The Empty Place

 I meet a lot of young people who say they don’t believe in the religion in which they grew up.  In part, their young faith was more a belief in what their parents or teachers said.  They believed the “Authority.”  In time, with some independence, they stop going to services, or meetings.  Then they stop believing all that was said about the Power, the Divine, yet they might continue to believe in the value of the ethics.  Love, equality, kindness, compassion and openness for instance.  The problem lies in the emptiness of the heart.  It cannot be filled with substitutes for the Power, the Light in the Darkness, if you will.  It is what I see as a ‘Dry life.”  They abstain from something their heart craves. Subsequently, they find it hard to live the principles they believe in.   It is like the alcoholic, the addictive person, who believes in the principles of recovery, the ethics, but still craves or hungers for something.  They stopped going to meetings, to being of service, to reading the recovery scriptures.  Been there.  Done that.  

The Beloved Disciple

 My faith in the resurrection is not based upon the preaching of the Apostles.  They were eye witnesses of the Risen Jesus, so they say.  I am not an eye witness.  My faith is like John, called “The Beloved Disciple.”  When he and Peter ran to the tomb in Mathew’s Gospel, Chapter 28, Peter went into the tomb.  It was empty.  Peter was clueless.  But John went in right behind Peter, and when he saw the empty tomb, he believed, though he did not understand.  This is my faith.  I believe, though I did not see the Risen Jesus.  I am spending my life in understanding.  A lot of faith is based upon belief without understanding.  Ask any alcoholic who has just embarked on a Recovery Program.  They believe sobriety is possible though they understand nothing at the moment.  They spend a life in sobriety coming to understanding day by day.  

My Bapism

 Today is the anniversary of my Baptism into the Catholic Church in 1943.  I was little less than a month old.  We had babies baptized soon after their birth back then.  I remember nothing of course.  A priest, friend of the family was my godfather, Bernard Corrigan.  So I guess I had a leg up on becoming a priest from the git go.  I was a very good Catholic altar boy, and then a normal neurotic teenage Catholic, which, back then skirted mediocrity.  I did think about becoming a priest as a boy and teenager. Then the world, the flesh and the devil took over.  I became a bad Catholic, but did seem to have this now and again, off and on, desire for quiet meditation, or just sitting still in a church or park.  But grace is everywhere and I seem to have stumbled into being a priest of some use to others on my better days and moments.  My baptism keeps plugging me into grace.  I like being the kind of Catholic I am, though some think it is heresy or bad practice.  I live in the post-modern world and find it fascinating.  I look forward to what time gifts me as I trudge the road of happy destiny.  

Great Love

 We are still in the Easter Season.  I am reminded that when Jesus rose from the dead, as Christians believe, he still had his wounds from his crucifixion.  We Christians believe that he died for love of us, and that where there is great love, there is great suffering.  So many people feel that their life would be complete if they fell in love and had someone to love.  If only I had a girlfriend or boyfriend the young might think.  Or the not so young.  But what Christianity tries to teach is that if you really love maturely, then there will be suffering.  For a lot of people, “in love” when they suffer they think the love is over or gone bad.  And they move on.  I did that.  I think that I just did not want to pay the price of growing up.  I wanted resurrection but without a cross.  

Connections

 Meditation, the silence and solitude of it, is not simply to make one a  less crazy person.  This would be too individualistic.  It is to inform your occupation and profession.  That is, even unemployed, retired, living in leisure, you are part of a greater world in your daily occupations.  When I get in my car or go out on an errand or just for a walk, I am entering a world larger than myself.  How do I respond to someone else in that world?  Ignore them?  Compete with them for mutual services such as queue lines for purchase of something?  How do I see other people?  As other and an obstacle to my getting what I want as quickly and conveniently as possible?  Do I compete with workers or cooperate?  Even on-line computer work can have an inclusive attitude toward others in cyberspace.  I think that meditation can help to keep the focus from being only on “ME.”

Beyond Self

 One way to get beyond the self and into the world of the common good, is to bypass the greater good.  Why?  Well, the greater good might be greater for a few people, but not for everyone.  In the world of consumption, production, investment and distribution, the greater good is for whom?  Often for those who have plenty of good already, and at the expense of the many who are still lacking.  When making decisions do you seek the advice of others who might be affected by your singular want or what you think is right?  Or are you open to the common good, the group conscience?  You need go no further than the business meeting of a group of sober ex-drunks to see the example of the common good rather than the greater good.  Greater is too often for the individual and not for the group or society.  

