A Christmas Psalm

Welcome once more, O High King, to the world.

Welcome to suffering and sorrow, to cold and poverty.

Welcome to exclusion and harrowing grief.

Welcome into the battle for the Kingdom.

Teach us the art of peaceful war.

Lord of all creation,

Teach us to be the deepest peace of all,

The peace you give us.

Teach us to live without fear,

Walking lightly upon the earth,

Teach us to give ourselves away

To all in need.

Teach us to laugh at ourselves and our foibles.

Teach us to dance with the joy we own

As children of the Light,

As your beloved daughters and sons.

Teach us to recognize you

In all our brothers and sisters.

Teach us to be tender and kind with one another

As you are with us.

Welcome to the world, dear Lord.

Live in us and love in us

Bring us to union with God

Help us change the world.

Amen.

Our Father's Business

Isaiah says, “Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth! Break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones”

In this dark time, when powers and principalities oppress God’s suffering ones, Christians can rejoice indeed.  For we are blessed, as once more we await with great anticipation the birth of the One Who loves us.  Unlike Isaiah, we know that all time has changed forever; eternity has already begun, for Christ is coming again to us, who were without hope. 

Let us love and serve one another with such great peace and joy that those who see us will be stunned that we, who do not have all the power and wealth of the great ones of the world, are happy.  We, for whom enough is a feast, always have sufficient to share, even when the powers of the earth will not. 

Let us dance lightly upon our way, with song and laughter to mark our journey.  We are no longer alone.  Together we are building the Kingdom of God.  Come  my brothers and sisters, we must be about our Father’s business!

Blessed Advent

In prayer, we dialogue with God “in spirit and in truth.”  One of my heroes, St. Teresa of Avila, said that such dialogue “is the gate through which all good things enter.”  It seems fitting to me to think about this in light of the beginning of the new church year with the First Sunday of Advent. 

I believe that it is through the banquet of our prayer that we can most effectively spread the gospel, radiating out to all whom we encounter, and to all for whom (and with whom) we pray the peace of Christ which passes all understanding.

Let us unite ourselves with the mystery of Advent.  This season of our encounter with God may well bring to birth in us the newborn likeness of Jesus, which we can carry with us into all our daily activities.  Let us devote a portion of our days during Advent to the kind of mental prayer which is intimate conversation between our souls and the Beloved. 

“Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”  (Is. 2:5)

“I will be as a wall of fire round about her and the glory in the midst of her”

Once there was an old teacher.  To her young student one day she said, “You seem afraid.”  The student affirmed, “I am about to launch out into the deep in a coracle with no oars.  The seas are wide and dark.  The otherlands are completely unknown to me.  I have no wealth and no weapons to protect me.  Must I go?”

The old woman gathered her robes around her and walked to the edge of the waters where a small hide boat bobbed, waiting on its tether for its pilgrim.  After a time of watching the sun polish the waters to brassy brightness, she spoke:

“Fear is ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’ is it not?”

“Yes, teacher.”

“You ask if you must go.  I ask you that question.  Must you go?”

The student sighed.  “I have been called.  Yes, I must go.”

The teacher sighed as well.  “It has been said that he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.  Do you believe this?”

“I do believe it.”

“Then?”

But there was no reply, for the student had launched into the deep, and as she was taken by the current, the teacher could hear her singing:  “And I will be as a wall of fire round about her and the glory in the midst of her.”

The old woman on the shore whispered, “Amen.”

Thanksgiving

I am having one of those periods of having nothing to say.  When I look within, all is peaceful.  When I look without, the same.  I am happy.  I have some physical pain, and there is some emotional pain over not being with my kids during the holidays, but for the most part, all is well.  So….

Thanks be to you, O Lord, for happiness;

How I love you and our life together.

In the morning I give thanks for another day with you.

I rejoice with the rising sun;

And laugh with the playful breeze.

I am, all of me, right here, right now.

With you. 

Finding Him

Born in sorrow

Grown in chaos

We struggle to find love

To leave the world a little better

To give away something of ourselves

In hopes of showing just one person

The value of silence in times of confusion

            Of holding on for one more day.

Wise in pain

With suffering a friend

Comes our Beloved

With comfort and with courage

The lord of our quantum dance

Along the lines of probability

To teach us how to find each other

            Finding Him

My Father

I may have told this before, but in honor of Veterans Day just past, I offer it again.

The old man was dying.  He told his visitor about being a Marine in WWII.  He woke in the night in a jungle somewhere in the Pacific.  He saw a line of men passing just beyond the ridge above him and it occurred to him that Marines knew better than to walk a ridge line against the sky.  Sure enough they were the enemy Japanese.  He and his squad wiped them out.  He then walked around and shot each one in the head because “you can’t leave live enemies at your back in the jungle.”  He was 19 years old then.  Now he was over 80 and he still suffered from killing those men.  He looked at his visitor, broken.  The visitor looked at him with love and told him he could forgive himself because in time all would be well between him and those men, who also had had no choice. 

That man was my father.  I believe it was the first time I had truly met him.

Treasure in a Field of Despair

The sadness flows around me

I can neither explain nor escape it.

The sun shines but my heart weeps

An abyss of pain that overshadows all.

Small sorrows yield rivers of tears

I can only say, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me”

The disconnect between reality and my feelings

Is jarring

Crazy-making distance between

What’s going on and the wild cry

“What’s going on???”

The music of God is silenced by

Crashing metal noise.

My peace is hidden from me

Behind torrents of anguish.

Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me.

Yet what glint of dawn is this

Arising from the void?

What whisper there upon the wind

Sounds so tenderly sweet, so kind?

            It is the Lord, come with mercy

For me.

            O Jesus, Son of David,

Long have I loved thee.  Long have I sought thee.

And I would again enter the dark if it be thy will,

For nothing can separate us.  Love is stronger than death.

And the dark an illusion created by self-centeredness

And the weakness of humanity.

            O Jesus Son of David,

Let it be done unto me according to thy word.

Amen.

Angels in the Hallway

Once upon a time my sister was in the hospital for a biopsy.  Only two people could visit her at a time, so I was waiting my turn at the end of the corridor while our parents were visiting her.

All at once the hallway seemed to me to be filled with angels so tall and majestic they barely fit, their wings brushing the walls and ceiling, their very being shining almost too brightly.  Jesus was at the head of them.  He said quietly, “Come, let us comfort our sister.”  With that, he led them into the room.

I thought I had told her about it.  I never told our parents because they already thought I was crazy.  Apparently, I had not told her.  Mea culpa, Sister. 

My sister is so close to God she sometimes thinks it’s dark when she is simply standing in His shadow. 

Amen.

Jesus in the Rain

A certain woman had a dream.  In the dream, she was standing in the rain near the Sea of Galilee.  Not far off was a sort of shelter built of branches and thatched with leaves.  The woman walked over to see who was standing in the shelter, for she could only see a pair of sandaled feet.

When the woman came around the side of the shelter, she saw Jesus.  He wore a pair of jeans and a fisherman’s sweater.  He was standing there watching the rain dimple and ripple across the water.  He turned to her and smiled.

Amen.

The Pilgrim Horde

This is a post from another blog I used to write.  I thought I should share it here too.

 When I think about the People of God, I see them as a Horde of Pilgrims.  Some of them forge ahead, like scouts, finding new paths towards God, exploring byways and wildernesses.  Some report back, some do not.  Some lag behind, having found a pleasing place where they feel comfortable.

Some are slow because they are lame or otherwise handicapped, or because they cannot accept help along the way.  Others decide to settle down and make villages and families.  Some race about trying to convince others that their way forward is the most direct and safest path.  Some set up shop as professional horde guides and refuse to recognize that the entire group is actually headed in the same direction. 

Some build dwellings and say among themselves how good it is to dwell here together.  Many of that group practice a hospitality that enables the whole tribe to keep moving forward.  Some particularly fearful ones try to build walls to prevent others from falling off the edge of the world  and being forever lost.  Of course they won’t explore the other side of the wall, so they never realize how much of the tribe has discovered the wall is permeable and can be simply walked through.

They are infinitely diverse, this horde, and infinitely beautiful.  In a way each of them is Christ on His journey.  It is deeply transformative, this journey, and can be experienced as an adventure, as a perilous quest, as a miserable slog, even as a painful torment.  Much depends on whether or not the pilgrim is the center of her own universe, or whether Christ is the center of that pilgrim’s reality. 

As the least and most lame of the pilgrim horde, I am learning to let them be Christ to me, and to allow the Christ in me be what they see when they look at me.  I have fallen in love with the whole, crazy, clanging, loud, wild bunch of them.  I find them a fascinating, endless, wondrous creation, which shows forth the Glory of God.  I find us to be a fitting expression of the One Who loves us.

Amen.

Originally Posted on another of my blogs. Moving everything here.

Original post was dated March 26, 2013

Are you able to pray about it?

At lunch today in community we were talking about spiritual growth and how one can approach another about  that issue, and about praying for people who don't like us or whom we don't like.  Cait reminded us about the above question she has asked in the past, particularly of  those seeking spiritual direction, who were victims of abuse of some kind.

If we are able to pray about our issue, whatever it is, I think there is hope for healing and for growth.  If we are still suffering too much to pray, the suffering can be a kind of prayer, so long as we do whatever work we must do to ensure it will make us stronger and more wise, rather than smaller and more self-centered.  If we let our suffering become our identity, we can get stuck at our current level and be unable to move on, until we get out of our own way again.


My sister and I began a book, but I got stuck.  I have nothing original to say; the only things unique to me are not actually unique in the world, but maybe the way I express myself might help another human being somehow find the hope to keep on keeping on. (Sr. Sheila, if you have made any pictures for our book, send them on to me and I will post them with the relevant posts in this blog.)

So...are you able to pray about it?  If not, just sit still anyhow, for at least three minutes a day, even if you have to pretend it will make a difference.  As time goes on, if you are faithful to this practice, you will find yourself changing, slowly, until you come to look forward to the sitting still.  You will begin to know interior peace, and growing comfort in your own skin.  You may find, if you are of a certain personality type, that you come to need an hour a day of this.  Other types of persons do better with a rosary or with holy reading, or even walking the dog.  The important point is the faithfulness to the practice, and the intention to grow into conscious contact with the God of your understanding. 

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I am praying for you my brothers and sisters to come to know intimately the One who loves us.  Faithfulness to the practice will, I promise you, change you utterly and you will know you are loved and you will find peace. 

Vows for the 21st Century

http://ncronline.org/news/sisters-stories/poverty-chastity-obedience-traditional-vows-redefined-21st-century

The above is a link to an article in NCR which I highly recommend for anyone who wants to understand why a modern woman would seek to live a vowed life, and how she might view those vows. 

Love and prayer, Sr Patti+

"Prepared for Red Martyrdom"

A mind prepared for red martyrdom [that is death for the faith].

Do not hesitate to sacrifice your own comfort and security and even your life for the sake of your Faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

Reflection:    While this is not likely unless one travels to an Islamic land and tries to evangelize, we are nonetheless required to demonstrate the same level of commitment as the early martyrs.  We must speak truth to power; we must pray for the courage to take risks, to step out of our comfort zone.  For some of us the challenge may be to accept that we are doing the best we can and that it is in fact all right to be happy!  My faith in Christ Jesus tells me that I am deeply loved, and that there are no limits or conditions on that love.  Neither must I withhold the least thing from my Beloved.  Daily I grow more grateful for the Rule and for the Order.

(Note:  I am writing in a larger font so I can read it myself!)

Bullying

I can't believe we are still having this problem in the 21st century, especially among those who profess to follow the God of Love.

About bullies:  I am too old to stand by silently while anyone bullies anyone else.  I specifically refer to the way some men feel it incumbent upon themselves to win every argument and be the smartest guy in the room by being condescending and rude to women or to those who have less status or education.  Anger is my besetting sin, but there is anger and there is speaking truth to self-appointed power!

 I am also sick of being told to grow up because some man can’t handle hearing the truth of how he comes across.  “It’s not about your feelings,” is an inadequate response and a distancing, detached, arrogant thing to say.  One who says such a thing is deliberately attempting to get away with less evolved behavior by appealing to the stereotype of hysterical woman.  It also changes the point of the discussion from what was being discussed to posturing. 

 If you want to talk with me, we can even disagree, but not if you start coming at me with delusions of superiority.  Not to mention the arrogance to assume that you know me and that I must have come from money…me!  My Dad drove a taxi.  My Mom worked for a doctor as a receptionist.  Not a dollar between them for college for us kids.   

 I worked my way through to a degree in my sixties because I wanted to be a priest; believed I had been called to minister to gangsters, prostitutes, drug addicts and other poor persons.  I am going to go for a Master’s in Theology and then a Ph.D. in Peace Studies.  I will pay for this out of my pittance of Social Security and do without vacations and new clothes and trips to visit my kids.  And if I don’t live that long, so what?  I don’t base my self-worth on my education.  I don’t denigrate it, but my real legacy is in the people I’ve helped over the years.

Thanks for letting me rant.  Whew!  Now I feel better. 

Criminalizing Homelessness

I have been thinking about a recent horrible decision in North Carolina (the latest of several places) to criminalize homelessness.  It has been said that, “The poor are driven into hiding and the rich lay waste to the land.”  Nothing ever changes, eh?

 

I would be willing to bet there is a shareholder of a for-profit prison in there somewhere.  I would also be willing to bet he or  she thinks of him/herself as a Christian.  So when the time comes, and Jesus says, “I was homeless and you put me in jail,” will that be a shock, do you think?  I remind myself that Jesus spoke truth to power.  For me at my age that means letter and blog writing.  I see our country drifting blissfully into a police state that could make Soviet Russia look like an anarchist’s dream.  

Aside from the above rant, how can I humbly imitate Christ?  By being the message, which is more important than any amount of words…to be the love that I wish to see in the world, I must be “transformed by the renewing of [my] mind.”  I must put on the mind of Christ and live from the ground of my being.  When I do that, I can even love the ones I’d like to shake silly.  What they do is not all right, and I won’t sit by and not speak up.  But I can pray for God to strike them holy!  

If I were a minister in that town, I hope I would close my church and post a notice that it was “For Lack of Christians in this Town.”  Then I hope that I would join the homeless in refusing to move on and get arrested with them.  

Since I am too old and crippled to do that, I can dwell in the silence with the One Who loves us all, and pray for the world that is so cruel.  And for myself, who is so judgmental.  And for all of us who suffer in a world that is increasingly dedicated to profit and the destruction of community.

Mercy Upon Mercy

I was praying this evening, and was reminded of this fragment of a poem-prayer by Thomas Merton, which I thought I would share with you today.

“Have you had sight of Me, Jonas My child?

Mercy within mercy within mercy.

I have forgiven the universe without end because I have never known sin.”

Mercy is our special vow and the particular charism of our Order.  God created the universe, and it was and is good.  God’s mercy sees only that which God is, which is good.  Let us pour out mercy upon the world and walk humbly by the gift of His mercy into the Kingdom.   Amen.

The Exercise of Authority

•Let thy servant be a discreet, religious, not tale-telling man, who is to attend continually on thee, with moderate labour of course, but always ready.

 

If you are placed in authority over another, whether those in your employ or in business choose them wisely, seek persons who are trustworthy and if possible spiritual, and honest in their service.  Treat all under your authority with Charity.

Reflection:  I have no one over whom I have authority, but I have experienced being a supervisor, and I have raised children (well, one child and one grandchild), with varying success.  The one thing I have come to know is that it is critical to be honest, kind and firm as regards rules, and to be utterly profligate as regards love.  We are told to do justice, have mercy and walk humbly – these practices dictate our behavior towards anyone over whom we might have authority.  (Cait, I am too tired to check whether this usage of “whom” is correct.  Feel fee to edit!) 

Gossip and Idle Chatter

•A person too who would talk with thee in idle words, or of the world; or who murmurs at what he cannot remedy or prevent, but who would distress thee more should he be a tattler between friends and foes, thou shalt not admit him to thee, but at once give him thy benediction should he deserve it. 

Be aware of any person or group who by any lack of Charity in word or deed would worry you needlessly or would draw you into sin.  Stay clear of such persons, except if they seek spiritual renewal and blessing.

Reflection:  Life is too short to spend with people who make me lose my peace.  This is not to say I don’t get drawn into things, I certainly do.  Especially if the person knows where my “buttons” are.  But for the most part, I have no discourse with those who might cause me trouble or draw me into gossip or other dark places.  People who are like this and want to change, and are willing to change, can be worked with.  I have seen it in AA.  

One will occasionally run into someone like this in a church setting.  They like nothing better than setting the cat among the pigeons, so to speak.  Because many of us have an innocent heart, we can be drawn in almost before we realize it.  It may be necessary to extricate ourselves from the relationship, although we do not cease to love the person.  I consider myself too weak spiritually to deal with this kind of person, as they tempt me to anger, which is already my chief weakness!  This point of the rule is important, and I don’t think I’ve ever considered it more important than now, in my old age.

