Melanie Rigney asks the question, “Does it sometimes seem that God loves someone else more than he loves you? Maybe it’s a friend whose life is golden: great health, a circle of wonderful family and friends, a workplace, or a volunteer ministry that suits them perfectly. Meanwhile, you seem to face a new challenge, large or small, every day. Where’s the justice in that? Jesus tells Peter in response to his question in today’s gospel reading of his relationship with John, “What concern is it of yours? You follow me,” his friendship with others isn’t our business, beyond the gift we may have of introducing Christ to those who don’t know him. All we need to focus on is listening to his call and following where he leads. There’s an enthusiasm that comes from the wetness of fertility that can make the soul swell with feelings of creativity, warmth, and immortality. God is in that. But there is also a bareness that comes from a deeper place, a heat that threatens to dry out the very marrow of the soul, a dryness that shrinks all swelling, especially pride, and leaves us vulnerable and mortal by bringing the soul to kindling temperature. God is in that dryness no less than in the wetness of fertility because, in that painful longing, we feel the eros of God and the motivation of Christ.