The Painter

 My sister is a painter.  She even belongs to a League of Painters.  They paint pictures, not houses.  But you cannot just want to paint.  Nothing happens with simply wanting.  She has talent, but talent does not paint.  It is in the category of potential.  She has to have a certain life-style.  Like what?  Like a space for painting in her house.  Then she has to buy the materials and set them in the space.  Then she has to consciously choose a life that gives her time to paint.  That is a lot of work before she even puts pencil to paper for an outline.  Then she has to practice just like a pianist does on the piano.  Sometimes it may be boring or a mess or going nowhere, but the painter does not give up.  Inspiration comes to those who set their life for it.  So how much effort, time, lifestyle and money do you put into your goals?  And are they for the good of others?

Up For Sale

 Yesterday, in the local Aspen newspaper, the front page story was that our monastery in Old Snowmass was up for sale.  The asking price is $150 million.  The monastery has 3600 acres of ranch and buildings.  It is in expensive Pitkin County.  So now that it is official, in the news, people are really sad, or curious enough to finally come up the seven miles from the highway to see the place.  As a Trappist monastery, it will be no more.  But as a ranch and a place for retreat and quiet, a spiritual center, if you will, I believe it will go on.  The new owners will be much better marketers and advertisers than the Trappists ever were.  The Trappists have not made any effort to let anyone know they are here since they stopped selling eggs decades ago in the local stores.  They don’t even wear their habits when they go anywhere.  The In Crowd, the ones who come here regularly, will miss individual Trappists with whom they have made friends, and the atmosphere of “Catholic” whatever that might mean to them.  Most of these people are pretty old, like their Trappist friends, and it is time to move on.  God is in charge and God has a plan.  Believe in Resurrection, that is change, on a radical scale.  If you want the same old, same old, you are looking only at the past.  

Goal-Changing

 One way you know that your life is going in the wrong direction, is that you change your goals to meet your life.  Maybe you had lofty goals, but then your life behavior went downhill, into self-destruction.  But you don’t want to admit this, because of pride, fear, ego-inflation, so you simply change your goals, you downsize your future so that you don’t have to change your destructive behavior.  People in recovery have been there and done that.  Their lives were filled with loss so they simply changed their goals.  Those losses were not all that important.  But anyone can suffer this goal-changing behavior.  So ask yourself, if you changed your goals, why?  And if you are honest enough, you might get a second opinion from someone who might know of your situation. Don’t try to live life alone.  

Price Of Loss

 Recovery can teach anyone about a lot of things.  Example:  a bottom is when the next thing you are about to lose is more important than drinking.  What to learn?  Well, say you are thinking of suicide in the midst of a miserable life at that moment.  It is a life in that moment full of feelings of fear, despair, hopelessness, and self-pity for instance.  Your future is all behind you.  But you don’t do more damage at that moment because you decide that living is more important than dying.  You don’t have to be an alcoholic to have the above feelings of emptiness.  Newcomers to AA know these feelings, but come into the rooms because they decided to live or feared dying more than that next drink.  What is important is that you reach out and contract someone, such as suicide prevention or even 911.  Let someone in who can help you.  This could be a first step in spirituality.  

Honesty

 Honesty is not easy.  It is not painless.  It generally invites change.  Change from what we thought was important, who we thought we were, even the rutted pattern of our daily life.  If you are a Jesus believer, he says, “Where I am you must be.”  You might be a believer, but you are only working from the mind, the creed.  Honesty will generally tell you that you are anywhere but where Jesus is.  Your prayer is for him to give you what you want in your set of priorities.  His plea is to change your life.  If you are in recovery, page 58 of the Big Book, the chapter on “How It Works,” honesty shows up three time on that first page.  You have to change, but cannot if you won’t admit you need it, and maybe are clueless how to do it.  Honesty is surrender for believers and non-believers.  This is painful.  But traveling the wrong road for you, being who you are not, is worse.  

