Stonekettle Station: Wright Answers The Mail, Accidentally Destroys The Free World

Stonekettle Station: Wright Answers The Mail, Accidentally Destroys The Free World

I love this guy.  What can I tell you?  My dad was a Marine.  I love his humor.  And the fact that he can think from Point A to Point B without going all the way around the alphabet first.

Order of the Merciful Christ

I am beginning a series of meditations on the Rule of the religious order to which I belong.  Each one will give first the point of the rule, as modified for life in our times, and then my reflection on that point.  The first one is rather short.

•Be alone in a separate place near a chief city, if thy conscience is not prepared to be in common with the crowd.

 Whether in a city or not, choose a solitary place, physical or mental and pray.  Do not neglect the masses.  Serve them with corporeal and spiritual works of mercy.

 Reflection:

I do a lot of praying staring out the dining room window at the back yard, full of trees and sometimes deer and birds, and always full of God’s beauty, whether full of sunlight or snow.  I also pray alone in my room.  For many years, while I was working and raising a family, I prayed mostly on the bus during my commute, or in the bathroom!

It is important to note that our Rule reminds us we are here to serve, and not just for ourselves.  It took me a lot of years to realize that I serve God every time I give someone a hug or a smile, or do a good thing of any kind.  Usually, we are called not to great things, but to small things done with great love and generosity. 

Hey, God!

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I have been thinking about gratitude.  I can choose gratitude for my old age rather than complaint.  My mother’s sister had rheumatoid arthritis and no medication to keep her from becoming crippled.  I live in a time and a place and with enough money to purchase medical care and medication to keep me mobile. 

I am not sure what is meant by aging gracefully, but I know about aging gratefully.  I appreciate living in a beautiful forest within a congenial and loving community.  I appreciate having a wonderful daughter and a grandson of whom I am so very proud.  I am grateful for what health I do have.

Most of all, I am grateful for my relationship with God.  Because of it, I am sober today.  I have friends and a host of acquaintances.  I know how to live through hardship and how to laugh with joy.  I know how to say that I’m sorry and how to forgive.

I don’t know how to fix the world’s troubles, but I can and do pray for them when I sit with my Beloved in holy silence.  I am grateful for the confidence I feel that although the world may be facing terrible times, in the end all will be well.  I’ve no idea how, but I am not God and don’t have to know. 

What I do have to do, and I am grateful for the ability to do so, is to love those that God puts in my path and in my heart and to try to give them some inkling of the depth of joy and peace that fills my heart.  As I look back, I can see what a jagged, crooked path I took to finding God.  I regret none of it.  I no longer suffer from it.  I even look forward to eternity with a sense of adventure yet to come.

So, thanks God, for never giving up on me.  Make me ever more grateful, and ever more giving.  Show me your way and give me the power to do your will.  And hey, God, have I told you today that I love you?

Spirituality and Religion

I read a bit of a discussion on Facebook about spirituality and religion.  The argument’s thesis was that spirituality is emotional and religion is about obligation.  I have to disagree with that.

For me the purpose of practicing a religion is to achieve union with God.  One can have emotional experiences along the way, and there is nothing at all wrong with that.  However, in my opinion, a real spiritual experience changes one forever.  If it does not,  then it was just an emotional experience.

Religion includes emotion, because it includes the whole human being.  But to me, spiritual practices are intended to achieve personal transformation, not emotional highs, or even certainty of salvation.  Enlightenment, if I may use the term, is not achievable by emotional excess.  Nor is it reached by intellectual exercise, in my opinion, though there is nothing wrong with that either.  The study of theology is important, if we are to be able to articulate what we believe and what leads us to those conclusions.

What I understand of God has come by way of diligent, daily practice of prayer and meditation, graced from time to time with the sheer, pure gift of contemplation.  I am a committed Celtic Christian, and if you want to know what that means, go to the CCC website and read the Statement of Belief. 

I am also a recovering alcoholic and I know from personal experience that there is no easy path up the Mountain of God.  Anyone who tells you it’s easy is lying or just doesn’t get it.  On the other hand, it is very simple:

            -- There is a God.

            -- I am not it.

            -- I daily turn over my will and my life to God as I understand God.

Everything else is details, such as putting God first in life to make everything else fall into place.  Such as telling the truth even if it costs me a friend, because not telling the truth makes me uncomfortable in my own skin, and then I have to make amends, which I do not like to do.  Such as living the Rule of my religious order because I have found a call, and the Rule helps me live that call to service and to prayer for the church and the world.  Such as giving my brother anything I have that he needs and I do not. 

Religious practices are just fine.  But the sacraments are not for God, they are for the people of God.  The rules are not to be worshipped – only God is worshipped.  Clericalism is a cancer and should be avoided at all costs.  Yes, I am a priest, but that only means I am the least and lowest servant of God.  I am here to serve Christ in my brothers and sisters.  Not because I am special or different, but just because I can’t help it.  He did something profound in me, and now I have to try to help everyone else see that he sees them as the beloved as well…that he aches to love and to help them; that he suffers with them when they are unhappy.

Maybe I am all wrong.  But these are the things I believe.  And when I live them, I am happy.

The Teacher Will Come

It has been said, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come.” 

Many people have been my teachers.  Not all of them worked for schools.  Some of the best teachers I have ever had were people I hated – or just couldn’t stand for one reason or another. 

I was always fortunate in my school teachers and later in my college professors (I went back to school in middle age).  I had wise men and women who challenged me to work as hard as I could at learning to think.  They taught me not just facts, but to realize that I didn’t know everything, and for the things I didn’t know, how to find out, and how to check sources of information for reliability. 

The one or two professional teachers I had that were not good at teaching taught me something else…patience, and how to glean what I could from someone who knows a subject but not how to teach it. 

Many of my teachers taught me to love learning…I still love it.  My curiosity will probably die after I do….and maybe not even then. 

But back to those people I hated…or simply couldn’t stand.  What did they teach me?  One of the most important lessons of my life…they taught me the things I hated and couldn’t stand about myself.  I saw reflected in them things I did not like seeing in me.  It is very hard to remember that in the midst of dealing with someone who drives me up the wall.  When I am in fit spiritual condition, my sense of humor rescues me and I can put together in my mind a cartoon of myself overacting in the manner the person I am dealing with acts.  With my perspective restored, I have choices:  withdraw, ignore, or engage.  I can act upon life, rather than reacting to it. 

I once attended a seminar entitled “Working with Difficult People.”   At the time, I worked for litigation attorneys, some of them … ah, “difficult.”  The teacher was an amazing person who stalked out on the stage, threw back his head and whinnied like a horse.  He then stomped his “hooves” and stared at us as if he were about to jump off and pound us into the ground, huffing and blowing and pawing the wooden floor.  Just as suddenly, he relaxed and smiled.  He then said, “That is all I have to teach you.”

We stared at him.  We had just paid this guy over a hundred dollars each so he could imitate a horse?  We looked at each other.  We looked at him.

He said, “The next time someone bullies you, picture them doing what I just did.  You will be amazed at how your reactions to them change.”  We then spent a couple of hours practicing being the horse and being the grown-up.  It was great fun.  And my bosses never knew why their tantrums didn't get to me. 

Obviously, there is more to working with difficult people than just picturing them as ridiculous.  Obviously, there are more kinds of difficult people than just bullies.  What about emotional “vampires?”  Or actual, physical abusers?  What about people who won’t let you get a word in edge-wise?

My point is that you can’t let yourself get sucked into your own emotional reactions to the detriment of your peace of soul.  Let me restate that:  I can’t let myself do that.  If I do, sooner or later I will act badly and need to make amends.  Worse, sooner or later I will want to take a drink.

I could hide all alone in a hermitage, I suppose.  But I would never grow up.  I would never have to have my sharp edges knocked off by living in the real world with real people in real situations.  And I do from time to time retreat to the hermitage of my “cell” in St. Ciaran’s House of Prayer. 

But no one gets to the Kingdom of God alone.  We all go together.  And so I take my silly self out and act the fool and laugh at myself, we all have a little fun, and we all get to be happy all the way to the Kingdom.  Sometimes we worry together or weep together or whatever seems appropriate.  We teach one another to live and to love.  And we hope we can be more than a bad example. 

So here’s to all the teachers in my life.  May God richly reward you and fill you with happiness, joy and peace. 

Pain and Suffering

 "We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses." -- C. G. Jung

It has been said that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.  That sounds glib, if you are suffering from chronic pain of any kind.  As a sufferer from rheumatoid arthritis, I have personal knowledge of this truth.  However, because I have been a practitioner of daily prayer and meditation and a seeker after the Beloved for many years, I have learned the difference. 

So:  Pain is an experience.  Suffering is a perception.  If I hurt, I hurt.  I can choose whether to suffer.  I can choose to make my life about the pain or not.  I  can choose to accept that pain is a part of my life, but it is not who I am.

I can take whatever palliative measures are available to me in accordance with my doctor’s instructions and get on with my life, or I can make my life (and the lives of those around me) miserable by focusing on my pain. 

This is true whether the pain is physical or psychological.  I may have lingering scars from a crappy childhood.  I can make that an excuse not to grow up, or I can do my therapy and get on with it.  I will never have the perfect childhood, or the perfect relationship or whatever I may be deluding myself will “make me happy.”  First I have to learn how to be happy just exactly as I am. 

How do I do that?  Oddly, it is by staying in the moment with the pain and discovering that it has edges and limits and that there are many things I can do in spite of it.  It is by realizing that I do not have to be the pain or even be about the pain.  Instead, I can be “about my father’s business.”

The secret weapon I have against suffering is that because I am loved by the Beloved, my life is not about me anymore.  It is about God.  It is about love.  That is where my focus lies when I am in what I think of as “fit spiritual condition.”  I stay in that condition by doing whatever it takes to maintain my conscious contact with God.  And that contact only happens in the present moment. 

