Fifth Sunday, Cycle B or “The Doctor’s Visit”

The medical machine has cranked out its complicated tests and measurements. It’s taken many weeks and as you await that dreaded doctor’s visit with “the news” about your health as if all the local television stations with bright lights are stationed outside now waiting for your responses.

If cameras were awaiting you outside after that visit, the words of Job might just naturally pop into your head. “So, I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.” Eager question from a reporter brings you to say more Job words,” When shall I arise? then the night drags on, I am filled with restlessness until the dawn.”

That doctor’s visit offered you overdoses of cute, positive platitudes about your condition (that’s been said countless times before), along with your possible prescription doses for the remainder of your life, along with your survival percentages (that rarely reach 50), Again, cue Job, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” (Job’s words, yours may be crispier) Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.”

The TV cameras have left, the doctor went home and you go home. Perhaps alone, perhaps with others but not wishing to talk. Not wishing to talk? What a wonderful beginning of prayer. In the silence of your silence, God is able to soften those “p’s” of platitudes, prescriptions and percentages to strengthen you with David’s Psalm words of, ‘the brokenhearted experiences healing, wounds are bound up and raised into heavenly grace; forget the amount number of stars occupying the sky, no one knows how many but please know that your name is important.’

Jesus has his say from St. Mark by telling us that “He cured many many who were sick with various diseases, and drove out many demons.” Cured? Cured? Healing? Healing?

You prayerfully pray before the scheduled surgery. Putting yourself aside and like St. Paul declaring in similar words, ‘I have been entrusted with a stewardship. I have a recompence, I have a payment – free of charge-by offering myself and living the gospel to make full use of my right in the gospel.’

Medical predictions? Percentages, weighing the odds like vacationing in Las Vegas?

Faith? Unlimited in the wonder, unknowns, and most importantly the awesome mystery and complete peace and trust in God.

Scripture Readings for the “Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time”

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020424.cfmhttps://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020424.cfm

Check out books by Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS on Amazon.com

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Winter’s Snowman

It’s a new January’s whitest morning. Above reigns a crisply blue sky with the sound of quieting winds. Covering the ground? The earthly covering is mounds of white stuff.

Youth-filled eyes awaken to its wonder and their smiling faces already have their day planned. Mom and Dad look out the window, frown at each other, and turn to the other side for another thirty minutes of sleep.

The smells of Mom’s coffee couples with Dad’s noisy fourth pull for gasoline for his dreaded chore. Now arrives the growing energy and excitement offspring of those two. Although Christmas was a long memory past to these youngsters, it seems to have reappeared. The inside cedar is now outside. Appearing in their minds and hearts is the giftedness, wonder, and imagination that this day holds for them.

The barrier of breakfast becomes unbearable while staring all the while at all the bright whiteness resting on their lawn. “Dad did his job,” the children think, “I guess it’s time now for us to do our job.”

Frolic is the best describer of those kids jumping and falling on those white mounds. Neighbor children quickly join in the fun. Wearing every piece of clothing they possess, those minds and hearts turn to creation.

Following the previous night’s tremendous storm, children only think of beauty and creation. “What can we do with all this white stuff that Dad piled together?” One starts to make circular weapons out of it to fling to the neighbor he never liked. This happens for quite a while until finally, the children realize that this ice-balling back and forth has no end.

Another child, in a simple lying resting position, stretches out her arms and begins to wave them within the whitey stuff. Another sees this and yells out, “She’s making an angel!” Instead of a contest of throwing it at each other, the new contest is now creating a better, more beautiful angel. All experienced within the whiteness of a cold, sunny, January morning.

“Giftedness, wonder, and imagination.” Childish dreams? Ones that we happily outgrow and throw away to deal with the real realities of life? G, W, I.

From those three words springs the wonders of angelic blueprints fallen from the heavenly white stuff. And, their imagination moves from the ground upward. One says to another, “Let’s build a mound of three very large balls and see what it looks like.” “Good idea,” says the neighborhood shy kid.