Bad News Days

 Now and again we can get some bad news, such as a physical illness, cancer, chronic stuff, or that we are being laid off, or our rent has doubled, or the car is come to the end of its useful life, unexpectedly.  Fear can then dominate our emotional life.  Fear can be buried in various ways, none of them very good, or good at all.  If we are in a fit spiritual condition with some trust in a God or some spiritual power of our own discovery,  then the fear need not dominate us emotionally.  We will have the tools to face it in a balanced and healthy fashion.  I try to meditate every day, especially on the good days, because I never know when that good day may be interrupted by bad news.  And even bad news is my opportunity to pick up some spiritual tools taught to me by adepts, wisened persons, who live life on life’s terms one day at a time.  And I still have the day.  I am not dead.  

Riches

 I ran into a drunk who is in recovery.  She no longer drinks and feels much better physically.  She is helpful to others, and tries to avoid any bad habits in thinking and acting.  But she had one fear she could not get over.  It was the lack of money, $$$ since her drinking gifted her with the consequences of unemployment.  I reminded her of something that was passed onto me when I was “unemployable.”  She was rich with ‘spiritual currency.”  In her drinking days, she was spiritually bankrupt.  Each day of prayer, service, avoiding emotional drama, is a day in which we can all add to our spiritual account.  Our riches then can be shared with others who are trying to get out of the holes they have dug for themselves.  

Eventually

 I cannot relate to the little girl who has a vision of Mary and decides to dedicate her life to serving her God, doing good for people, becoming a religious and being quite pious.  That was never me.  When I was a little boy I was clueless and though I did a lot of stuff on the outsides, I remained clueless for another 30 years or so.  I can relate more to Jesus and Buddha.  They did stuff before eventually going into their “desert experience.”  I am an “eventually” guy.  Playing a role got old and I was not very fulfilled in it.  Outsides OK.  Insides, not so much.  I still do some desert time of silence and solitude each day.  I find a Power that keeps me in the right direction.  So if you are still in your “eventual” stage, that is, not yet you, there is still hope.  You can stop chasing something you were never meant to catch.  Be still, in quiet.  Ignore your mind, your thoughts.  Breathe.  You are not alone.  

The Finish Line

 Many So-called Christians are whiners and complainers.  “Life is not going my way,” or “ I am a failure.”  They are what I call Good Friday Christians.  They think that Good Friday is the finish line.  If so, then the one they say they believe in, was a complete failure, and his life was over on Good Friday.  Two things I notice.  One, he did not complain a lot.  He even forgave people for being mean and nasty and hurting him very badly.  He did have his moment of feeling abandoned, but he sucked it up and surrendered to the God he believed in.  When he said, “It is finished,” he only meant that part of his journey.  Resurrection came next.  Good Friday was not the finish line for him or for any of his believers.  So, as one of his believers I am going to get off the pity-pot and just say I am having a bad moment, a bad patch, a rough day, a Good Friday day, but it is not the end.  A little hope or I am a hypocrite 

Moving On

 At some point in the too near future, I might have to move.  In order to avoid putting this on any resentment list, along with self-pity and whining, I need to focus on gratitude.  If I don’t want to move, it might be because I have a list of good things I have enjoyed where I am.  So I need to focus on gratitude for what I have and not whine about what I will not have when I move.  Some people do “geographics,” moving from a mess to what they think is the promised land.  But then they find that they are the mess that went with them.  Gratitude keeps me from my own mess.  Now will any of my friends come help me to move, pack and haul to ship, all my stuff?  Maybe I can downsize first.  End of blog.  Gotta go to the dumpster and recycling!  Yikes.  

Travel With Hope

 Aspen Airport is always an adventure in the winter time.  Some locals won’t go anywhere from Aspen in the Winter, but not me.  My last time out it was snowing a lot early in the morning so I was not sure I would go anywhere on my “scheduled” flight.  Aspen Airport calls for a lot of surrender along with hope.  The snow stopped and the sun came out.  My plane, which was actually there, pulled away from the gate on time.  “Thank you God” prayer was a bit premature.  About to take off, the pilot said something was wrong with the runway.  Yuck!  We sat and waited.  Then the attendant informed us that we would be flying at a lower altitude so we had to return to the gate and get more fuel.  “Surrender” was leaking out of my heart.  Hope had fled.  No mention of the runway, or why we were flying at a lower altitude came up after we refueled.  We did take off eventually, and got to San Francisco only a few minutes late.  I apologized to God.  With Aspen Airport one loses faith or find its!

Too Much, Too Soon

 So many parents and grandparents introduce children to God and religion in a sudden fashion.  In daily routines with children they make little if any reference to God.  Rather the adult takes the child to church to be with God in some devotional activity that makes no sense.  It is too great a leap for the child to go from daily routines to suddenly shown something churchy or devotional.  Eventually, the child will refer to this as being “dragged to church.”  As adults they may be tepid at best about worship and prayer.  Rather, start with what the child knows, if you are going to talk about God.  Start with the child’s world at home and play.  Unfortunately if your home if filled with arguing, stress, anxiety the child will pick this up.  So adults, start with yourself.  Don’t put the burden on church.  I like AA.  It starts with where you are.  

Cubby Hole

 So many of us have God Departments.  It is where we go to encounter our God, sometimes a church, and often our special place such as a chair or corner of the place where we live.  Otherwise, we don’t give this God much thought.  We go about family, work, shopping, chores, entertainments, with no thought of God having anything to do with it.  For me, I try to recognize my God as wherever I am and in whatever I am doing.  Even when I mess up, God is present.  My God is all, rather than partial as to place and activity.  This has helped me to argue less, judge less, whine less and generally be more serene and sane in the midst of daily life.  Daily life is filled with me not getting my preferences.  It is taking life on life’s terms which is easier if I know I am not going through this alone or solely under my own power.  

Love Is Letting Go

 Billy, the next door neighbor to Nellie, has loved her all his life.  They grew up the best of friends in London before WWII.  In the novel, “Nineteen Steps,” he wants to marry her, but he is quite shy.  She falls for another guy, Ray Fleming, an American airman in London.  Nellie thinks Ray is dead since his plane was shot down over France.  She knows she will love him like no other.  But get on with life, right?  She accepts Billy’s proposal.  Now he is at the altar waiting for Nellie to walk down the aisle.  Ray shows up, released from a POW camp, after the war.  Billy leaves the altar and now he, Nellie, and Ray stand at the back of the church.  Billy loves Nellie, but sees in her and Ray a love that is not the same as his and Nellie’s.  Though she has made up her mind to marry Billy, and not hurt him, he knows it is time to let her go.  This is self-sacrifice to the max.  His decision is a painful sacrifice so that Nellie and Ray can have a fullness of life.  For me, this is Good Friday, recently forgotten or ignored by many.  

Rooted Fear

 If you have lost everything, wife, family, job, home, car, health, why are you still frightened?  As it is said, "What have you got to lose?"  But fear is not always about losing something.  It is deeply rooted in some people, such as alcoholics after they sober up.  They still have fear, though they have lost everything.  Sobriety programs are meant to deal with this fear because it goes deep and is so much a part of the individual struggling to have some better life.  Not drinking is only the start.  But many a "normal" person still has deep seated fear.  Fear makes them strive for "more" of whatever, because there is never enough of things to bring them peace and contentment.  Rich bank accounts won't get rid of fear.  If fear if deep then the solution must go deep.  Prayer of meditation goes deep if you keep at it on a regular basis.  

Clouded Mind

 The Internet can cloud the mind.  The Internet was supposed to make things easier, but in fact one can end up taking so much time to do this and that in maintenance, password issues, information overload and so on, that you don't seem to have any time to pray, play and just enjoy the day.  I had this with a new iPad that seemed not to transfer passwords in the downloading of data.  I realize I am a dummy, but now cannot stay that way.  It takes more time to do something when a dummy than when up to date on the how and why of the Internet.  But I must remember, God first.  Make God like air.  I need air all the time to survive.  I can live with a little less convenience or information from  the internet.  Sane living is what I seek.  

Quietude

There is such a thing as “barren quietude.”  You may have used something to quiet or put off the pain that is within you.  I speak of emotional or spiritual pain.  But you used too much of your solution, if it was a solution at all.  This is addiction.  It can quiet you down, give you a sense of comfort, but you know deeply within that it is a barren quietude.  Your inner misery is drowned out.  This quieting is empty, barren, but quiet.  Such people freak out if you tell them a step into a new and healthier direction includes meditation.  Such people often don’t want to be just with themself.  I try to remind such people that there are a few steps before that in order to help them like themselves enough to be able to be alone without their addictive crutch.  First things first.  

