Ever read the book Where’s Waldo?

It’s a children’s book that’s also a search game. On each page is a different drawing that's intricate and colorful. And hidden away somewhere in each picture is a character named Waldo. Finding him is sometimes easy. And sometimes hard. But it can’t be done immediately because Waldo, even though colorfully dressed, is simply drowned out by all the other images and colors around him.

Wouldn’t it be easier if Waldo was on a stark white page? You bet.

In Sunday’s gospel Jesus will tell us ‘you are the salt of the earth’ and he will warn us that if we lose our saltiness, we are no longer good for anything. Of course, there’s only one way salt can lose its taste - and that is by being diluted - by letting that which surrounds it drown out its flavor.

It’s the same with you and me.

We live complicated, over-committed, and over-burdened lives that often jeopardize our abilities to give our full flavor to the world around us. We become diluted when things are allowed to creep in that take our minds off Christ and his promises to keep us fed, clothed, and housed. We become diluted when other things take priority over building our relationship with Christ. We become diluted when our best energy and attention go to things outside of the purposes to which God has called us.

Finding Waldo, and our saltiness, is much easier on a stark white page. Let’s do that. 

PS In the image above Waldo's head is at the very bottom toward the center...