So one huge ball placed upon another huge ball completes the G, W, and I. Dad’s charcoal for the eyes (so often darkened losing life’s beauty), lips that only widely smile. And, finally, inserted in the mouth? I pipe. (I never understood why always a pipe, but a pipe it is.)

G, W, I? Giftedness, Wonder, and Imagination. From a winter’s storm to futile aggression and combat; to imaging an angel, made in our image only with wings; to creating and recognizing the wonder of the person in each of us. All that wet, white stuff sent down from the heavens and recreated by young minds and hearts that hopefully will always remain youth-filled.

“Sorry guys,” the oldest says. “That’s my Mom yelling, it’s time for lunch.”

(Smoking it not healthy, just so you know.)

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Funeral for a Landscaper

“It’s but a moment.” That’s what the nurse told you twenty minutes ago waiting to see your doctor. Its length is unknown to us because time contains unknown moments and also contains those single, solitary moments.

One moment occurs and a new moment arises. Couple them together and they define our lives. The moments John enjoyed with family and friends became timeless, both in their time and remaining in memories. Time spent with your dentist? You figure that one out. My self-employed dad put a sign on his door at Noon that read, “Back in a moment.” Boy, did he have nice lunches.

John had his moments or should I say he had two moments. A beginning and an end. His final moment was the perfect moment for him because his death date matched with weather. His career was constantly absorbed with considering, planning for, and thinking about – the weather. Is it going to rain today and I need to reschedule? Or, as usual, is the weatherman wrong, once again; 80% of the time? Is the sun too hot today for those needing to work outside? Or, can this be done in winter because it just needs to be done?

The difference between the seasons of fall and winter? It’s how I began my moments with you today. It’s but a moment. December 21 is a moment between ending what began. Or, in faith, it is an ending and a beginning. Sound kind of like life? The fullness of life? We don’t know the amount of our earthly moments but we all know that that one moment will arrive. And, that’s the mystery and the beauty and all of the wonder of the timeliness of that one simple word. I don’t think I need to say that word again. Already said sixteen times with three more at the end.

Life’s beginnings is in the winter with the promise of many of the other three seasons through baptism. Through baptism, we are invited and welcomed to embrace all four seasons. We are never alone because of that sacrament and all the others. God provides and empowers us with the necessary divine strength to weather any winter of our lives. Like winter’s brain tumor. Don’t tell me that those extended years in John’s life didn’t strengthen his winters and truly embrace his bubbling springs, his warming summers of family and friends. Toward the end? With winter’s darkening of his eyes those glowing colors of the fall season he could see now with divine eyes, not only in nature but see all the colors possessed by family and friends. That’s the four seasons. That’s the four seasons that are so much more than the name of a rock group or that famous classical piece of music. John witnessed for all who knew him to live life’s four seasons in all of their beauties and prepared, through faith, their dangers.

“Put on love, perfect love” as Scripture says. “Perfect love” but I would qualify by saying, “as best you can.”

I’m at a resort in Los Angeles and meet a guy who’s a professional landscaper. We get talking and he tells me that Barbra Streisand is looking for bids to do some work at her home. I smiled and said, “That’s great, go for it.” He replied, “I would never accept a job like that because of her perfectionism and its effect on my future projects.” I smiled, once again, and knew. God doesn’t ask for perfection. God only beautifully requests that His creations do the best they can in beautifying themselves, those around them, and the world around them. Sounds like John?

In both health and decline, John lived a life of seasons. Just like we hope to live and honor as our lives continue. Hoped and honored because of our trust and mercy of our Creator.

I had Scripture passages to share with you this holy day but I suspect I’ve used up my moments. John’s holy day of ending and beginning is 12/21. That one final moment. His in-between moments were living and loving all of you.

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“We Can Be Kind,” Nancy LaMott

Is this just another new year or another repeating year only with the next number? Enlighten? The light of Christ living within is? The star that brought nations together? Or, the dark selfishness of ours?

The eternal song sings for us…

So many things I can’t control So many hurts that happen everyday So many heartaches that pierce the soul So much pain that won’t ever go away How do we make it better? How do we make it through?
What can we do When there’s nothing we can do?