 

Repentance

 We don’t always have to wait until we do something wrong to repent, or work to right the wrong we did.  Sometimes, we have to face our indifference, our passivity about a situation.  Someone comes into your world looking for help and you ignore them.  Maybe you judge them so that you can justify your ignoring them.  Are you not passive or indifferent to their being in your life at that moment?  You may not do anything wrong, but neither are you doing anything right.  At times, passivity or indifference might be my first go-to response, but I have learned over time and practice, to catch myself and to respond to the other person.  It is a way of being of service to myself.  Selfish me gets something too.  

Sunshine and Rain

 A famous cartoon shows someone holding up an umbrella, rain pouring down upon them, while it is sunny everywhere else.  For such a person, so many things can be going well around them, but they are angry, resentful, whining and self-pitying.  Childish, yes.  Welcome to my world.  I don’t wait around to practice a spiritual path because I am in deep connection with my God or in love with my God.  I don’t wait for that disposition.  I practice so that I can live in the sunshine.  I want to put down the umbrella.  I want to stay out of  hellish disposition.  Often, I am writing a blog for me.  If you are looking for a guru, then keep looking.  If you are having one of those rainy days or moods, this might be a place for you.  Imperfection reigns.  The journey continues daily.  

The Newcomer

Why do so many groups, worship communities, and clubs ignore the newcomer, the strangest in their mist?  It may be shyness, but more often we have forgotten why we are there in the first place.  The newcomer is our reminder.  They are looking for connections, for help with a problem, for a way out of loneliness or a search for God, something or someone to fill them up.  The newcomer is a reminder of where we once were or could be if we ignore the world around us.  Paying attention to only the people you know can become a rut.  Don’t dig a path too deep.  You may find yourself trapped someday.  

Practice

 Christians generally ask, “What do you believe?” and then maybe, “Where do you go to church?”  Zen asks, “What is your practice?” Practice is about self-revelation, illumination,  becoming all you are meant to be.  In Christianity it would be seen as “salvation.”  But Christians see salvation as something else.  You can keep a rule, believe the correct doctrine but rarely does that transform you.  Christians were slaughtered by one another in multiple European. Wars, particularly, WWI and WWII.  I see meditation as a practice that can be done by all spiritual paths.  I want to become what my God made me to be.  Yikes!  Running out of time.  

The Solution

 Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?  Being part of the solution can be painful, but a chance for spiritual growth.  A community where I at time live, might close and I will need to move.  If I focus on this, I will be in a negative space.  It will be all about me, my routines, my comfort zone.  Moving is a pain.  But the reason we might close is the community has too few members and too many places where the members live.  We are s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d.  So if the community leaders close where I live, then I will be part of the solution.  Losing or giving up something can be part of the solution.  A  recovering alcoholic gives us drink and all the “fun” they had in their accustomed haunts and lifestyle.  But this loss is part of the solution.  If I can focus on being part of the solution and not whine about “why me?” I think I might become an adult!

April Fool

 April Fools Day!  Rather than fool someone else today, or any day, I am reminded that any day I do not have a “neck up” is a foolish day for me.  Many of us have a yearly check up with our doctor to see how our physical health is doing.  But a neck up check up is one where we check on our thinking in the brain.  If this is going to be only once a year too, then I am indeed in bad spiritual health.  The neck up check needs to be done daily, and often with others who may remind me in their own daily neck up check up where I might have skipped something.  God or Higher Power is the neck up physician.  Does my blog help you to do a neck up each day?  Every day is April Fools day for those of us who skip the head check.  Stinking thinking as some people say if we omit this step.  

Happy Easter

 This is a special day for Christians.  It is when our God beat death and rose from the dead.  Defeat, hitting the bottom with a crucifixion, was not to be the end.  While I celebrate this in my religion and my own personal life, I ask myself if I am aware in the calendar of the special days for other religions and spiritual paths?  I need to work on this.  Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, for instance, all have special days.  In Recovery there is the celebration each year of one’s first day of sobriety or last day of giving into their addiction.  Anyway, I hope to find or have a big dinner today somewhere with friends.  The monastery has an Easter morning mass, but then since it is Sunday, their custom each Sunday is to have no meal together.  I find this yucky, so I may be elsewhere celebrating my Easter, dinner with friends.  

Courage

 A quote from a wisdom book: “Courage is the ability to continue in the face of fear.”  I always thought that courageous people did not have fear.  I was fearful, and fear paralyzed me.  In time, I came upon this quote.  It is very sobering.  I don’t have to be rid of fear.  This is not my job.  I have to be rid of paralysis when it comes to action.  For this, I need help.  So I do not do any spiritual path by myself.  Isolation feeds the fear.  

