“Make the things I’m commanding you today part of who you are. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re sitting together in your home and when you’re walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning” (Deuteronomy 6: 6-7, VOICE).

I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s not always easy to come up with something creative and original when you write these blogs on a daily basis. And yes, I do write all of these myself. I’m the only writer for the Ragamuffin Gospel Fan blogs.

I find lately that I do tend to repeat myself quite a bit. Sometimes, it’s intentional. Sometimes, it’s just me being forgetful that I’ve already written on a particular topic.

I believe that a lot of faith is returning again and again to the basics until they change who you are fundamentally. It’s going back to the Gospel for the rest of your life, because that’s where your hope lies.

So, it’s 10:05 pm on a Saturday and I am at home and not out painting the town red or hitting up the clubs. I’m writing this on the fly, per usual. What you see is generally what I write on the first-take, with very little revisions or editing. That’s just the way I write these days.

I’ve heard that taking up photography changes the way you see things. You begin to look at people and scenes as if you’re composing a shot or looking through a lens.

I also think that writing changes the way you look at life. You start hearing conversations differently. Phrases will jump out at you. Lines from movies or TV shows will capture your attention. You see your world differently.

So what’s the theme of this blog? I guess if there is one, it’s this: the best kind of faith isn’t one where you know a little in a lot of areas about God and Jesus and the Church and other such matters. It’s where you keep going back to the well of the basics over and over until you’re absolutely sated with it and you know the Gospel backward and forward.

That’s it.