More For The One Who Sees

Think of those magi going into the house where Jesus lived after their long journey following a celestial light.  Great expectations!  What do they see?  A kid, with a peasant mom and a working class carpenter.  Not much, huh?  I guess it depends on how you see.  Lots of times, I think there isn’t much in a situation or even in my own life.  That feeling, “I am not much.”  Life seems pointless, drab, so so.  But there is always more if we can get beneath seeing with the physical eye, and initial feelings.  I find that getting “out of myself” as some say, as in meditation, or a meandering walk, or helping another person, does give me a deeper view of what is going on.  Sharing my ‘Nothingness” can give me new sight as to my value and the sense of worth about life around me.  I guess the magi had the same experience, as they shared their gifts.  We all have gifts.

Crossroad

I once was at a crossroad of two streets.  One was darkness and the other was despair.  I was lost and without a map.  There was no google map at that time.  The darkness confused any direction and the despair sucked my energy.  My life was in ruins.  Trying to think about anything seemed fruitless since my thinking had gotten me to this crossroad.  So I stopped thinking about me, a first.  This was a gift, to not think about me.  So now what?  Well, instead of focusing on my mind and my thoughts, jumbled and constant as they were, I had the inspiration to notice I was breathing.  I did not think about breathing.  I simple noticed it, one breath at a time.  Then came gift #2.  I noticed that there was something else of me besides my thoughts.  I was not just my thoughts.  Well what else was there?  A kind of peace and a hunger for being, enjoying that part of me that was not my thoughts.  I fell into an acceptance and comfort in this breathing calmness not focused on my thoughts  Life was not all darkness and despair and I was not only my thoughts.  I had discovered the presence of a More, and it was Me, or calling me to be this Me.  After I rested in this discovery, I did the next right thing and that is why I am here today typing out this blog one breath at a time.

The Light

Sometimes I feel like a black hole as in universe stuff.  A black hole is where gravity is so strong that light cannot escape from the star.  The star is invisible but it exists.  The black hole me is when I have light but am so turned into myself, so self-centered, that I cannot let me light shine for others.  I cannot be of some service or love.  Sometimes, I am like a planet.  A planet has no light of its own.  It is lit by light from elsewhere, a star, like our sun.  The planet me is lit by the love of a friend.  I may feel I am just spinning my life around and they light up my life with their love.  Remember the song, “You light up my life.”  (Quiz: who sang it?).  Then sometimes I am like a bright star.  I shine my light and my warmth onto others.  I have a spiritual process or steps to help take me from black hole to star.  And I have friends along the way, who help me with their light.  Become a star.

Thoughtful Kindness

Sometimes, people can be a bit overwhelming with their kindness.  This is not always a good thing.  For instance, if you see a person who looks down and out, their hands shaking, and they ask or you offer them a cup of coffee, don’t overwhelm the person with a full cup.  Why?  Because they are shaking and could spill hot coffee over themselves and onto the floor.  Give them a half cup.  Being thoughtful sometimes means that we do good by half.  Kindness is not meant to make us feel better.  It is in service to the other person.  Less can be more, or at least enough.

1917

The Academy Awards, that is the Oscars, will happen soon.  I love the Red Carpet venue the best.  I think that the movie "1917" is going to win best picture.  It has some gruesome scenes, but it is worth seeing, and on the big screen.  I mean it is a World War.  Two guys are given the task of bringing a message to a group of soldiers far across the battle zones, to tell them that they are about to be ambushed.  One soldier says it is a waste, being too dangerous and impossible to get through all the enemy lines.  The other fellow presses on.  The doubter's life is saved by his companion, and this changes him.  He becomes all in, even after his friend is killed.  Alone, he pushes on until...go see the movie.  My point is that when someone is willing to put himself in danger's way to save you, it can transform you from a doubter, or self-serving person, or a fear-based person, into someone who would give their life for another.  Sometimes you are not even aware that you are loving.  You are just putting one foot in  front of the other.  Extraordinary things can happen. I mean the guy went over the waterfall and into the raging river.  And the movie is a true story.