Whether the person I decide to stay clear of acts in such manner consciously or not, it is a mercy to myself to avoid the chaos they bring, and a mercy to them because it avoids encouraging their behavior.  

Community

•A few religious men to converse with thee of God and his Testament; to visit thee on days of solemnity; to strengthen thee in the Testaments of God, and the narratives of the Scriptures.

 

Find spiritual communion with those in the Order and with holy Christians who seek union with God.  Join with the community of merciful Christian Sisters and Brothers on holy feasts and whenever possible for prayer and celebration.  Share the Faith you have with others.  Build one another up in Faith, Hope and Charity and in Poverty of spirit, Purity of heart, and Obedience to God through the lessons in Sacred Scripture.

Reflection:  We can’t often get together, except for Cait and I, but even at a distance, we can be together on line or via Skype and email.  I have found the simple knowledge that others are out there trying to live out our vocation of mercy has helped me get through some tough times.  And we are always available by phone to encourage, commiserate, and build each other up.  Some of the best times have included gales of hysterical laughter.  Ask Sr. Peggy about “The Bishop on the Roof” song!

Enclosed in the Love of God

•Let a fast place, with one door, enclose thee.

Whether you live in common or alone, let it be holy ground which is secure, enabling you to live this life enclosed in the Love of God.

Reflection: I hardly ever know what to write about this point of the Rule.  I live in an intentional community.  I do have my private room, but for me the whole property is a holy place, enclosed in the Love of God.  

I think this rule may reflect the way of life of the time it was written, when many people lived in one room, sometimes even with the critters inside, where it would be difficult to find alone time, which is essential for building up the one-to-one relationship with God.  Even today, there are houses crammed with families who cannot afford to live alone.  In that situation, it would be very difficult to live at peace unless one had many years of practice of enclosure of the heart.  It makes me deeply grateful for both the privacy I enjoy and the fact that I live with like-minded people.

What Can We Do?

I don’t recall ever feeling so oppressed by conditions in this country and our dealings with the world as I now feel.  Unless I am very mistaken, our government has decided to go to war in Syria in spite of the will of the people.  If we had any excuse to trust that the government serves anything except the will of multinational corporations, there might be reason to hope.  As it is, I am led to a feeling of helplessness and a kind of free-floating anger.  Who is there to blame?  Is there anything we can do?  Where are we going on this road of endless conflict?

The Old Testament answer from God was, “Where were you when I created the world?” 

The New Testament, however, suggests the new commandment:  “Love one another as I have loved you.”  Christ bids us to love in the face of hatred.  We are to love against all evidence of hopelessness.  We are to love and not rage.  What does that mean in a practical sense?

In my life it takes the form of prayer and generosity with time and resources.  It takes the form of recognition of my poverty – I have no power to change things.  They are beyond my control.  In light of that powerlessness, I find myself called to be peaceful in my heart and in my words and in my actions.  God seems to put in my path the people I am supposed to help and the people who can teach me.  Therefore, my response to chaos is to love, and to remain at peace.

There are those whose vocation it is to fight, and in my youth I fought injustice where and as I could.  In my old age, I must fight injustice with my words and with my prayers, and by loving action.  I weep with those who are suffering and dying in the world.   I pray for those to be called forth who can change the things that must be changed in the world. 

Let us pray for peace.  Let us love one another as Christ loves us, and make enclaves of love wherever we dwell. 

For Love of the One Who Loves Me

Point of OMC Rule:

•Whatsoever little or much thou possessest of anything, whether clothing, or food, or drink, let it be at the command of the senior and at his disposal, for it is not befitting a religious to have any distinction of property with his own free brother. 

Look upon all possessions as loans from God and let them be used for the honor and glory of God and at the service of Charity.

Reflection:

This point of the Rule is lived differently by each of us according to our state in life, as most of us do not live together.  Before I retired, the money I made by working went to support myself, and after that to my ministry.  I never felt a need for more than my share of the world’s goods.  That was not a virtue of mine, it was simply the result of having lost everything so many times that they were just things.  I never feared having nothing, having been there before.  Nor did I ever lack anything essential during my ministry.  I have come to believe that in serving Christ, I am supplied by God with all that I need to do just that.

Now that I live in community, I pay the bills I have to pay, and the rest of what I have is for the community’s needs.  It isn’t a lot, but so far amongst ourselves, we’ve had enough to keep on keeping on. 

I have no illusion that God needs honor and glory.  I have no doubt that Christ needs everything I have to give and more.  And because he is my first, best, and last love, I give it with great joy.

The Need For A 21st Century Testament

If you can find a copy of Corpus Reports (September/October 2013), you will see therein a gem:  John Shelby Spong’s address regarding “A Need to Reform Christianity?  A New Language for God.”   My dear Bishop Joe loaned me his copy to read and I must recommend it to anyone who is seeking to reconcile their experience of God and their experience as a 21^st Century human being.  He avers that Christianity is not dying; the explanations of antiquity are dying. 

We have an Old Testament and a New Testament.  What we need is a Current Testament.  The experience of the Christ is not the same thing as a description of that experience.  The descriptions of that experience which we have are rooted in the times they were written.  This is interesting in light of an ongoing discussion regarding the future of the church. 

As a member of a small Independent Catholic Church (the Celtic Christian Church), I sometimes wonder what will happen to us when the present generation of leaders dies.  The roots of the Celtic Church are not buried in the Old Testament, but in the Old Religion, which considered creation as good, and humanity not as fatally flawed, but glorious.  Our leaders are chosen by our members, not imposed by a hierarchy.  Our relationship with God is about relationships and service.  We love one another in a way that others find attractive and want to share.  It is my prayer that we will not lose these characteristics. 

As time moves on, we Christians are beginning to realize that the Christ experience removes all artificial tribal barriers.  Like Paul, we begin to see that in Christ there is no male or female, slave or free, just and unjust, saved and unsaved.  Rather than justifying exclusion, we find the experience demanding the inclusion of all.  A result of the Christ experience is an urgent need to pour out that experience on all who still experience life as suffering, broken, unforgiven and other in any way.  One who has the experience of Christ cannot sit idly by and not feel the injustices of predatory behavior. 

This is my current understanding, at any rate, of the way in which conscious contact with God has changed my life.  It has brought deep peace in the face of my own mortality.  It has brought deep pain in the oneness demanded between myself and the other, who is not truly separate from me, but is another unique expression of the Ground of Being. 

If you find Spong challenging, good!  Keep reading and thinking and most of all, keep on serving God in the People of God.  If you seek the Christ experience, stay in the Silence with the One.  Stay and be loved.  Stay and be changed.  You will find yourself.  And then you will give yourself away. 

Imitation of Christ

OMC Rule – Point for Today

•Be always naked in imitation of Christ and the Evangelists.

In total humility imitate Christ as you proclaim the Good News of God’s Love which is our salvation from our self-centeredness.

Reflection:

The Imitation of Christ  is one of the best ways I can think of to serve God.  So, what did Jesus do and how do we do that in today’s world?  

Jesus spent time with God.  No matter what else was going on, from the time he ditched his parents to go to the teachers in the temple until his arrest and after, he spoke with His Father pretty much all the time.  How can we live in conscious contact with God?  We are instructed to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  How can we achieve that renewal?  By means of prayer and meditation. 

It has been said that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening for the answers.  After over 35 years of practice, I can say that it is not easy, but it is very simple.  Be alone in a quiet place.  Don’t do anything else.  Notice your thoughts, let them pass by, and live in the moment, the only place God can be found.  

Because of Jesus’ close relationship with the Father, he constantly reached out to others.  In AA we say, “You only get to keep what you give away.”  I would add that dwelling in constant, conscious contact with God results in an upwelling of love that has to be passed around.  We must give out of the abundance of our love…which can only increase the more we give.  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."  (Luke 4:18-19)

Jesus taught his closest friends to love each other deeply and well.   “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."  (John 13:34-35)  If we love one another enough to abandon our agenda in favor of the good of others, we will be on our way to imitating Christ.  If people can look at our lives and conclude that we are humble people of peace who love each other….if we love each other enough to make other people want what we have, we are on our way to being Christlike.

Loving each other is hard.  It can’t be done at the same time we are being self-centered.  Curiously, the more selfless we become, the healthier we are spiritually.  So we plunge into the messy, hard-edged business of community and treat everyone as Christ.  It will, in the end, cost us everything, and that’s fine.  The servant is not better than her master.  Funnily enough, along the way, we get to be happy, joyous and free!

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.