Not Results

Do I write my blogs hoping for results?  I hope not.  I try to do the best I can in hope that what I am doing is worth the effort, that it is valuable, especially to me.  Is what I do truth?  If so, then it is valuable to me.  It ought not to matter how many people read it or say they like it.  I never know those numbers and it is just as well.  I believe that creation is valuable even if the results don't seem to be apparent.  When I teach on zoom, I don't worry about the number of people who tune in.  That is not under my control.  So I suggest that maybe you don't focus on results, of which you may have little control.  I think of it as "Life on Life's Terms."   

Forgot

 Well it seems I forgot to post a blog today.  My thought for today is that yesterdays can have an effect on their tomorrows.  If I have a bad day, some unusual mess that I self-create to some extent, I will repent, try and put it in the rear view mirror, but the next day, some of its emotional effects seems to linger, especially when I wake up.  So I try to work my good routines rigorously and stay vigilant.  It will pass in its own time, but is a reminder of my imperfections.  

Wishing Well

 Someone said, "I wish I never had drunk so much and become addicted."  Oh?  Examine that for a moment.  Maybe, in this case, drink was what led to a much better life.  How so?  Well, what if this regretful person has found a spiritual path, relationship, paying work, usefulness to others, healthy life style, none of which might have happened if they had remained alcohol free.  Maybe the addiction is the only way some people would get all these things in recovery.  I try to wake up with gratitude that I am given this gift of life for today.  Remembering the past can keep me on my toes.  But regrets for the past do no one any good.  

Encircling

 Some of us have issues with fear.  Where does fear come from?  Why does it seem to control our emotional life at times?  I think that lots of fears come from living in the past.  Coming into the world from the safety of the womb can be frightening enough, but then events happen in our lives that frighten us.  We relive them as adults, maybe in some other triggering adult event, but it is the same emotional history resurrecting itself from within our fear vault.  Burying fear does little good, and only short term.  Or we encircle fear with inadequate strategies, such as sex, drugs, drink, exercise, busy work or even violence.  I now try to slow down and admit that I am feeling fear, and see if it is coming from a past event relived in the moment.  I may even talk to someone about it.  But if it is past, it cannot hurt me now.  I can live only in the present if I want some sanity.  I will do this as often as needed until the fear becomes a memory, that I may use to help another suffering person.  

Grain Of Wheat

 A grain of wheat can teach me much about patience.  Grains have been found in places that prove they are thousands of years old, yet when planted they can still germinate.  That takes patience.  The grain must wait, trust that it has what it takes to germinate, and hope someone finds it and allows it to flourish.  So when you are wondering about your talents, don’t. Trust in yourself, that you have good within you.  Wait.  Hope.  Good things may yet happen.  Even at my age, I have not given up on myself to produce something new and nourishing for others.  There is a Good Power always at work, and it never gives up on you or me.  

Thanksgiving

 As the joke goes, “Who would listen to a drunk talking to themself?”  A few too many Thanksgiving Days, I would end up drinking too much and then say the next day, “I should give up drinking.”  I did not listen to myself, since I was a drunk talking to myself.  But now I am enjoying a sober Thanksgiving Day today.  I drink Martinelli’s Cider on this special day.  How did this happen?  I stopped listening to myself, and began to listen to others who were enjoying truly Happy Thanksgivings on a daily basis.  I never got anywhere in my resolutions simply by listening to myself.  Alone, I am delusional.  I look for others who are doing what I say I want to do, the winners.  I call it “Group Grace.”  Happy Thanksgiving.  

Why Wait?

 I hear people say, "I don't want to pray because I don't believe in God."  Now if their lives are a train wreck, completely out of their control, a mess, I suggest to them that they pray anyway.  "Why wait for faith?" I ask.  You really don't have to believe to pray.  Besides, what harm would it do you if your life has bottomed out to seeming helpless and hopeless?  So I don't wait until I feel like meditating, to meditate.  I don't wait until I am ready.  I have learned that if I wait till I am ready, or "feel like it," my life will begin to spiral into bad behavior and bad thinking.  Many times, I don't want to get up for 4:30 AM vigil prayer at this monastery.  But I don't wait for the urge.  I just get up.  Good habits become good habits by doing them regularly.  My body does not wait for my mind to catch up.  So pray.  Forget what you believe at the moment.  Prayer does not kill.  Bad behavior on the other hand can be lethal for many of us.  

New End

 I don’t make a new start with a spiritual journey.  I make a new end.  I had my start and my life decisions developed this start to where I needed to get some serious spiritual and emotional help to avoid a debilitating, looming end.  My end has not happened and I can have something to say about how it will be.  Exercise and diet goes hand in hand with the spiritual practice of prayer and reading.  Good body and good heart leads to selfless service in which I don’t try to control the outcome.  Be of use rather than disabuse.  I am working on my end for my end.  