Questions

I prefer a theology of questions rather than of answers.  Too many of us want our religions to make us safe and secure with the “right” answers.  There is little challenge for me to grow in such a situation.  I don’t think that Jesus or Buddha or other great spiritual adepts were much about answers.  People are always asking about the “right” way to meditate, and what is enlightenment as if it had an answer.  Read the sermon on the mount and see that it leaves one with a lot of questions that don’t get answered by Jesus.  “Come follow me,” and “The Kingdom is in your midst,” leaves out a lot of security and certainty.  Whenever one gets close to the answer, if there is one, I think they become fire rather than secure and safe.  Truth consumes me, but does not make me comfortable.  Mediation leaves me with much to do and ponder in humility, and courage, whereas going to mass on Sunday is a check off on the to do list of things that will make me feel better about being “religious.”

Lapsed But Listening

I seem to have some appeal to people who used to be with some religious practice, have stopped, thus called lapsed, but are still listening.  To what or why?  Well, they wee not being spiritually fed from their perspective, but they know that they have a hunger for more than just not practicing.  I think recovery programs have a lot of lapsed but listening people.  Their religion as they knew it did not help them in their addiction.  But they sense that they need more than just abstinence from whatever was killing them or destroying their life.  I might be a bad priest for sometimes thinking outside the box, and be that as it might, but it is my spirituality at this time, and I hope I serve a useful purpose to someone(s). I serve the “lapsed but listening.”

The Boss

I rarely hear people say, “I used to be Lutheran, or Methodist, or Congregational,” and so on.  Nor do hear people complain about such past denominational connections.  But I do hear Catholics say, “I used to Catholic,” or “I can’t stand the Catholic Church,” or “I am Catholic but I don’t practice.”  Identifying as the non-practicing Catholic is often a way to say your intelligence is no way diminished by such a connection.  So I sense that when you become a Catholic it is such a connection that is hard if not impossible to be rid of.  It is like sacramental duck tape or a spiritual DNA.  I tend to agree with the Boss, “Once you’re a Catholic, you’re always a Catholic.”  You don’t know who the Boss is?  Rock and Roll guy from New Jersey?

Identity

One of the reasons that my church attracts new members, is their desire to be part of something great as they see it.  My church is big and 2000 years old.  The isolation that comes with urban and suburban life often lacks a way to overcome the struggle for social recognition.  People crave a sense of worth and positive dignity that is missing in mass urbanization, single driver rush hours and mass transportation.  Latinas who feel diminished in their ethnic or immigrant status may gravitate to a church of like culture that makes them feel important and recognized as a group. the Irish, Italian, and others all did this in the past. There is a tension between individual expression and the longing for a community of like minded people.  For some, religion fills the bill.  Evangelization can become a way to make you feel important, but it will not transform you.  Why would one seek transformation in which ultimately you must become less, if you already feel like you are nothing from the uncaring society in which you find yourself?  Feeling part of an elite group is short term for deep spiritual growth.  Maybe that is why Jesus had so few followers, and I suspect still does.

Holiness Through What We Have

Staying with yesterday’s blog, how does one become holy who has things?  Not simply by giving some away as in contributing to a charity.  Lots of people do that but holiness, fullness of being eludes them still.  I think two things are necessary.  One is the idea that alone I am never enough to solve issues, deprivations, sufferings.  This gives us humility in spite of our stuff.  Second, is to see what we have can be a blessing if we give it away with love, knowing that it is not enough in quantity.  The love, the attitude, is what makes up for quantity.  To give something away with love requires that it be more personal, more face to face because that is where we see we are never enough on one hand and yet more than enough on the other.  I grow the most holy when I go up to someone or am with someone face to face being of service to that person.  I don’t worry about being the solution.  I seek the holiness that comes with the interaction and proper attitude.  A humble self-giving.

Post War II for Moms

Two things changed for women after WWII, especially if they were wives and moms.  One change was money and the other was something to buy.  During and before WWII there was little money and not much to buy outside of necessities like food, shelter and clothing, of the barest sort.  The church’s spiritual teaching was that of simplicity of lifestyle, having little, was a good ascetic practice for getting a good seat after we die.  The monastic life for all.  The one percent folk who had a lot and lived lavishly, purchased lots of mass intentions for when they died because they knew they had not lived the ideal spirit of simplicity.   The church, especially monasteries with lots of monk priests made a good income saying mass for rich people and royalty.  But after WWII the consumer society took off with the fifties.  Families had some discretionary income and there were new consumer goods to buy.   I loved the 50s.  This trend has continued more or less since then. But the church has had a lot of difficulty coming up with a spirituality for the consumer society.  Government adjusted.  The Mom and Wife is expected to act more like the disappearing nuns of old.  A seat at the table with some economic power is not the model of old.

Knowing Not Enough

Just to know something of the spiritual is never enough for me.  So I am a searcher, not just a researcher.  I want more than information or dogma or direction.  Information is the easier part.  To search is hard.  I think of the magi, those guys from Persia who traveled all the way from there to Jerusalem, a hard journey, following nothing other than a star.  They knew that a King had been born but they had no experience of the King.  The mind and body were engaged in their journey, but it was not until they encountered the King, that they “saw” as with the inner eye.  This was the mystical moment that is life-changing.  There are many things that we see but our lives are not significantly enough changed.  And there are things that I know exist, but I have no interest in going to see them.  I know Mount Rushmore exists, but I am not interested in that journey.  Maybe there was a time in the past, but it has passed.  The magi did geography, traveling across land, but it was all in the interest of the interior search.  Thus I find myself more into the interior travel.  No frequent flyer miles here.

Holiness

Some people think that holiness is all about abandoning the world, going off to pray away from the secular.  Perhaps, but it is not my way to holiness.  I need some time each day for stepping away, but I think that holiness is more about living in the world in a way that gives comfort and compassion to those who are suffering within or without.  In my quiet times I often realize my own wounds.  I also can have them brought to the center of my consciousness by gathering with other people who are working on a more spiritual life in the world.  I am much more comforting and compassionate and attentive to others when I am centered and aware that all my growth is grace.  I try to balance my monastic self with my being of service self.  My detractors would rather I just go away.

A Myrrh-Bearer

I want to become a myrrh bearer.  What?  Myrrh is a resin that is produced when a tree is wounded.  It is meant to help heal the tree.  Myrrh is also used as a beauty aide and in burial rites.  So if I am a myrrh bearer kind of person, I am a presence that is healing for others. I want to be a myrrh bearer person kind of friend who helps others to realize how beautiful they are when they are down on themselves or only noticing imperfections.  And I want to be there for when people die, to comfort the mourners and do good funerals.  Death can often bring a lot of wounding to those who live on.  Some days I am a better fragrance than other days!

Cartoons Lie

I always enjoyed the cartoon, “Wile E. Coyote.”  The road runner always sped away from the coyote. That is false as I recently found out.  The coyote at top speed is much faster than a road runner.  All the coyote had to do was chase the road runner.  Maybe the coyote did not know this was the answer or that it had the capacity for such speed?  So, though I am crushed by the lie in the cartoon, maybe there is some truth for me and you.  Maybe our growth comes from knowing more about our capacity and then pushing ourselves to that capacity for us to be all that we can be.  Just because I say, “I cannot,” or “That is beyond me,” it may not always be so.  In meditation and spiritual reading, my horizons often get expanded and new possibilities arise.  I often find that I can do something that I did not think possible.  It is not always simply one time effort.  It is often the discipline of not giving up.  But I hope that my favorite cartoon, “Bugs Bunny” has no fibs.

Cannot Change

I don’t know why we vex ourselves over a lack of faith in a God.  I think the key is acceptance.  If you don’t believe in a God then don’t worry about it.  Accept the things you cannot change.  If you say that you believe in nothing, then you can become quite a mystic.  Meister Eckhart says that God is “No Thing.”  He prayed.  Buddha said God neither is nor is not, and he meditated, a lot.  Just because someone says that they believe in God, does it mean their belief is more than their imagination in some image or person somewhere?  They would say yes, but then I ask how truly transformed they really are?  It seems to me that some of the best non-believers in the “Idea” of God, are some of the best prayers and meditators and the most transformed.  So pray to no thing, and you might be on to something.  How to pray to “no thing”?  Stop talking, and thinking about...Be still and silent.  Your problem may be more with the stillness and silence.  We can use our lack of “faith” as an excuse.