Good Firday

 Seems like an inappropriate name for a day in which someone is innocently tortured and crucified.  But if someone suffers out of love for another is there not something good about it?  Great love has great suffering.  A parent knows that.  Someone being of service to another out of a sense of compassion does suffer some in the effort to be helpful, especially if the one you are trying to help does not appreciate or want it.  A recovering alcoholic trying to be helpful to a drunk knows this very well.  So whether you believe in Jesus or not, at least for today try to get beyond “what will I get out of this good deed,” and just be helpful to others even if they don’t thank you or appreciate you.  You will become a better person, if you don’t whine, and is it not a good day if you grow?

The Trainer

 To become a better person, or at least not worse than we have become, we often need a trainer.  You can read a book or guide, but it is not the same as a person who knows your unique self.  You may not even know what you need.  The trainer does.  The trainer has the tools from their own experience, and from getting to know you, can adjust to your situation from day to day.  They coach you.  In a spiritual training you have some guide in whom you confide.  Eventually, you become a guide for someone else.  You can call it sponsorship.  If you think you are an adept or advanced, ask yourself, “Who have I helped lately?Isolation is not going to help you or others.  Oh, and today is my birthday.  I hope this blog helped someone.  

Go-To

 What is a “character defect,” a shortcoming in our way of life?  It is what someone called their “go-to behavior.”  They encounter someone, experience some situation, and have an immediate behavioral reaction.  They judge, condemn, put-down, get angry, and maybe swear a lot.  It is the immediate reaction.  That is why it is called the go-to behavior.  What to do?  Well, start small.  Give the person or situation you just judged something it in fact may not deserve.  Give compassion, forgiveness, and maybe even acceptance, though that might be a stretch early on.  What you are doing is showing “mercy.”  Isn’t that what you want from your God or Higher Power?  Mercy is not deserved or earned.  Maybe a little mercy to yourself.  Ask for help.  Give someone else a chance to show mercy to you.  

The Other Side

 When faced with something new or different from our routines, we can become frightened.  Example: making a move geographically or internally.  If you are moving from what you know, “home,” be it your routines or physical space, you fear giving up your comfort zone.  The move seems overwhelming, until you get to the other side of it.  So break the move down into little pieces on a daily basis.  Sort out some of your possessions, what will move and what will be given away or tossed out.  Do a little each day.  One day, pick up some boxes for packing, or call a mover.  Pack something each day until everything is packed or gone.  Then the move is inevitable.  It is the same with an internal move.  It is why people going to a Recovery meeting or Church for the first time, walk in at the last minute, sit near the exit, in the back and hunker down.  They are getting to the other side of their fear, one step at a time.  

A Start

 Just because I walk into a Catholic Church does not make me a Catholic, walking into a Recovery meeting does not make me  someone recovering from my addiction.  But it is a start.  As a curious newcomer or searcher, being part of depends on why I walked in.  Maybe I am doing research for a school paper.  To watch is one thing.  To listen is something more.  But to listen, I have to shut up the critiquing mind.  Judgement gets in the way of incoming information.  If I come into something new, outside my comfort zone, I try to empty judgment before I even sit down.  Oh, and get there on time.  

The First One

 Are you the first one at the door waiting for the gym to open?  I was that once, or more than once, really.  My goal was to be in fit physical condition with no one getting in my way on the exercise routines, machines, and weights, or the swimming pool.  The problem I eventually realized, (duh!) is the results of my fit physical condition could not carry serenity through the rest of the day.  As soon as life was not on my terms, or someone else’s plans interfered with my own, I got upset, whiny, resentful and admittedly now, self-pitying.  It happened most every day.  So now I try not to start out the day getting my own will.  I choose first to work at a fit “spiritual” condition.  I surrender to some other power to do the heavy lifting.  I call it meditation.  It can carry me through a later gym workout in which other people are ahead of me.  But it is ok.  Life on life’s terms.  Let go.  