Being Me

 I love the apple and orange metaphor for becoming yourself.  If I am an apple, then try and be the best apple I can be.  I will never be an orange.  Why waste time and energy trying to be an orange if I am an apple?  I can admire someone, note their good qualities and talents, and even wish to be like them.  But why waste energy and talent in trying to become what I am not meant to be?  Be me, the best me I can be.  

The Bottom

What is this thing I hear people talk about, "the bottom?"  Here is a way it might makes sense to you.  Say you are on a daily grind of activity and you cannot seem to get out of this spinning around in place.  One thing after another that you cannot seem to avoid, give up or let pass.  One day, in your stress, suicide seems to be a strong option.  It is your way out.  But then you decide that your life is more important than the grind.  That is a "bottom."  You seek help to stay alive, and the world goes on without your previous contributing, grinding behavior.  Alcoholics and Addicts know this quite well.  I have hit bottoms on various issues when I decided something else was more important and closer to my heart.  Each choice is another gear in the spiritual journey.  

Meltdown

So you have a meltdown.  Something happens that is not part of your plans or seems to be upsetting your plans and you get crazed.  You used crazed energy, fear, to make decisions that will be all bad ones.  It happens.  Don't beat yourself up.  One, make no decisions. Wait.  Two, be humble enough to learn from the meltdown.  Three, be fearless to learn more about yourself and where you are in your spiritual journey.  Not only will you lean about yourself, but the event, a seeming failure to mature, will give you ideas, tools, about what to do next time life surprises you with the unexpected and seemingly dreadful.  I learn from my mistakes.  I am not trudging this road alone.  I can learn from others with similar experiences, if I am willing to share.  The inward search takes fortitude, and courage.  Mistakes are the teachers.   

A Book

Another way of praying is with a book.  But be willing to put down the book the moment you feel inspired to rest with a phrase or idea that comes from your reading.  Spiritual paths have books.  There is the Bible, the Koran, the Sutras, the Tao, the Vedanta, the Upanishads, and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Plenty of good ideas for meditation in all that.  So why torture yourself trying to come up with good thoughts to feel better, or for meditation?  Let the book do it for you.   

Step 10

In my daily examination of conscience, done at times in the middle of the daily activities, I often come across some emotion that wants to control my next action.  In my spiritual practice, when I am working my spiritual practice, I might notice "fear."  It wants to control my response to something that has come up.  I recognize it.  "Oh, this is fear."  It then loses control of my response.   I become aware of fear but don't act on it.  My spiritual practice is not to be rid of emotions.  I am a human person.  Emotions happen.  My practice is so that I do not let them control my actions.  Much less stress!

Detachment

 One of the reasons that I get upset is when all my happiness is tied up in things of this world that are passing.  When I have no detachment to vagaries of life, I will soon become quite disturbed that my world is not working out as planned.  Everyone and everything around me is making plans too, and I am not consulted.  So I get disturbed, and then I get frightened.  I am trying to find permanent happiness in the things of this world.  There is another world and it is the world within myself which I believe is more enduring, but more neglected than attention to what is passing around me.  A time of silence and stillness helps to keep me focused on interior priorities.  Then the outside stuff can have some attention, but with less focus on results, often out of my control. 

Likeness

Why do I fantasize about being like movie stars or great athletes?  I am a bad Catholic, might be the reason.  I am supposed to want to be like Jesus Christ, and I have a leg up on doing this if I had any faith at all.  Christ is supposed to be within me.  So I just have to get out of my own way to let Christ energy take over and bring out the best in me.  This is my religion, but I practice fantasy more that religion.  I have zero talent within me to be an actor or an athlete of distinction.  So I have no chance in those areas.  So why not work on what I can become?  As my big sis said, "Terry, you will burn!" 

Choices

Following up on yesterday's blog, I realize that fear makes bad choices.  I make wrong decisions when I get frightened even if I don't identify fear as the guiding energy.  I think I am rational, but I am not. Fear fools me.  So I am trying to practice faith, me of Little Faith.  The world is not out to get me, nor do I have to hunker down to protect myself.  I don't want the monastery to become a place to run away to because I cannot handle my plans being trashed by powers out of my control.  I trust that I am going to be OK.  Lots of people have way more problems than I do.  I mask up and show up both in meditation in the next right thing to do, fear-free.   