Wants And Needs

I know that I am on the spiritual path when I can be more focused on my needs than my wants.  My wants are more often about me while my needs are more about others, or more about my outsides and less about my insides.  Why so?  Well, what I want is usually more about my comfort and convenience than it is about anyone else.  Example:  I want a parking place near to the entrance to where I am going.  Do I consider an elderly, or injured person who might be wanting that same parking place?  No.  I have no wants for any other person but myself.  I want a treat.  I want to go to a movie.  These are all about me.  A need almost always connects me to a world larger than myself.  I need love, but this includes another person and I must be selfless enough to love in return or else it is not love.  I need money to pay bills, survive or else I cannot be of use to others in my present circumstances.  But I don’t need money to go on holiday.  That is a want.  I might say I need to ski or go away from work, or have some fun, but this often it is escape from doing the interior work that needs to be done on myself.  That is why I need to go to my monastery, but have little desire to travel and see new places.  As we age, wants and needs shift but a want usually does not satisfy.  It cannot deliver what the need is.

Homily

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

MATTHEW 3: `3-17

JANUARY 12, 2020

Some people believe that they become holy by spending a lot of time in church or doing novenas, devotional, prayer books and such.  But I think that does not do enough.  I think that holiness also needs some “breaking open.”  In my church we have bread, hosts, that are broken and then shared.  It signifies for me that our Jesus broke himself open and shared himself.  OK, so how does that work for the rest of those who believe in him?

It can start when you are a child.  You are asked to make your bed.  You don’t want to make your bed.  You want to do what you want to do when you want to do it.  It is all about you and your self-will, selfish as it can be.  But instead of being all about you, you break yourself open and make your bed for your parent who asked you.  You are of service to the will of another to do a good deed.  Part of you says, “NO!” But then part of you breaks off and says, “YES.”  Holiness is also called “growing up.”  Many people never grow up.  

Baptism is being dunked into the waters with all our selfishness and self-centeredness, all our “ME” world of self-implosion.  The coming up out of the water is the decision that we will no longer live only for ourselves, but rather be of service to others, as was Jesus.  We get the Holy Spirit, Power to live out this decision.  Baptism is into a religion of service, not private spirituality.  All private prayer, meditation, stillness and silence is in the service of accessing the Power, Spirit, to become more selfless.

An obstacle is that we think we are not enough to be of any real use to change the world for the better, or we think that whatever we do will not be enough.  This is like John the Baptist who thought he was not enough to baptize Jesus.  But Jesus says he is enough, with Jesus.  We are enough with God Power.  And why should we worry about the results of our actions, service?  We are not in charge of results.  Our transformation into holiness is not about results but about action on our part.  Leave the results up to God.  Keeps us humble too!  

Choices

Doing my best is not the same as doing what I have to do.  I believe that we have choices in spite of bad stuff happening over which we seem to have little control.  We have to adjust to survive.  Think of catastrophic weather in which everyone is endangered and stuff is being destroyed.  One person decides to “travel light” and be helpful to those around them, not worrying so much about their own stuff being washed away or destroyed.  Another person decides to loot.  The looter might say, “I don’t have much at all, so I am doing what I have to do.”  The one who has something and is losing it, does their best to help another.  When I do my best, my world is better for it even though there is a lot of mess and loss around me.  When I “do what I have to do,” it is so often around fear, jealousy, selfishness and resentment.  I do my best with my blogs, though some of them are trash.  I try never to have to do them.

Antipasto

Antipasto refers to that which comes before the main dish in Italian circles.  You might have antipasto salad or noodles.  Well, I think of anti-days, as in spiritual programs of growth and recovery.  What I do today will connect with how tomorrow goes.  If I pray, am selfless, talk to people on the path of such growth, get out of my own way, then tomorrow has a good chance of starting out well and going well if I can string along regular days of doing the same things, the spiritual food needed on a daily basis.  Today’s main dish becomes the antipasto for tomorrow.  I starve myself when I eat nothing of this spiritual food.