Division makes me important and whoever or whatever you are makes you lesser than me … as much as saying that you are meaningless…

Those hope-filled lyrics continues…

We can be kind We can take care of each other We can remember that deep down inside We all need the same things And maybe we’ll find If we are there for each other 
That together we’ll weather Whatever tomorrow may bring

We love going to war. We stopped numbering them and conveniently, silently call them “presidential wars.” (Whispering) For the good of our nation in spite of how many lost lives…both theirs and ours.

Then the enlightened song continues…

Nobody really wants to fight Nobody really wants to go to war If everyone wants to make things right What are we always fighting for? Does nobody want to see it? Does nobody understand? The power to heal Is right here in our hand We can be kind We can take care of each other
We can remember that deep down inside We all need the same things

“Me win and you lose,” mantras nations all around the world. “I dominate and you subjugate” becomes our morning fear-filling news. That’s right, begin your morning with coffee and watch talk of destruction of everyone’s life…spirit, heart, mind, and soul…all promulgating their own, selfish, always-right, self-centered lives.

And that promising, light of faith’s music continues…

And maybe we’ll find If we are there for each other That together we’ll weather Whatever tomorrow may bring And it’s not enough to talk about it Not enough to sing a song
We must walk the walk about it You and I, do or die, we’ve got to try to get along

The Original Sin of idolatry from which we were all baptized now becomes the sin of nations and so many leaders…” me first,” identical to a two-year-old demanding more oatmeal.

Do we hear, once again, but now only with deaf ears…?

We can be kind, We can take care of each other, We can remember that deep down inside…We all need the same things And maybe we’ll find, If we are there for each other
That together we’ll weather, Whatever tomorrow may bring

Epiphany…insight, awareness, inclusion…light…lived with compassion, love and kindness…light.
Only piously spoken in church or living deeply within our hearts, living within our elected leaders, praying and living throughout our sacred, God-given created world?
Hearing the song’s conclusion is the true, bright, ever-burning presence and love of Christ as any single day begins or any new year beings us.

And maybe we’ll find, True peace of mind
If we always remember…We can be kind

(Song: “We Can Be Kind,” Nancy LaMott, hearable on YouTube)

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“Grandfather Clock and Time”

There’s a living thing living in my apartment. It’s hung on the wall for over thirty years because I was too cheap to purchase the floor version. It’s the fourth living thing in my apartment after counting my two cats and, of course, me.

My grandfather clock only tells me the kinda present time. It’s pretty close at keeping time but, interestingly, cannot keep time. It doesn’t show my past minutes, months, or years, and I can’t shake it upside down to show me my life’s remaining grains.

Work had its time. The old adage declared that “in work you controlled time,” and now, in retirement, “time controls you.” A friend dismissed that when she stated that your thirty-minute lunch was matched by your thirty extra minutes of work. So much for age-old adages.

After a lingering illness at death, it is often heard, “It was time.” That I get. What I don’t get after these many years of priestly life is the timeless line, “God called her.” Nice verb, but isn’t that murder in most states? Our busy God involved with the businesses of the whole world pronounces that Tuesday, Nancy will become a timed person. It may be a comforting comment to survivors that God takes a life that He gave, but it’s a very lazy theology.

My clock’s sole living purpose is reminding me that it’s time to leave for something or it’s time for the nightly news and “Jeopardy.” Reminding me helps if I remember to weekly wind it. Those ticks are my clock’s trying to keep up with time, and its tocks attempt to stop time. “Tockings” are the past, and my hanging pendulum friend can only declare both. Those “tockings” are my doing even though “you can’t turn back the hands of” you know what. That clinging to “tocking” feelings and thinking can question our present precious purpose in life. Life’s undones and misses can easily fill those silent holes in-betweens of a clinking clock. Why? Because sometimes it is easier to “tock” when we need to “tick.” “Tocking” is useless, non-productive, and certainly never healthy.

In faith, those ticks and tocks are called prayer about ourselves, those we love and the unknown people on the nightly news. Tocks alone is just plain garbage.

Interestingly, we say, “back and forth” when talking about time. When it fact it’s the opposite. Tick is forth and Tock is back. Our prayers need only be about the “ticks” in our lives – forth. And, if necessary, seeking mercy for the “tock’s” of our lives which is back.

