The Bedrock of Our Life Growing up on Lake Erie, one of our favorite past times was building sand castles on hundreds of yards of sand. When I think of sand castles at their best, I think of the sand castle building events each summer down at the beach where sand castle building enthusiasts were given a plot of sand, about thirty feet by thirty feet, and with their team of ten people, they created exotic sand castles and sand dragons and sand animals. And we the public walked through this myriad of sand sculptures, all glorious in their detail, like in a wonderland of sand fantasies, and we marveled as we walked from one creation to another. And before you knew it, within six hours, the tide came in and wiped it all away, so hardly a trace of the artistic beauty remained and with a few tides coming and going, there is not a single trace of the sand castles and sand dragons. And this whole process becomes a metaphor about life. In our Gospel today, Jesus tells a parable about a wise man building his house on rock. Neither rain, wind nor tide could topple the house. It remained solid, stable. livable. The parable is really about our true home [the kingdom of heaven] and how we ensure that we enter ino and remain in this home by doing more than just simply listening to Jesus’ words. Jesus’ words must become our words; his deeds our deeds. It is a matter of encountering Jesus so that his words are internalized as a deeper relationship with him. The listening is conforming ourselves to Christ. The bedrock of our life is doing God’s will revealed to us through Jesus’ words. Surely this word is enough for us.