Service

I am bemused when a pastor comes into a parish the first day as the new pastor.  He calls it “my parish.”  It is the clericalism and hierarchy of the Catholic organization of top down power. The pastor might use the word “service” as in he comes to serve the people, but in fact he comes to be boss. He moves furniture, redecorates, changes a lot of the outsides to suit his taste, and so on.  There is minimal consultation, since all the parish groups know he is the “boss.”  AA is so much different as an organization.  It is not top down, nor hierarchical and the leaders really do serve the group.  The person who runs the meeting, makes coffee, buys literature, and so on, each works for a short period of time, say six months at that service position.  Then the group elects new people to take all the “service” positions.  They serve the group.  If there is a master, it would be alcohol.  It has all the power to kill and destroy.  People can choose to join a parish, and may have some spiritual growth.  But an alcoholic comes into AA with one gift, desperation.  The miracle in their spiritual recovery is that they move from desperation to becoming a servant of the group, from self centered focus to selfless focus. Pastors, with all that power and control have a difficult time ever getting past me and mine.

Saint Roch

There appears to be a patron saint of dogs.  St. Roch from France.  He was saved from plague death through the care of a dog he did not know.  More interesting is that someone did a study, for what it’s worth, saying 40% of people with dogs hang up a stocking for their dog at Christmas.  Would that be you?  Maybe the other 60% don’t do Christmas or stockings.  I have a Christmas stocking with my name on it.  I hung it outside my office a couple of times and Santa ignored it.  Where I live they don’t do Christmas Stockings.  I felt like the 60%.  I try not to lose hope when I feel ignored.  There is always a message.  Like what?  I am not the center of anyone’s universe.  Or, it is giving that makes me whole not getting.  Or, be humble, and love, even with an empty stocking.  Stuff like that helps me through the tougher days.  Next year though, I am going to find a home where Santa visits and hang my stocking there.

Confession

Why is confession a good thing? It is even one of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.  I think that confession to another person is a good thing because it is a place to tell our secrets.  Our secrets will kill us, I have heard said.  We can talk about actions, thoughts, fears, feelings, and in the telling, our secrets lose their power to hurt or embarrass us.  If we tell the right person, someone who keeps confidences, someone who accepts and does not judge, then we feel a sense of relief, freedom from our secrets, even our bad habits.  This can help to make it easier for us to love and accept others.  As a priest, I hear secrets.  But someone who sponsors another on a spiritual path, a mentor, can also hear secrets.  I don’t want my obituary to say, “Death by secrets.”

Independent Study

When I was trying to recover from the wreckage of my past behavior, I did it at first as ‘Independent Study.”  That is, I went to meetings, and listened some, but talked to no one at any length or depth, or asked for aide in my search.  I then bought the spiritual book recommended and read it alone.  Then I did some of what it said to do, but alone, no advice, no guidance from another human being.  I  did not get well.  I was a dry rage.  No fun.  So I don’ recommend that you do any spiritual path alone, even if you think you might want to become a hermit.  Live in the middle of a group that is on your path, before you go off into the wild of a cave.  I do not have hermit in me.  I practice group spiritual recovery.  I am a forgetter.  A group or tribe on a spiritual path together always has some rememberers among them.  Sometimes it is even me.

A Spiritual Pill

Think of a spiritual path as taking a pill on a daily basis.  Now some pills you have to take with food. The pill works best in combination with something else, food in this case.  A spiritual path pill metaphor should be taken with an open mind and willingness to do the work.  If I simply read some Buddhist scripture to get information or to show how wrong it is, then I am not on that spiritual path. I have no open mindedness and am not willing to do any of the meditations.  So if I am going to read some spiritual path book, I first ask myself, “Am I open minded about what I am about to read?”  Fundamentalists generally are only opened minded to what already agrees with their view.  I call it tribal reading.  Read only what your like minded tribe subscribes as true.  I go into reading something quite different from what I know, believe, think with the attitude, “What can I learn from this wisdom that will help me to expand my horizons, and grow into a better person?”