My cats only tick through every minute of life.the guidance and love of God is the watchful eye of the watch keeper that is in each of us. As the angel John Cameron Swayze told us countless times, “It’s the watch that keeps on ticking.”

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The “Holy Family” & Your Family

“Dysfunctional Family” was the buzz word in the ’80’s to describe your family but never the family next to yours.

It was that somehow your family did not meet the expected assembly of what we firmly call, “Family.” For me, it was watching TV’s “Father Knows Best.” Robert Young arrives home after a day’s work and his three loving children run up to greet him in the living room along with, his loving wife, Jane Wyatt. He takes off his sport coat with patches on the elbows and Jane gives him a sweater with patches on the elbows. Ahhh, what a family!

Before marriage to my dad, my mother was told of her future brith from an unannounced, unexpected angelic visitor – in her living room! That’s not ture. I was the fourth of five. However, my never-who-ever-spoken-a-word future dad wishes to cancel the wedding until an angelic dream tells him to trust and care for his wife and soon-to-be child. Shepherds angelically called to come to Manitowoc to witness this marvelous birth of events. Single teenage girl bearing child. Mute future-to-be-dad to be married to this teenager. To-be-husband wants to call WalMart to cancel the bridal registry. Shepherds calling AAA figuring where the hell Manitowoc is on the map.

Mother then brings me to the temple where no other than Simeon is praying to see the Savior before he dies. Anna is also present in my family, as my grandmother, She’s constantly praying that things work out differently for this family than it did for hers.

St. Paul says, “Put on.” In other words, clothe your body, mind and heart, “with heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another…[in all of our dysfunctional dysfunctions. And now wearing all that extra divine clothing] put on love, that [which] is the bond of perfection.”

“Dysfunctional family?” The hype of the 80’s was wrong. There is no such thing as a dysfunctional family. There is only family, one family, complete with its own twists and quirks. One novel writes, since my father was a carpenter, I was a carpenter who built, one who constructed and built, of all things, crucifixes.

After the consecration, the priest sings the most important, powerful phrase in the entire Mass. Please, believe me on this. He sings, “The mystery of faith.”

It’s the beautiful mystery of our faith that is never to be solved, otherwise it wouldn’t be a mystery. Our faith and family would remain just a puzzle attempting to piece pieces together. Usually, the way we think they ought to be. We try to jam one piece into another and it just will not fit. That’s the workings of a puzzle. Our mystery of faith is also our mystery of family. A mystery to be embraced, prayed about, pondered upon, grasped, embraced and…and loved. Faith and family.

To make matters worse, my mom’s cousin very much older than she, had a son six months before having me who thinks that he’s the Savior. Imagine the early conversations at dinners.

My mother cousin’s son sees the feet of his cousin and his sandals and knows that he is not the One. He embraces his role as a messenger. He’s the Ed McMahon of our historical salvation.

“Dysfunctional Family?” Begin with the family that we call “Holy” and then look at your own family. It is the very same scenario surrounded by characters you know and whom you do not fully know. That’s the intimacy, the mystery and all of the wonders of what defines your family and my family – and our family of faith.

I hope you can wait because I can’t wait until I sing, “The mystery of faith and family.” Stay tuned.

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“I pretended to be them, so I could be me”

So, a child’s imagination begins by witnessing the magic adults perform every day. Slowly, that youthful seed is planted, watered and cared for. If you don’t identify with the plant metaphor, then please consider an infectious bug growing and spreading throughout a growing mind.

A carpenter’s creation, a physician’s caring hand and heart, a teacher recognizing the gifts of each, a parent and perhaps better than your own, a speaker bringing people together addressing causes thought unsolvable, the mechanic who seems to know everything, that friendly retail/service person whose smile is sincere, that person with a knack for finance adding-in integrity, the wordsmith after reading many of the classics, that school guard who later became a policeman, that disabled one who plans trips for others who can, those radio rock jocks and the priest leading prayer…

Occupational dreams ought never to be discarded or discouraged. They are gateways toward a full and meaningful life. Even if the path varies or changes, it is the imagination that endures.

