End of 2019

Well, it is the last day of this fast moving year.  What have I learned?  I think of the Christmas Cactus.  It is supposed to bloom at Christmas.  I had one.  It has a mind of its own.  It blooms when it wants to, and pays no attention to my plans for blooming.  A metaphor for my plans and people, places and situations.  They all have their own plans and do not consult me.  I don’t always get what I plan for, what I want.  So for the coming year, 2020, I make plans with a pencil not a pen.  My plans might be erased or need to be erased by what actually happens over which I have no control.  So I will have preferences but remain open to lessons to be learned, usually hard lessons, for 2020.  Hope you are sober and safe today.  Lots of amateur drinkers on the road today.

Their Things

When someone dies, those close to them or admirers try to keep something of the dead person’s stuff or even a lock of hair.  Why?  Well the word for relic means “remains, leavings.”  When a body dies it might be seen as a relic.  It is what the deceased leaves behind.  That may be why some people visit graves.  It is all about remembering the deceased and the goodness of them.  But I think it is more.  I think the things that people touch, such as teddy bears, diaries, favorite toys, pet rock and so forth, all carry some of the goodness of that person.  Touch is important to heal grief and give us some of the power of the deceased person.  I have an angel stone from when my mother died.  I have her rosary and my Dad’s wedding band.  I am still hoping the power of their goodness will rub off.  Some say it has...a little.

Maria Moes

Sometimes a loss leads to a greater gain, or a more important gain, but there might be suffering in between the loss and the gain.  Maria Catherine Moes is an example.  She was a 19th century immigrant.  She founded a new religious order of nuns in Joliet, IL area and opened a school for girls.  This was the frontier and Chicagoans today might say Joliet is still the frontier!  Anyhow, she wants to expand the school, but her bishop says no.  He then orders her to be expelled from the order she founded.  Off she goes to Minnesota.  A bishop there welcomes her and her companions from her old order.  She founds yet another order of sisters.  After a terribly destructive tornado in Rochester in 1883 she joins with a doctor there to assist the injured.  Together they opened St. Mary’s Hospital in 1889.  The doctor’s name?  William Mayo.  Heard of the Mayo Clinic?  So when you get kicked around by authority, rejected, fired, it may not be the end for you.  Grace is everywhere.

Non-Healing Wound

I fell November 19 in San Francisco.  I continue to deal with it.  The one foot long cut on my forearm was healing quite nicely, I thought.  There was one discolored round area with a bit of a bump but no leakage.  I come to LA and boom, that area opens up and stuff comes out.  Grows red.  Off to Urgent Care in LA again. This stuff always seems to happen when I am away from Boulder doctors.  “A Non-Healing Wound” is what I have.  The doctor squeezed all the mess out of it.  Ouch! So now I am back to bandage wrap and anti-biopics.  Good News?  Yes, I was pro-active.  I did not put it off until I got back to Boulder.  I now have specific wound care instructions as to when to do what and wrap when and so on.  I like a plan and not one of my own making in areas where I may know little, like medicine and wounds.  It is important to know when we are in over our head and self-care is not the answer.  In a sense, I am into wound recovery.  Again! Put me on your prayer list, if you are praying.

Crack The Ego

What is a cracked ego?  It is where something opens up the ego to let out self-centeredness, resentment, know-it-all attitude, judgments, and false pride.  They ooze out and with them goes their power to hurt us and others.  What cracks it open?  We read or hear something that is so true, honest, and humble, that it strikes to the core of the ego, and breaks it open.  I think this is what spiritual recovery is about, and religion, scripture at its best.  A spiritual solution rushes into the empty space, but it seems not to be able to empower for long. If the spiritual path is not pursued again and again on a daily basis, the ego closes up quickly enough and suffocates that spiritual life.  This is why we are encouraged to pray daily, read our scriptures and wisdom books daily, talk to others on the path daily, and try and practice a less ego-centered life on a daily basis.  I call this love, the verb.