Outside Plans

 In the monastery life is rather predictable, relative to the outside world.  I thought that I had gotten into acceptance and turning my life over to God, and that calmness was to be my guiding emotion.  Wrong!  I left for a trip and found that I am still a beginner.  I got all upset about how little people protect themselves, and therefore me, from Covid.  Then my airline went haywire and flights were getting cancelled everywhere.  I got upset and was ready to give up the the trip and return to the monastery.  But then God gave me a shot or two.  I recalled acceptance.  I then recalled that I was supposed to turn my life over to God.  Let go and let God.  Amnesia had taken away my spirituality and the old self reigned until I got the God shots.  I have no control over airline chaos.  I cannot make people wear masks or get vaccinated or tested.  I am not in charge of any of that in the non-monastery world.  So now chaos abounds but I am at peace.  For now.  

Cafeteria

 I have been accused of being a Cafeteria Catholic, because I appear to not follow all the rules and regulations.  But someone reminded me what is the purpose of a cafeteria.  It is a place where there is something for everyone.  These were the cafeterias in New York where I grew up and worked in the summers.  There were lots of choices so that all kinds of different people could find something to eat.  I think that my church is about reaching out to all kinds of people including the ones who think you are wrong if you don't agree with them.  Even the ones who criticize me, probably have something about what Jesus said with which they disagree.  I hear people say, "Oh he did not really mean that for our modern world."  Well, maybe he did.  

Jonah

Jonah, the one swallowed by the whale for three days, reminds me of myself at my worst, and maybe you too.  He is all about Jonah.  He does not give a hoot for God or for anyone else.  He thinks he knows how things should be and so he lives centered on himself.  Sound familiar?  He is supposed to be a believer but only acts according to his will and not his God's will.  He thinks a town of people, Nineveh, are beneath him and they should suffer for their lifestyle.  Why help them?  Mercy? Compassion? The common good?  Forget it.  Jonah Justice is what he wants, and he is the judge.  So he heads away from Nineveh and ignores his God's request to go tell them to repent.  He gets into a storm on a ship and just goes to sleep while everyone else is frightened and praying to their gods for help.  He just does not care.  And when he finally comes out of the whale, goes to Nineveh and tells them to repent, they do, and are spared.  He is angry that they did not get punished.  He is not getting his way and just wants to die in the desert.  Jonah reminds me of just what bad behavior and attitude is.   

A Great Place!

 Yesterday was the Feast of St. Leo the Great.  No big deal, right?  Even for Catholics.  But for me it is a big deal because it was the name of the most fun parish, and my first parish out of the seminary, a new priest.  I was not very holy, nor professional.  I cried at the gravesides of two children I buried.  But back to the fun.  We had a parish bowling league and a parish softball league and lots of parties.  Lots of young families and kids everywhere.  I partied too much and prayed too little, making good friends along the way.  The people taught me what was important to them even if I did not do it well.  I was terrible at church services, recreating my own liturgies.  Houston climate can be punishing but with friends and fun it became a magical place.  I cried when I left.  Not very professional.  Now I am at the monastery, years later, seeing if I can get holy.  But I still think I would prefer fun with friends.  I will burn.   

Pruning

A healthy flower bush needs to be trimmed back at times, so new growth can develop.  I think of my time here at the monastery as a  pruning.  A few people are wondering why I don't keep doing all the good work I used to do in active parish ministry.  I need to be pruned back from such work so that some new growth can develop.  I don't quite know what that will be.  Maybe it is the ministry I do up in the monastery and on computer?  In the aging process, instead of thinking about it as becoming more limited in doing what you did or do, think of aging as being pruned back from younger work, so that you can do something new.  Now, there are some people who think my past ministry, being so liberal, was in need of being pruned, and they are quite happy that they don't have to put up with me anymore.  So I make those people happy too by my being out their sight.  

To Your Knees

 As the saying goes, "If the problem does not bring you to your knees, the solution will."  What does that mean!  We think that our solution, that makes us feel better, the old problem gone away, means everything will be smooth sailing from thereon in.  False.  The solution, yes, rids us of PART of the old problem, but then the solution, in time, will reveal how much of the problem was in our deeper need to change.  The solution reveals that more work needs to be done on a daily basis on ourself.  The solution brings new problems that we did not see in our old messy way of life.  There is new mess, and it is not someone else's fault or due to some addiction or financial problem.  We stop saying, "if only," in the blame game, and get to work on traveling, or trudging, the road of happy destiny,  one step at a time.  

Cancellations

 The pandemic has cancelled a lot of activities.  People talk about all the things they cannot do.  Their focus is on activities.  But what about attitudes?  Did Covid cancel them too?  Someone said, “Covid did not cancel joy.”  For me, joy follows gratitude.  I wake up and ask myself what am I grateful for?  And I can always find something to be grateful for if I review what I do have and what is presented so freely to me.  Standard time has given me back earlier morning light.  I love the mornings.  The seasons of the year I did not create.  Fall has its own unique beauty.  With gratitude I can then become a gift to others.  Covid cannot take that away from me.  