Yeah.  Sounds impossible.  Sometimes it is.  If I need to have a little private “pity party” I just go to bed and have it.  Sometimes RA or any other pain is so exhausting we are left with nothing but self-pity and tears.  That’s okay.  I just do that until I am tired of it.  Then I get up and do the next thing. 

So, yes.  Suffering is optional.  Choose happiness.  Every time it crosses your mind, choose the Beloved.  Choose love.  Be happy, joyful and free!

A guest post today from Rev. Dolly Ryan

Is God…

Recently, I received an e-ad with the subject line: “Is God Anti-Gay?”  The words slapped me in the face, poured ice cold water down my spine, and caused me to start scurrying through my mental Bible in search of my own security against the torrents of prejudices.  I wasn’t “stuck” where many might suspect.  I am not dismissing the seriousness of acknowledging the error of discrimination based on sexual preferences.  But my reaction wasn’t to the word “gay”.  I barely noticed the word sitting there at the end of the sentence like a signal flag on a yacht which silently flaps in the wind hoping to catch attention.  I barely read the sentence at all.  I was stuck in my core by “IS GOD ‘ANTI’”!  It is almost as if God and “anti” should never be used in the same breath. 

Thus began my search for a scriptural “anti”.  Show me “anti” my mind echoed.  My brain’s search engine began looking for times when Jesus was anti-somebody.  According to the culture of his time, Jesus must have been anti-Roman?  Instead I found him greeting and praising the centurion who wanted his servant healed.  He eagerly healed the son of a royal official.  Well then, surely Jesus obeyed the Jewish tradition by being anti-gentiles? Again the answer was no.  He took a moment to speak with the Samaritan woman at the well and he accepted the criticism from the Canaanite woman who wanted the crumbs from his table of miracles for her daughter.  Maybe Jesus was like so many of us, maybe he hated mindless followers.  Yet he continued to teach his apostles even though he got frustrated when they repeatedly misunderstood his lessons. 

Perhaps he was anti-criminals and wrongdoers.  Yet, over and over again I discovered him in their midst; the woman caught in adultery who was positioned to be stoned and the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof, to name two.  Possibly he was against strangers. Then I find the parable about the Good Samaritan.  My thoughts continue to search, did he think that women were inferior to men, a rather common idea. But I remember that although women were often not permitted in the same room with a gathering of men, he revered the woman who washed his feet.  Likewise, as he was preparing to die he worried about the women who were weeping and the welfare of his own mother. Also, the first person he chose to visit after his resurrection was a woman.  No, he was not anti-feminist.

Wait, I remember!  During his lifetime it was forbidden to associate with someone who was considered unclean.  So, Jesus must have been against anyone who was sick or dead.  However, he touched lepers and blind men; the woman who was hemorrhaging; the lady who was bent over in the temple; the man who was demon possessed. And wasn’t he the one who called Lazarus from the tomb?  I discovered he wasn’t even against those who were plotting to kill him.  He never even became anti-Judas who traded loyalty and friendship for pieces of silver.  Nor, was he opposed to those who caused his crucifixion.  As a matter of record, he begged that they be forgiven.  Try as I may, I can’t find a single case where Jesus was “anti” anyone.

So what did Jesus preach against?  He preached anti-hate.  He set the standards of socially acceptable behavior. I know that he was anti-hunger, anti-homeless, anti-judgmental, anti-callousness, anti-hate…  In other words, Jesus was anti-“anti-love”. He preached against pre-judging who God loves.  He warned us to stop telling God who he must reject.

I presume the authors of the book that the ad was promoting want to talk about gay issues.  I have no idea whether they are prompting a pro or con viewpoint but I am sure that they are implying that their stand is God’s stand.  I know that gay-issues are tremendously important: socially, politically and spiritually. I know so many people who have suffered from the prejudice generate by ugly misplaced fears and misinformation on the subject.  And there are so many, who for so long, have suffered terrible indignities.  I do not want any of you to misunderstand.  I do know this discrimination is wrong and that it continues to promote more hate.  I am not trying to downplay the significance of this issue.  But, what is disturbing to me in this moment are all the things upheld as wrong in the name of God.  If we listened to the Word of God we should be unable to endorse anything that did not love.  We would not fight the truth that everyone is loved by God and this should be enough for us.  But we focus on searching the Rule of Love hoping to find the flaw that will allow us our prejudices.

In conclusion, my answer to the question asked by the ad is God is not “anti-gay”.  Nor, is God anti anyone.  If we truly practice Christianity, we would not have labels that build fences.  We would offer dignity and respect to everyone. We would obey the command to Love one another and we would be tripping over each other trying to do this.

Talk to me.  Can you find an incident where God rejected someone? Is God anti-?  As the old hymn says:  If God is for us, who can be against?  Therefore let us stand with God by being pro-everyone.

May we always know the comfort of God who loves us unconditionally.  May we love our neighbor as our self.  And, may our prejudices be revealed, forgiven and healed. Amen.

 

Your forever servant,

Dolly+