the known nature of who we are — the sons of the Light and the daughters of the Day. Who they were as they gathered to hear his letter read out loud. Who I am as I write this. Who you are as you read it. Or rather, who we are becoming as we choose to follow the Light. The simple truth is we don’t need to concern ourselves with the timing of His returning. His sudden arrival is a no-never-mind to those living in the light. 


Living in this light is a gradual dawning. He gives me the chance to give up the things that obscure my sight of Him. Little by little. He strengthens my eyes until they are strong enough to look at the Son and not be damaged. He gets us used to the brightness that will come in the ‘twinkling of an eye’, when we are changed as we see Him fully.    


O my sweet Jesus, help me become more of who I will be in that moment — lessen the variance, the shock of transition. Let me be on earth as I will be in heaven. Amen.




Noreen Smith
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