​As we sat down for the wedding feast, a friend remarked that, whenever he was at a wedding, the host always seemed to seat him as close as he could to the lavatory.  With great humour, he added that waterfront properties are always the most valuable.  His wife asks everyone not to encourage him. But they do. Then, in a moment of 
seriousness, he asks who really wants to be at the top table, where you are under constant surveillance and analysis. 
 
We all think we know who should be at the top and the bottom of every table.  In our minds, we have it all worked out, and can list 1000 reasons why it should be so.  It seems that there is an over serious Pharisee in all of us.  If this is true, we might as well get it out into the open.  Good spiritual teaching asserts that knowing we are in prison is 
the first step to getting out of prison. 
 
But it's hard to be grateful when our hidden egos are exposed.  That is why it is so important to be able to laugh at ourselves regularly, and often. Or to put it in the words of Thomas Merton, to cast aside our awesome solemnity and join in the dance. 
 
When we can laugh at the laughable ideas of our own importance we put things in right balance. We can see the bars of the prisons we create for ourselves, and see, perhaps for the first time, that the door is only locked from the inside. 
 
Robert Wicks, in his thrilling, "Touching the Holy: Ordinariness, Self-Esteem and Friendship" suggests that, among our friends, we should have at least one prophet, one cheerleader, one harasser and one spiritual guide. (P.93) Check to see if you have this!  In their company, when our negative or positive grandiosity comes into view, laughter is the way we are restored to the joy of humility and of our humanity. 
There is no other way

Someone  asks  a  question  about  salvation.   This  is  religious  talk  for  health  and wellbeing.  Jesus tells them that there is a door, in the age to come, where God is hosting a banquet.  Everyone is trying to get in and the owner solves the log jam problem by rising from the dead and shutting the door! 
 
The people outside beg to be allowed in.  But the  Lord  answers  that  He  does  not  know them.  It seems that relying on vague contact with  Jesus  is  not  enough.   Jesus  does  not join  in  the  man’s  quest  for  numbers  but 
invites  him  to  put all  of  himself  behind  the quest.  So  many  are  trying  to  be  saved  the  wrong  way.   They  think  that  'who  you know' rather than 'who you are' is what matters.  But notice that the door does not open 
to the well connected. 
 
Jesus only recognises His own.  He knows us if we are like Him.  Jesus speaks from a heart set on God alone and works with the Spirit to transfigure His heart into one which loves all people.  This is not easy.  It is a lifetime’s work. 
 
There will always be people who want Salvation on their own terms.  They want to stride into the feast adorned in titles and lists of who they know.  And then there are those who struggle for community and for the mighty love.  These will learn the great lesson of Grace - that all who strive to love must die, and surrender all to the One who has the power to save them.  They are considered by the first group to be the last because they do not compete in the world of ego.  But in the Kingdom they are first because they have found in their heart what Jesus knew in His Heart - the divine love that makes us one. When we know this, the narrow door widens to become the widest of doors. 
 
Someone once asked Fritz Perls if he was saved.  He answered,' I'm trying to figure out how to be spent!"

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin had a beautiful experience of God.  With the skill of a poet, he tries to share 
something of what happened to him. 
 
" the world gradually caught fire for me, burst into flames; how this happened all during my life, and as 
a result of my whole life, until it formed a great luminous mass, lit from within, that surrounded me". 
(The Heart of the Matter, p.15)  And in another place, "The day will come when we shall harness for 
God the energies of Love.  And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, human 
beings will have discovered fire".                                                                (Toward the Future p.87) 
                                                                                                                                                               
For us, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, is very special indeed.   
 
She is an exceptional person. The first and best of disciples. From her, we have much to learn.  And perhaps the best lesson she can teach us is how to listen for what we don't fully know yet, certain that we will recognise it when it happens, like Pierre did. 

Rachel Naomi Remen says it beautifully: