Enjoy Your iPhone

Well, a congressional committee says Apple avoided paying taxes by setting up subsidiaries in foreign countries that had no employees.  Say it isn't so!  Otherwise, how can we go on using their products without shame and guilt?  We really are a world wide web of self-interests.  It becomes harder to be good, to do the right thing.  Of course, drop any sense of spirituality and you might get rid of shame and guilt.  I doubt it.  But the folks who say they are spiritual but not religious won't have a problem if this Apple thing proves true, so long as being spiritual is all about "me."

Corpus Christi

The Feast Day is coming up and parishes are gearing up to have a liturgy where everyone looks at a round white host, while ignoring one another.  I have no problem with the host being God.  It is the ignoring part that strikes me as odd.  Wasn't the original Body of Christ the community of persons?  Christ was in our bodies before we had tabernacle boxes and churches.  Why not have the pastors go to the parish kitchens and cook up a big meal to serve to all the parishioners who come by?  Maybe even serve anyone who comes by.

Breasts

Will Angelina Jolie get work now, as a love interest in a movie?  Let's see.  Hollywood moguls, men, are obsessed with breasts.  Big and revealing is what they want on the screen.  Many a guy going to the movies fantasizes about making love to the female lead characters, if they have big/revealing breasts.  Guys don't go to the movies for real life.  They can get that at home.  They go to escape, to dream, to fantasize.  In the darkness of the screen theatre a guy never has to grow up.  You gals shake your heads? Deride guys?  Well, you do marry them.

A Too Narrow View?

When each person focuses on their personal rights as they see them, each person might miss a bigger picture.  A group of African American Pastors are getting after the abortion business because the pastors see it as the mass killing of black babies.  One of the arguments that the pro abortion people use, is that abortion helps the poor who cannot afford all these children if they were born.  Well, these pastors seems to have another take on the issue.

Tough Love

So a drug addict comes to the office and wants to whine.  I ask him when he went to his last meeting.  This interrupts his whining.  He had been clean for nine months, gone out a few days ago onto a drug, and announced that meetings were not working and he was miserable.  I told him to cut the whining, go to a meeting now, raise his hand and say honestly that he did not believe in the meetings.  Then shut up and let people help him.  One day at a time, I said, and get a sponsor.  He got up grumbling and walked out still talking.  I did not back down.  I came back into the office.  Moments later, he returned.  He did not whine or complain, but said he would go to a meeting and knew where it was.  He now only wanted confession.  I heard his confession.  He left. Sometimes we postpone what we know we have to do, so long as we find someone to listen to our whining.  I would be a mess today, if I had found that person in my past.  

Feeding Time

When you try to feed a baby, you want their head to remain somewhat still so you don't miss getting the food into the baby's mouth.  The more they are distracted and move their head about, the harder it is to feed them.  It is like that in meditation.  When we become distracted, our mind jumping around about this and that thought, it is hard for God to feed us with food for the interior spirit.  Methods are to help us stay focused, or at least unfocued on our restless mind.  Richard Rohr didn't give me this idea.  It come to me all by myself.  See, I ain't so dumb!

Man's World

Someone reminded me that guys tend to call other guys by their last names, but call women by their first names.  Upon reflexion, I tend to agree.  If a woman finds herself being called by her last name, she is probably in a male world, or male culture, such as the military.  Why is all this?  Maybe it comes from guys competing with one another, so they create some distance by using last names.  They want to get "to" women, so they use first names, as an attempt to close whatever perceived gap guys see between the femal world and themselves.  What is your take on this?  In Chrsitian religion, when people are angry, they say "Christ."  When they feel more intimate with God, they say "Jesus" which is the first name, so to speak.  In recovery meeting, first names are always used.  It is more than an anonimity thing.