This morning I had to take care of the kids all morning while my wife had a garage sale again. I did the housecleaning and didn't get angry about it. After noon I got angry at her because I felt like she wasn't closing up the sale and I had to go to the store for formula. When I got back I made amends to her for getting angry I admitted that I shouldn't have griped at her. She also apologized to me for getting angry.

I watched an episode of "The Cleaner" today. The recovered addict was working so much at his job (chasing addicts) that he neglected his family. I thought about how this would not be living by God's will and would disrupt the power that retsores me to sanity. This would harm others and be just like addiction in that sense. The protagonist's wife expressed that sentiment to him.

There is however the parallel to the story that fellowship and service work are major sacrifices that families must make in order to keep the grace of God.

Today I thought again about “The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,". Earlier this week I thought that the simplest reading of the parable is that the “The Kingdom of heaven" refers to actual heaven and therefore the whole parable refers to the afterlife. I thought I might be reading into it something that is not intended by thinking of “The Kingdom of heaven" as the spiritual life in this life.

I thought of the supporting readings on Sunday and Thursday thought that this must mean that the intepretation of the church is what led me in this direction and Fr. I thought of some of the other ideas related to this in the parables and the parallels of seeking spiritual wisdom.

Selling what you have is like changing your priorities and getting rid of old values.
Culling a net full of fish is like focusing on what's really important.
Re-burying the treasure to buy the land and come back for it is like finding the truth and going through the process of changing your life and persevering for the long term gratification.

Father Barry's focus on the "treasures of the Kingdom of heaven" as being spiritual principles and that we should be treasure seekers rather than seekers of worldly treasures supported this also. Father Barron's teaching was also consistent with this.

Today I heard that it says "Fear not" and "trust in the LORD" 365 times in the bible. I realized that is one for every day of the year.

This evening I got to go to a meeting. On the way to the meeting Father Larry's program was on and he was talking about the importance of making amends. I found that I really didn't want to think about this. The program reminded me that it is August 2nd and that it is time for me to start my 8th step study. I thought I will think about it later. I realized that this is a step that I resist the most. I thought it will probably be the topic of the meeting. The topic of the meeting was from the first 3 pages of the 12 and 12 on step 8.

Thanks be to God for the treasures of heaven.