Swan Lake

Tchaikovsky’s music in “Swan Lake” ballet is about outside anxiety and pain hiding an inner light.  The swan outer appearance is really inside a beautiful princess under the spell of evil, jealousy and hate.  The music, the young man who dances with her, is about love, light trying to release all the inner beauty to overcome the darkness.  What a metaphor for our life.  Sometimes a darkness of culture, persons, systems put our inner light under a spell of darkness and the best of ourselves cannot be released until we are accepted, and loved in spite of outward appearances.  The addict knows this when they enter recovery and the 12 steps of fellowship.  Sometimes a religious community or a religion, before it is institutionalized, can do this.  Finding someone who loves us as we are can do this.  Next time you see Swan Lake, and I hope there is a next time, think about this.  How loving and accepting are you?  Do you try to swan dance your inner light each day?  Why does dancing make so many people feel better?

Christmas Travel

I have not traveled on Christmas Day in 17 years when my parents were still alive in Florida and I lived in Knoxville, TN.  I hear that it is a good day to travel.  We will see.  I am going to visit my LA sister, Jane and her family.  We will have Christmas, dinner, and then a week of football on TV and Oscar possible movies to see.  LA has all the movies.  I have this silly thought that while I am away, no one will miss me.  I will come back after a week, and people will say, “Oh, you were away?”  Silly as it is, and hopefully not true, it has a positive side.  I have friends and so I hope my friends will miss me.  If you have no friends, then you would not expect anyone to miss you, right?  So on this day, I celebrate the special gift of friends who are in my life.  I know that I will miss them while I am away.  It is what friends do on these special times of peace and love.  Merry Christmas.

The Eve

Christmas Eve is a very busy afternoon for churches.  People prefer now to go to a service on Christmas Eve rather than on Christmas Day.  Most of those persons who go once a year prefer Christmas Eve service.  It is a time for church, then eat, then presents.  Christmas Day is for relaxing, and travel to see other relatives or friends for dinner.  Christmas is about light in the darkness, so you need some darkness.  Christmas Eve, in the Norther Hemisphere provides darkness.  My questions, doubts, fears, sadness are all the darkness part.  The candles, the flowers, the tree lights are all part of the light.  Then of course there is the baby Jesus.  Much more warm fuzzy then torture on a cross.  I am fortunate to have a few people who are glad that I am around them this time of year.  For those of you who feel a bit disconnected, you might drop in on one of these services of light and sit among many other people who are going over their own profound or nostalgic thoughts this time of year.  Who knows?  You might be the next miracle on 34th street.

The Core

I hear in recovery circles, that people are told they have to read their manual, the Big Book, and do lots of service work and go to lots of meetings.  Hmmm.  It seems to me that the first couple of drunks that got sober in AA had no big book or service structure.  It was really two people talking fact to face, honestly about being alcoholics, its patterns, wherein were found similarities that bonded one person to another on the road to happy destiny.  Everyday that I talk to a recovering drunk about the process and shortcoming roadblocks, is a better day for me.  The other stuff is important, but one on one encounters are still central.  To sit isolated at a meeting of recovering people won't cut it. Nor will memorizing the manuals.

The Womb

With Christmas coming up soon, and lots of talk about Mary and her womb wherein lies the Christ ready to be born into this world, I think of AA as similar to Mary!  What, you shout?  Well, when someone first comes into AA the group is like a womb that protects them while they gestate for a while until they can grow enough to go out and be of some use to others.  A parish should be a womb, protecting and helping people to grow enough so they can reach out, more fully developed spiritually, to be of service to the parish and the world around them.  Too many people want to stay in the womb and be taken care of.  A Christian parish should be a place for a person to grow up, mature spiritually so that they can become a womb for their Christ.  So you Christians, are you a womb for Christ, the Prince of Peace, to be born into your world this Christmas, or are you just frantically running around trying to celebrate the "Holidays?"  Only three shopping day left!

A Common Ailment

I sense that many a priest, for the first twenty years or so, and for some longer, they suffer a common ailment.  It is two-pronged.  Low self-esteem and fragile ego.  Usually they enter the seminary having accomplished little in their life beyond navigating higher education.  The seminary tells them how special they will be as priests, and this bandages the fragile ego and the self-esteem.  But  it is still there under the "theology" of priesthood.  So what happens?  The priest spends years trying to deal with "his demons," by doing outside stuff.  His prayers are mostly words and thoughts.  He fixes up the church, changes the liturgy, rituals, buys new church or office things, hires new people and so on. And he does not like any priest around who might be more center stage than him.  So he likes being pastor.  All outside stuff.  But he does not do enough inner work that would tell him, his happiness and fulfillment comes from within.  If he ever discovers a more contemplative life, then there is hope that "more will be revealed," and he will cease to focus on all the outside stuff.  How would I know any of this?  Well, I am an example.  Now I am nobody, doing stuff most of my church would find very secondary.  I am content, as long as I listen to the still, small silence within.

