Since the beginning, the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - has been centrifugal...always pushing out, expanding the circle.

We see them again in this week's gospel reading, doing the same old thing.

Only now it involves us.

John 9 tells a well-known story of the healing of a man born blind. It was a miracle, of course, but that’s not really the main thing for John. It was a sign, pointing to something else.

What did it point to?

Perhaps something of the blindness in us all.

"I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" is one of Emily Dickinson’s most popular poems because it addresses what literary critic and Yale professor, Harold Bloom calls “a universal feeling of being on the outside.” It begins…

           I'm nobody! Who are you?
           Are you nobody, too?
          Then there's a pair of us—don't tell!
          They'd banish us, you know.

Ever been on the outside?

Probably few people knew that feeling more keenly than the woman in this week’s gospel reading. Because she was. On the outside. To almost everyone.

In the leadership book, Start With Why, Simon Sinek says Apple embodies starting with why best. They don’t start with selling computers, they start with a way of living. Apple’s “why” is simple, and they’re very straightforward about it: Challenge the status quo.

Maybe you remember the ad launching the Macintosh computer from Super Bowl XVIII in 1984? Point being, don’t be part of the herd!

iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes. I. Individual. It’s intentional. According to Sinek, you never see groups of happy people in Apple ads.

Unfortunately, alone also has a downside. Remember Eve?