It’s the promising gift each child begins to accumulate, percolate and unravel, I mean “unfold,” into the person they can love and love with another and then shared with all those they meet.

(I’m the last one on the list, by the way.)

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“Keep Your Fork”

God sent His Son, His only Son, to save the world through redemptive words and actions of love, mercy, and hope. We acknowledge and honor that great event once again. God did a pretty good job, don’t you think? Jesus did a pretty good job of it, don’t you think? Jesus had but one chance. Through our holy baptism with Jesus living within us, can we do anything less with our one chance? Our one and only chance?

The evening dinner table is a beautiful display of all the food groups facing you and waiting to be shared, filling nostrils with glorious scents and watering mouths beginning awaiting that first taste. The table is set, and everyone is seated except the oldest, who seems to appreciate the bathroom more than the rest of us. I think to myself, it’s okay; it’s a party. We’re in no hurry for it to end. As they say, “savor the moment.”

Sitting down, I wonder to myself, “When was the last time I had a linen napkin in someone’s home?” The dishes look as elegant as the napkins, but I’m too shy to turn the plate over to see who’s responsible for this fine china creation. I see lots of serving spoons in bowls and on platters…but, but I also surprisingly notice that I have only one fork.

“Ummm. I guess I better take care of this one fork,” I think to myself.

“Family style” is what they call this as you pass dishes to each other amid loud conversations and feeling as though you’re reenacting a scene from “The Waltons.” I see one person holding the bowl, making it easier for the older woman who can’t seem to get that bean she wants on her plate. Another person courteously refrains from the portion he truly desires so that the next person can enjoy some. A perfect meal is served to us with delicious tastes at each mouthful. Afterward, the dishes are carefully picked up, and the hostess alerts us to…to… she declares to all her guests gathered around her banquet table, “Keep your fork!”

Ummm. I’m dumbfounded; that explains the expensive dishes and napkins. She couldn’t afford enough forks for us. Poor thing. Surely there must be another set of forks lying around. I stare at my one fork, and I’m glad it’s not as dirty as it could have been. I’m also wondering if I should take the fork home as a souvenir of my “one-forked” evening. I assume she’d miss it since we needed to keep the one already in our possession. She probably counted them all before we arrived.

I play with my one fork during the lull while I see others moving theirs around as they talk and laugh. We’re all waiting for our one fork’s final use. Something was mentioned about dessert.

There are many nourishing courses of food served to us during our lives. Some include academic lessons that we work through to get to life’s next course, but the best and most valuable lessons of life are those that are life-lived. It provides us with spiritual food – food for the body, mind, and spirit. But, and please trust me on this, we only get one single life – one fork.

The essential part of any meal is its digestion – after eating, it’s that time to let rest what has been taken in. We digest a lot about our relationships – good or bad- and ourselves – excellent or indifferent – all done daily during this beautiful banquet we call life. Today, technology bombards us with a wide array of food groups to choose from. Without digestion, especially digested with the spiritual in mind, all that stuff just sits in your tummy, and then you may repeat to others your stomach’s ruminating messages; only without first fully digesting information and opinions through the heart and mind of this divine life, now human, Jesus Christ who shows us our fragile human life can be slowly molded to a fully divine one. It’s called our beautiful Christian faith.

We keep our only fork throughout life’s empty times and situations and also with its bountifulness. We often think there’s another fork waiting for us if we only do “this or that” or think “that or this.” (After all, there are how many forks in the road? I couldn’t resist.)

However, there is only the one fork that we think we possess but is totally on loan from our Creator Cook, God, whose Son earned it for each of us. So, please hold on tightly to your one fork because your one fork belongs to someone else. Cherish it dearly and completely. Hold onto your only fork … why, for what?

We need it for dessert.

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“The Mystery of Faith”

That’s the line the priest says at Mass after holding up the bread and wine and repeating… or is it declaring, the very words of Jesus at the Last Supper.