Repair Manual

When you have something broken that you want to fix, and you are not quite sure what to do, it seems a good idea to look at the repair manual.  It saves me lots of time.  When I think I know what I am doing, or just don’t want to take the time to look at the manual, I usually waste a lot of time.  Things don’t get fixed properly.  So too, the spiritual life has a repair manual depending on what path you are on and what needs fixing.  I often need fixing, and everyday need a spiritual tuneup.  I have my Bible and Big Book as two of my repair manuals.  If I use them on a regular basis, I usually stay tuned up and don’t need a lot of major maintenance, and don’t completely break down.  My spiritual machine is quite fragile and defects of character can muck things up.  Maybe you are put together better than I and have less need of a daily repair manual.  Must be nice?

A Blessing

When believers in a God begin to waver it is often because they had a setback.  Something happened and God did not bring down blessings.  You expected a blessing and did not get one.  Someone told me that when you don’t get a blessing, maybe you are getting a lesson.  So I have begun to look at situations that are not going according my plan or my plan for God’s action, to see if maybe there is a lesson to be learned.  I am surprised by the number of lessons I get each day.  The lessons are trying to teach me something about myself, something that might need a second look, a more mature or balanced approach than what I had been doing.  My lessons are enlightenment moments.  So in a way they are blessings, but not in the way I expected.  My expectations are often problematic.

Grandma

I was talking to the Grandmother/Godmother of a young woman who took her life.  Grandma said, “I know she is in heaven because she was such a good girl.  Suicide is not right, but I know she is with God.” What Grandma is focused on is how her granddaughter lived rather than how she died.  So often I hear people ask me, “How did so and so die?”  Rarely do they ask, “How did so and so live?” I tend toward belief in a God and an afterlife.  I believe that we continue to live beyond death as we lived during this life in the flesh.  If we are loving, compassionate, considerate, kind and thoughtful of others then I believe all this goes with us into a good interaction with the Cosmic God of All.  It may be befuddling, but I find that more often than not, the persons in my life who commit suicide were rather good and loving persons.  Though there was something that they could not overcome, they were loving people more frequently than many other people.  When I was growing up only bad people took their life.  I have not found it so as an adult.   But I know only a little on my spiritual path.

Snow Person

Helping another person to become their better selves is a bit like building a snow person in winter.  You give the snow person eyes so that it can see.  So too, you help another person to see the world as filled with a wonderful variety of persons instead of good and bad depending on judgments about skin, ethnicity, orientation, language, economic status.  You give the snow person arms so it can hold something, just as you encourage another person to be open to embracing life rather than fending it off.  You give the snow person a smile mouth just as you help another person to become more approachable instead of anxiously frowning on life and the stranger.  Finally, you give the snow person a carrot nose.  That is for the reindeer who come by looking for something to eat!

Parent

Parent used to be a noun.  I had a parent.  Now is a verb.  People parent.  In my experience with my parent, the noun was less involved than was the verb of today.  Today, many a child has their daily life planned out by the parent.  The child has some say, that is a choice between this or that, but there is always a this or that.  Parent as a noun says, “Figure it out.”  Example: I get up and my Mom has no plan for me beyond some chores.  She would not say, “What do you want to do?”  She had her own life as a parent, the noun.  She did not see her job as figuring out my day or my life.  I got care and love yes, but not activities or events or new skills.  If I wanted to do something, then go do it and be home at thus and so. If I wanted to go and learn something she would have taken me and paid for it, but I would first have to figure it out.  My Mom was not worried about me living in the basement when I was 30.  And when I called home a continent away and wanted to come home at 27, she said, “No.”  Go figure it out.  Grow up.  And I did figure it out eventually, which is what my parents had taught me to do.  I am still figuring it out.  It makes life interesting and engrossing.