Epipany

Remember the Three Kings from Christmas stories?  Well, today is their day in Christian circles, except in the United States.  In the USA and maybe in some other places, it got moved to Sunday. Why?  We don’t move Christmas?  Well, let’s face reality.  Many a Catholic is not so much in love with their God as wanting to stay on God’s good side for eternal insurance as well as to want current plans to go their way.  If you really loved God, you would go to mass on Epiphany Feast Day, January 6.  I always did growing up.  Now we could make it a Holy Day Of Obligation and that would get a bunch of people to go to church, but a whole lot more would skip it.  They are churched out from Christmas stuff. Mediocrity won’t change, so change the date of the feast.  We moved it to Sunday.  If you love someone then obligations transcend into gratitude for love.  If you don’t love, then obligations are just a chore, and we often skip our chores because we would rather be doing something else or we are just self-imploded.  

Whose Rules?

It seems strange that institutional Christianity is all caught up in rules and punishments.  The religion is based upon a person who was born into this world beyond any rule, scriptural interpretation or doctrine of his religion.  Which is why Jesus was so little accepted among his people.  He did not fit their way of seeing things.  God never fits into institutional, historical religion.  But we make up rules that don’t fit God.  Example, go to mass on Sunday or burn.  I thought that God wanted to be our friend and have a love relationship.  Would you want a friend who said, “I will do thus and so with you or for you so that you don’t zap me.”  That is neither friendship or love.  I think that manny rules simply fit the institution and its agenda rather than the God of which it speaks.  If my dogma is right, then God came into the world conceived of a woman who did not have a husband relations, born poor, into a carpenter home in a little out of the way village, and then did nothing spectacular for about 30 years.  God the unexpected.  So be open to the unexpected coming, presence of whoever this God is, who seems less about rules, and our expectations, and more about Love.  Love is so often a surprise. Think of your first falling in love when you saw that person across the room.  It has no rules.

Reading

In school you read for information.  You may memorize some things especially for a test.  You may like to widen your base of knowledge, thinking this makes you “smarter.”  But most of this information will do little to change you.  Information has its limitations.  Another way to read is for the purpose of transformation.  You read something slowly and then ponder it, let it work on your insides where change happens.  One might read scripture or a self-help book or a meditation guide in this manner.  You might read little but you ponder it.  You could read the Bible, the Vedanta, Buddhist text, as in a class of study and be changed not one bit.  You would not become a better person.  Formation is to change the heart.  The head helps, but the heart is where all change for the better happens.  Head reads.  Heart ponders.  Person changes.  I have found it so.

Rule Oriented

Why is institutional religion so rule oriented?  Christianity for instance is based upon God becoming a human person in Jesus of Nazareth.  As I recall his Dad, Joseph, found out that the wife, Mary, was pregnant and not by him.  Rule says, he could have her stoned to death and she along with baby would die.  Case solved.  But he decides to divorce her quietly, not quite the rule, but he is a nice guy, compassionate and caring for the pregnant girl.  Then he decides, from a dream, to take her into his home as wife, care for her and the baby when born.  He is breaking rules, so Jesus comes into world through rule breaking.  So I sometimes bend a few rules or don’t follow them very strictly.  I do pray to Saint Joseph!.

No Strangers

One of my hopes for 2020 is that I will talk to someone I don’t know who might be new to the event or gathering I am attending.  It is so easy for me to talk to people I know, with whom I am familiar and at ease.  But the newcomer, who might feel like an outsider might just stand around or sit by themselves not quite knowing how to fit.  So I will try to be on the lookout for someone who is sitting alone in a gathering.  And I will introduce myself with no expectations of anything in return.  I am not so much trying to make a new acquaintance, but rather trying to get out of myself.  Welcome the uncertain newcomer.  If I get out of myself then no matter how the encounter goes, I am a better person for the effort.

Happy New Year

Will it be a happy new year?  As long as I am open to preferences and not “musts” or expectations I think I have a chance for some peace and happiness.  So I try not to have hard and fast resolutions, such as “I will never do this or that again,” or “I will do this and that every day.”  I can have goals, and hopes and then do the work.  But stuff happens over which I have little or no control in 2020.  And what is so different about December 31 and January 1, as far as behavior and attitude is concerned?  Growth is not magic.  I will have to work on a daily basis to do what has helped me in the past.  My issues are not new, so my solutions need not be new.  Ah!  Discipline.  And grace is needed too.  I am so so on discipline but at least I know what I need to do from past experience.  Good stuff happens when I avoid bad stuff on a daily basis.  2020 is a lot like 2019.  One day at a time.