In the movie Mr. Holmes, the famous detective, now 97, retired and living in the countryside, attempts to solve his greatest mystery: What had driven him to retire 35 years before? Struggling with memory loss, he begins an investigation into his life, with the encouragement of the son of his housekeeper. The housekeeper herself is rather skeptical about the whole thing.

            Holmes knows that others had looked up to him as a supremely rational person whose ability to solve crimes depended upon focusing on facts and not on feelings.

            What he discovers is that, decades before, he’d had the opportunity to get personally involved with someone in a case, but had refused. It had led to a death, which haunted him all those years.

            At the end, Holmes realizes that the solution, not only to the mystery but to his happiness, is that he must allow himself to get personally involved.

The plight of the widow

            Getting personally involved can make our lives a lot more complicated. We may take pride as a church in running things “like a business,” or count the cost when making decisions about limited resources or about which of the many ministries we will support among those that call to us.

            But in this sto

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