Strangers

One thing I notice about revered religious figures is that they seem willing to listen and talk to anyone.  In other words, they never met a stranger.  Jesus is one such person with whom I am most familiar.  When he encounters someone whom he has never met, does not know, isn’t of his tribe, he seems to listen and accept them as they are.  For instance, a soldier from the conquering Roman army comes up to Jesus and says his servant is quite ill and suffering dreadfully.  Jesus simply says, “OK. I will come and cure him.”  Jesus did not give the soldier silence, which could be a judgment or indifference.  How often are we silently indifferent or judgmental without saying a word to a stranger in our midst?  If Jesus has problems with anyone, I think it is the self-righteous religious authorities he encounters, such as are so concerned about rules and regulations and not so much about individual people and their needs.  See how you do the next time you encounter a stranger in your daily life?

Table Of Confusion

There are two places that have “tables of confusion.”  One is Catholic elementary schools and the other is AA meetings.  Religion class starts too soon with Catechism and never with the question, “Why are you here.”  The child is rarely there because they want to be there in religion class.  Nor do they connect the catechism with any need that they have at the moment.  They endure, learn answers, get a bit enthused here and there, and when school is done, they leave the practice of that religion.  They enter confused.  They know little or nothing when they begin classes, and anywhere they sit is “a table of confusion.”  In AA wherever a newcomer sits, is probably a table of confusion.  But if they come there out of desperation, and wanting to escape misery and have a better life, they of course will understand little. But others in the room simply tell them to come back.  If the newcomer keeps coming back, the fog will lift.  They will be in the same seat or at the same table but it will no longer be a table of confusion.  The light will shine in the darkness.  But you have to know you are in the darkness.  Religion does not wait until the student is ready.  AA does.  God/Higher Power are both very patient.  My blogs are for people who are ready.  Others think me a bit of an idiot.  Which is also too true.

Anonymous

Often I feel anonymous.  When I live in Boulder, Colorado I think that most of the people around my church don’t know who I am.  It is OK, but now and again I get a surprise from one of the parishioners.  They will pass me and say, “Hello, Fr. Terry.”  Then they will say something about me or something I said that only a blog reader would know.  I ask, “Are you one of my fans?”  “Yes, I read your blog,” they say.  As I walk on, I realize that in the anonymity of writing my blogs and Facebooking my blogs, people around me are reading what I write.  And they are positively affected. It makes for a better life for them.  So think about just doing the best you can with whatever your talent or interest is, and don’t worry about anonymity.  You may be affecting someone you don’t even know is out there, and in a positive way.  You do your best and it spreads to others to do their best.  Some power makes this happen.  Not to worry.  Just do the action.  Of course, on those days when I get hardly any “likes” or “hearts” emoji stuff, I think it is time for silence in the hermitage.

Bottle Flu

I once had what is called “Bottle Flu.”  It is when you call in and say you are sick on a Monday morning and won’t be in.  In fact you had a hangover or were just out real late with some drinking and a lot of carousing.  You can get fired for bottle flu.  I did.  My life was suddenly such a mess.  Why was that?  I had no clue.  It never occurred to me that lifestyle was an issue that needed to be addressed.  It would seem obvious to a mature adult why I was fired.  I was not a mature adult.  Even that did not occur to me.  I was clueless about being clueless.  Eventually, I had to do two things.  One was an attitude and the other was action.  First, I had to admit that I did not want to live like this any longer.  That step can take a great while of messiness for an immature person.  But that brought me to only one knee. People commit suicide when on only one knee.  The second knee was when I said I was will to do anything to live a better life.  Wanting and doing had to go together for me.  I know people who want a fuller life, but are not willing to do the work, take action.  By the way, being on both knees, that is kinda like prayer.  Must of been some other power that got me to that point and beyond.  Way beyond.

The Bill

Did you ever do a kind or loving act for someone and then send them the bill?  You did something for someone but then expected something in return.  I act thus and so with you, so you now have to act thus and so with me.  One of the ways to simply be kind and loving with no expectations or resentments is to act with gratitude.  Say what?  Be grateful that you can do any good at all.  Be grateful that you have a power to be helpful.  It could be worse, a lot worse, since you could be selfish, self-imploded, or not even with the power to do some good for another person or situation.  I have enough health to be helpful.  I have sufficient resources to be helpful.  People think well enough of me to ask me to be helpful.  There was a time when I could not even help myself and could not get out of my own self-pitying way.  So, yeah, I have a lot for gratitude.  I try not to “send the bill.”