“Throw-away-line” to move us on to the next part? Hardly. It’s among the most important pronouncements made at Mass. Combining mystery and faith may sound redundant … but each is the culmination, what makes up, our spiritual lives.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote over eight million words in some on the greatest theologies ever written. (I’m glad I was not chosen to do the counting.) Yet, yet, he never finished his final volume. Years ago I was often told that he said, “It was all for nothing,” as though dismissing his vastly worthy work.

Recently I read that Thomas really said, “Everything I have written is straw.” In the 12th century straw was very important in making hats, roofs, beds, and food for the livestock. Clarifying further, Thomas said, “Everything I have written seems to me as straw in comparison with what I have seen.”

I’ve often said that if a mystery is solved then it was no longer a mystery; meaning that there was no need for faith.

Mystery? Agatha Christi never, ever wrote one, single mystery novel. She wrote novels about puzzles. Puzzles to be uncovered, one piece inserted awkwardly inside another piece insisting that it would fit but it just doesn’t fit. Through further piecing she then cleanly, beautifully placing pieces together assembling a solution.

Thomas tried to puzzle our beautiful faith into a complete puzzle and admitted that this “mystery of our faith” is, indeed, not a puzzle. Thomas attempted too neatly and cleanly to connect the “this’s and thatnesses’” of our lives and narrow them down and reduce them to written words, his written word. Assembled completely, comfortably, and confidently the written word. Would you call that mystery?

Does that solve and resolve the “mystery of your faith?” Is that the summation of our little faith with that stupid dismissive line, “Let go and let God.” Let God to do what? Let God do what and to whom?

There is no mystery in that statement. There is only our “passing the buck.” How can mystery live without our faith? How can our faith survive without its vast mysteries? What would faith even look like without a lot of mystery associated with it? How could those two words ever be said and believed without combing, matching and marrying each other?

I hoped we all honored the Immaculate Conception. Human Mary sinless, doesn’t even die? Mystery/Faith anyone? Advent’s number three is today and the incarnation of God is about to once again appear. Mystery/Fatih anyone? God created and now God will soon walk and travel the very same journey that we all journey.

It’s the straw. It’s not the straw of 12th century, Thomas, but the continuing, growing straw of that empty manger and those empty parts of our lives. No longer the straw of hats and roofs but, for us now, especially, during our trying times, it’s the straws of compassion, mercy, listening, uniting and never dividing.

Growing up, our family hallway room had the stable scene with all the expected characters but with an empty manger – the food-place of food. There’s was no place to place the baby Jesus. The five of us kids were asked to do good deed during these four weeks for someone. If done, we were able to put some straw into that manger to welcome this newborn babe. Boy, did we do our four-week duty. Small children enwrapping ourselves into the mystery of this Godly birth and then living within, throughout our lives, the faith of our lives.

“The Mystery of Faith,” the priest says. Never a mystery to be solved but wonderfully and gloriously a mystery to embrace, hold onto, clasp and caress. Never a faith to be fully known but a faithfully living life full of mystery empowering us to endure.

We all have spiritual/faith questions and doubts about this life and our eternal life. That’s normal and healthy. After the priest says that supposedly “throw-away-line,” here’s what St. Thomas said from an anonymous source, “Hidden things are sought more avidly, and the concealed seems more venerable, and the things long sought are cherished the more.”

Things hidden, sought more avidly. Concealed, even more venerable. Long sought after thing cherished all the more. Just in case you need some Advent words for this season and throughout your lives; clothe yourself and live without your heart and soul “avidly, venerable, and cherished.”

That is the religious mystery that calls for our living faith.

“The Mystery of Faith.”

On behalf of us all, I hope you can’t wait until I sing it.

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Sunsets & Advent

Whether attentively driving home on a bustling lane-changing Chicago expressway, preparing dinner for your family and warming a single portion for your child at some school practice, watching the nightly news with its nightly, frightening stories; or like me gazing out my west side kitchen bay window – we each may glance, see, glare or admire once more at our earth’s many slowly, changing, glowing colors or those darker melancholy clouds easing themselves downward. Downward? Or, to begin a new morning.

Is it Advent? Is it a change? Is it just another sunset only to be repeated tomorrow?

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