Dr. Ozzie Smith on "A Visitor, A Mapmaker, and a Banquet"

This message is absolutely brilliant and aptly stirred my pot today! Rev. Anthony's fresh approach to tradition is remarkable. He is right that the critics of our faith are nothing more than critics. They are the Pharisees and Sadducees without doctrine, only shrill undocumented dogma.

Duke Ellington was once harpooned for daring to compose Sacred Concerts, most namely Come Sunday and others. He was asked in an interview to respond to those who criticized his daring to do such. His response went something like this as my memory permits, "Well, some people have to have a job to criticize! Mine is to compose music!"

It seems to me that such focus, faith, and thankfulness should also be ours as carriers of the WORD. The language of this message sends me to look deeply at things today and tomorrow. The random initial visits that became times for ministry are poignant. Psalm 23 has perhaps never been given such a great ride of message. Yet as Rev. Anthony suggests, we will never exhaust the meaning, message, and lives changed by God's Word. Someone said recently that the prophet's words are given to change the world of those who hear them--faith does indeed come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

The letter written by the Episcopal priest is testimony to a life visited in the turns of that map-making experience and yet transformed when the tables turned to allow ministry to happen to rather than happen by.

Thanks, Rev. Anthony, for a very fresh and stimulating Word. Thanks Day1 for the lift!

--Ozzie Smith