Physical Spirituality

There is such a thing as physical spirituality.  It is where you physically take your body someplace but don’t do the inner work necessary to change for the better.  Example: someone goes to church on a regular basis, attends the ritual, but does not do any inner work where they might discover the parts of themselves that need attention if they are to change to become a better person.  They are not very good examples of their religion.  People see them going to church but still being selfish, judgmental, gossipy and resentful for instance, whereas they think the world needs to change for them to do better.  It is the same with recovery.  There is physical recovery where a person goes to meetings but does nothing else that would address inner work.  No steps, sponsor, service or reading the material recommended.  For addicts, they soon fall out and get into trouble.  For religion worshippers, unfortunately, they can go a lifetime and stay mediocre.  They never hit desperation.  Most truly recovering addicts reach that place, and never forget it.

Joseph Pignatelli

At one point in history, the 18th century, Joseph Pignatelli was the only Jesuit in Italy.  Italy was a rather Catholic country and Jesuits are Catholic priests.  But the Jesuits were tossed out of Europe for political reasons.  But Joe did not leave.  Here is this guy, surrounded by people who are uncomfortable with him there, who want him to go away, and he stays.  He has no communal support around him, where he lives and works.  Even the Pope does not want him around.  Think of him whenever you find yourself as the singular figure in a space filled with people who are all acting the same but different from you.  Your first instinct may be to leave, but what if you stay?  You might be an influence for positive change.  You are sober in a room full of drinkers.  Maybe they are uncomfortable with you there.  You are a parent in a school gathering of parents, maybe in a parking lot or coffee klatch, and they are all gossiping in a negative fashion.  You don't participate in the tear down.  They are uncomfortable with you in their space, but you stay when your instinct is to leave.  Be like Joseph.  Be the singular figure.  Who knows what change can take place down the road.  Eventually, the Jesuits got reinstated in Europe.  Joseph did not live long enough to see this.  But I think he made a little bit of difference along the way.  So can you.

Compare And Contrast

Too often we tend to decide how we are doing by what others say or seem to think about us.  Think of the “widow’s mite.”  In comparison with what others were giving, her two cents did not seem like much.  If she were comparing and contrasting herself with others, then she might think she is not giving much and therefore is not much.  But as the story goes, she is giving all that she has.  She is giving from a heart of trust and hope.  She is not looking good to those around her, if they even noticed her.  But if she ignores public opinion, or communal opinion, she may feel she is doing quite well.  So it is with us.  Do what we can do.  Age, illness, economics, tragedy are just some of the things which affect our limits, our abilities.  So don’t compare and contrast.  Doing a little may not be so little after all.

Save Yourself

In the Story, “A Christmas Carol,” Jacob Marley tells Ebenezer Scrooge to “save yourself.”  This is a popular notion in our culture.  Take care of number one: you.  Don’t wait around for someone else to do it.  Having “more” is safer than giving away.  Who knows what tomorrow may bring.  The emphasis is on the self, me.  Now Christianity is supposed to be about giving yourself away as with its symbol of the cross.  But now that it is an institution it is less what it says it is.  It is more about preserving the past, holding onto power and control.  But in essence, its founding, it is still about the cross, someone who gave himself away even though he could have avoided it.  That man on the cross was made fun of by the crowd to “save yourself” but he did not.  This is why I like recovery programs such as AA.  A person comes in desperate to save themself.  They want to get something, sobriety, freedom from addiction.  In time they learn that the only way to save themselves is to “give it away,” that is be of service to another struggling addict.  Share the solution of the steps and fellowship.  Listen. Be with. Give up your time and energy and sometimes money for the sake of another suffering person.  Unless you are all in, you will most likely be all out and back into addiction.  And AA is willing to change to meet the modern world and modern drunk while holding onto its core, the 12 steps.  Women, gays, lesbians are most welcome.  AA could teach institutional religion a lot.  But lets give thanks that a lot of AA meetings are taking place in church rooms.  So close to one another and yet so far away.

Materialism

Having stuff, or materialism, is not bad on any spiritual journey.  So don’t beat yourself up about how much stuff you have.  Rather, ask yourself what is your motive for it?  Is it greed? Is your mantra, “More?”  In any spiritual practice we get to reflect here and there on our material stuff, the reputation we are fostering, the manner in which we judge others in wealth.  The solution is not to become mendicants unless you feel called to be a St. Francis of Assisi.  But just not let ourselves lie to ourselves about why we have all our stuff.  Honesty is an essential virtue in any interior growth.  Things are not evil in themselves.  The world is good as Genesis seems to believe.  Just make sure that you do not put a notice on the door of your heart that says, “No admittance for the Spirit, or the Really Real.”

