No, really, somedays I just don’t get it. I can’t always read the tea leaves of a situation   A simple gesture can be perceived as an offense, and I never had a clue as to what I said, what I did that was wrong.

“What’s been going on? Are you foolish?  Don’t you get it?”

It is impossible to ignore the judgement implied in the confrontation.  They had the whole story, but they did not get it – the meaning, the implication of their story.  If they got it, would they actually be out here, somewhere between Jerusalem and Emmaus.

Yet, here they are.  And there is an uncertainty, a discomfort, a dis-ease to the whole experience.  The clinical term is cognitive dissonance but the actual experience feels more like the nausea that comes with a case of heartburn.

Our role in faith formation is not to lessen the dis-ease, coat over it.  Nor do we preemptively cause it. But, we are there to be present to the occasion of new thoughts, new ways of living, conversion. do the same. We remain present to others because we have had the experience, because we still have a message of good news to share in a world of discomfort.