Silence

 There is nothing like the silence of this monastery.  Why is that?  Perhaps it is because the whole environment is permeated over the years by a lot of silence.  It gets into the very walls and furnishings.  By no means are we always silent.  But we are sufficiently silent, and no tv or radio or vehicle traffic in our midst.  I have been to places where it can be very quiet for a time, but it is not the same depth of silence in this monastery.  This monastic silence makes me realize just how noisy I am.  Silence within helps the silence around me.  

A Delayed Joy

 Mother Nature, on God’s behalf, left me a tree still in Fall colors on the day I returned to the Monastery.  The trees are not all bare at this time.  One survived, so that I could have one more glimpse of Fall, in early November, up here in the mountains of Colorado.  And an Aspen to boot.  As I look through the golden leaves of the aspen branches while they sway in a gentle chill breeze, I see snow capped mountains and above and beyond them, a deep blue sky.  All of this I can see from my  room window.  It is as if God is saying, “Terry, see, it is a good idea for you to be here.”  So maybe get out of yourself, look around, and see that maybe it is a good thing for you to be where you are.  

The Good Times

It is easy to trust in the good times.  I know of people in early recovery from addiction, that as their out of control life begins to get better in sobriety, they often have a lot of trust in the group, another person who guides them along the early path of recovery, and even trust in a God of some sort.  But then real life shows up.  Why not?  The newly sober person now has work, relationship with another person that had been in tatters, maybe a family.  Real life has challenges.  It makes demands for emotional maturity, perseverance, discipline.  If the recovering person does not double down on their efforts in sobriety, trust goes out the window, and soon enough so might the person.  Trust is easy when things are going your way.  I have found it so.  

Crisis!

 Is your life a challenge or a continuing crisis?  When asked that question, I laughed out loud.  I must admit that too many times my life is lived emotionally as a continuing crisis.  Situations are unsolvable, unless I take drastic action.  I am victim of other people's failures.  My life is in ruins.  But I am working on it.  How?  Well, I say when I awake, that I turn my life over to my God.  And I throw in my self-will too.  Every time that I take back management of my life, solo, I enter criss mode.  I have to stay or return to a spiritual connection to keep life as a challenge.  We have no cell phone service in voice mail, nor many a text up here at the monastery, but the medical world contacts me more and more on cell phone and I don't get the message unless I go out in my car and drive to a cell connection.  If a crisis, I move to a big city.  If a challenge, I await advice from nearby mountain people.  And try to live a life of gratitude.  

Reseeding

 Like many kids, I was brought up with a faith, a religion.  I was baptized Catholic.  I  was "seeded" with faith.  As a boy in the Bronx, my religion had certainty.  I was surrounded by authority figures who did the rituals and obeyed the rules.  Life was good in that cocoon.  But as I grew up and moved out on my own, my field of faith went fallow.  I did not work it.  I ignored my land of faith.  Weeds of life grew up in it.  Eventually, I decided that a spiritual path was better than the destructive weeds that were doing all too well and choking life out of me.  I needed to reseed my field, but now it had to become my faith, and not one given to me as a boy.  I think of adult faith and practice to be one of reseeding.  I have to work on the weeds of life everyday.  They don't go away, but they no longer choke me, nor do I feed on weeds as my only food.  Like the farmer, it is perseverance, trust in a spiritual power, and hope.  It works.  I work it.  

What?

Whenever someone says something to me, and I respond with, "What?" I know that I am not listening.  I hear the sounds, but I am not listening to the words or meaning.  If I don't learn to listen, then I will never get to listening to learn.  There is a lot to be learned by listening, but first I have to listen.  If the teacher in class were to ask me a question and I responded with, "What?" my score was going down the drain with that professor.  If the professor were to start out by saying, "Mr. Ryan, etc. etc." I would perk up when I heard my name and then listen to the question.  But some professors would trick me by saying the question first and then calling my name at the end.  I would try for an escape by saying, "I did not understand the question."  Usually made things worse.  Over the years a spiritual practice has helped.  I try to BE HERE NOW.  I have learned a lot by becoming a better listener.  But there is still the occasional, "What?" 

All Saints Day

 As I understand it, Christians believe in God becoming human, Jesus, and dying, innocently, on a cross, suffering for the sins of others.  If this be so, why do so many Christians whine about suffering due to the failures of others to do their job, or pull their weight, or neglect tasks, that the so-called innocent end up doing or paying the price.  Is this not what their God become human did?  Life often seems to be full of the guilty getting away with something, while the innocent pick up the pieces.  If even a God could not escape that, why should the whiner?  I keep this in mind when others make a mess and don't clean up after themselves.  Cleaning up for the neglectful, the clueless, seems to me to be bearing my cross.  Jesus said, "Come follow me."  I don't think he whined about the unfairness of his world.