Obstacles

If God is so good then why are there things getting in the way of my being comfortable?  I mean, just when I feel comfortable, something crops up that makes me uncomfortable.  Doesn’t my God, this Power, want me to be comfortable?  Well maybe not.  What if the goal is not so much “constant comfort” as it is “growth.”  Do I grow when I am comfortable?  Generally not.  I kick back and try to float along with little effort.  I slacken off whatever helped me feel comfortable.  I stop growing.  So I have begun to look at things that bother me as possible means to growth.  I go back to my toolbox kit of things and practices that helped me to feel comfortable in the past.  Often, I find that the cause of the discomfort is fixable. It is in me.  Outside issues can be troublesome, no doubt.  How I respond to them is what I call my side of the street.  My God will help me there.  I need fixin’ and I cannot do it alone.  The world may need fixing too, but if I am not in a good space, I will become part of the problem.  Obstacles?  Here I come, and I do not come alone.

The Chiseling Hand

Think of a sculptor who chisels away at a block of stone.  The Artist knows what potential the stone has to become something of beauty and grandeur.  The sculptor knows and the stone does not.  This is  a great metaphor for prayerful meditation.  I am the block of stone who is clueless as to where this meditation is going or to what I will become.  But each day that I meditate, God the sculptor is chiseling away at me, bit by bit, removing whatever gets in the path of me becoming all I am meant to be. I don’t ever have to know where my meditation is going.  I just have to do it each day.  Over time, as the bronze block becomes a work of art, I will become all the inner beauty my Creator made me to be.  I try not to be a blockhead.

Our Problem

I often don’t think that something is a problem until it becomes my problem.  I have been reading about accessibility for people who cannot hear, see or walk unaided, for instance.  I never really think about stairs or narrow doorways or Braille books or sign language when someone is talking.  Such problems for others ought to be my problem too, if I want to be a person of service.  Start with compassion.  Can a deaf person attend one of my talks?  How about stairs and the width of doorways, much less how easy is it to open a door.  Since I am in the church business with its buildings I have begun to consider these things.  Buildings and presentations can become barriers.  But I am also reminded by these same persons that they never let any limitations get in the way of their drinking.  They are good teachers for me.

Feeling Better

One of the results of being on a spiritual path or recovery is that you begin to "feel better."  I don't mean that you always feel good, because that is fantasy land.  What I mean is that you begin to feel your feelings better with the know how of what to do with them.  For instance, you might feel anger, rejection, loneliness, and sadness.  You can identify the feeling, and know how to respond to it.  With anger or rejection you will not necessarily strike back, an eye for an eye, which you have found in past behavior, only made you and matters worse.  You realize that you don't always have the emotional stuff to endure certain responses, so you don't go there.  You let some things simply go.  You learn how to ask the right question of another who might be going through their own stuff at the moment.  You become a better listener.  And you listen better to yourself, your best self.  And you will feel better more often even amid tough times.

Excluded

Did you or do you ever feel excluded?  And especially when you were once seemingly in the center, and then put out to pasture, so to speak, or even felt “dumped.”  Someone who develops a physical limitation, maybe hearing, seeing, or walking, can find that places they went no longer are accessible to them because of their hearing seeing, wheel chair, etc.  But then there are those for whom nothing  physically changed in them, but a new boss came along.  The new boss had different ideas about who would be central and who would be “not so much.”  You ended up the “not so much.”  You felt married to your work or ministry, and someone took it pretty much away.  Well, this is not foreign to me.  Now I could whine, complain, talk behind someone’s back, criticize, but the situation would stay the same, but I would be in a negative mood and emotionally out of balance.  Not good for me.  So what I do is try to think of other people who are feeling or being excluded for whatever reason.  How can I be of some service to make them feel more included and important?  Senior persons would be a place where I could be of service, so this I try to do.  I feel better and find that I have a whole new world of usefulness open up to me.  It is a bit of “do unto others as I would have them do unto me.”  Anyhow, it keeps me out of trouble.