The Barstool

 I remember going to a bar on a Friday evening after work. If I got there soon enough, I got a barstool seat and an early bird discount on a drink.  That was the extent of my plans for the rest of the evening.  The question I asked myself, since I was not talking to anyone else, was, “Is this who I am?”  The answer was, “Yes.”  Beyond this barstool there was no future plan or event.  And it was going to get fuzzier.  But then with no effort on my own, another question came up.  “Is this who you want to be?”  And I said, “No.” Where did that come from?  Well, I guess I was not so alone on that barstool.  It is called a spiritual moment or experience, not that I knew it as such at that time.  But I did get off the barstool and left.  Two things can happen from such a moment.  I save a lot of money, and can begin the search.  Spiritual paths can include barstools.  Never underestimate the power of the Power.  

Support

 Most people cannot make a permanent change in their life if they try and do it alone.  That is why many religious orders, and other groups get formed by someone.  They realize they cannot do what vision or change they have in mind, by themself.  Jesus picked 12 Apostles, not one.  As clueless as they were, these followers were a support to him.  Bill Wilson wanted to sober up.  He knew that he could not do it alone.  So he sought the help of another person, Bob Smith.  Together, they reached out to others for support to stay sober.  Thus was founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  So if you want to make a much needed change in your life, or live out a vision for a better world, you might need the humility to know you won’t do it alone.  

Bemused

 I am bemused about reading today’s blog.  It talks about the burden of having to move.  Well, after surgery yesterday, I am glad that I can get out of bed, and put on my clothes and walk up and down our corridor.  Now that is humility.  Your prayers must be helpful because I am feeling only mildly unpleasant.  But I can walk without the walker once I get moving around a bit in my room.  Now pray that I don’t lace up the running shoes and go outside on the ice to get fit for a Memorial Day race in Boulder, Colorado.  But I am on dope so who knows how my brain will work?  Never worked well on this stuff in the long past.  Let’s keep it the long past and not the current insanity.  

Surrender

 Usually, my lack of control over something is more apparent to everyone around me before it is apparent to me.  It takes a bit of humility, maybe preceded by humiliation, before I would admit I lack control.  I want one thing, but do another.  But there is a good side to humility.  Actually, there are no bad sides.  Humility leads to a better life because I am open to a better attitude about change, loss and letting go.  I think of this in terms of physically moving from where I live, to another place.  It would not be my choice to move.  But I won’t have control.   Someone else decides, and then I pack up.  But if I can be open to what is next, instead of whining, there might be a miracle I did not know before the move.  Surrender.  

Joseph

 Yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph in my tradition.  Who was he?  Good question, since he was pretty much ignored for centuries, while the wife, Mary, and the son, Jesus, got top billing.  I relate to Joseph.  He was ignored, though he did some heavy lifting because he listened to his heart and not to popular opinion.  Seems his betrothed, Mary, got pregnant and not by Joseph.  His tradition, community, said to stone her to death, but he listened to his heart, his interior voice.  He became a fugitive, instead of living a nice life of being a carpenter in his home town.  He taught his son the carpentry trade.  Then he disappeared from the scene.  He had a big life, but a small ego.  So I like Joseph.  I do my best, listen in the still, quiet silence each day, and get on with being unnoticed.  I am important to someone, but I need not know who that is.  Some days I wish my blog readers were not so anonymous, but  one or two keep me going.  

Da Vinci

 Tomorrow I have an appointment with a robot, Da Vinci.  The robot will be instructed to fix my hernia that I have had for some time.  The surgeon is there but does no cutting or chopping.  All is left to Da Vinci, who I hope follows the instructions of my human surgeon.  Da Vinci reminds me of a spider who hovers over me, waiting to get to me.  Do robots have personality or tend to think for themselves or go out on strike for whatever reason?  I just need to trust.  I actually did not report the long-standing hernia until my hip hurt so that I could not sleep.  In passing, I mentioned the hernia to my doctor and she sent me on for a sonogram.  After surgery  I won’t be able to do much for a few weeks.  I am hoping for treats to assuage any “woe is me” moods.  But I know it was a sore hip that got me to have this hernia surgery.  The hip will be OK in time, as I now have a physical therapist.  Aging is what it is.  Pray for me.  God is in charge.  

St. Patrick’s Day

 Did you wake up with a hangover this morning?  Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.  How did you start the day?  Did you make a resolution to not drink yesterday?  Or did you plan on where and with whom you would drink yesterday?  Either way, you have a hangover.  It’s a good time to assess the situation.  For one, people who can take or leave alcohol generally don’t have a problem with it.  They don’t make plans to drink or avoid drinking.  So, if you said you were not going to drink, but came up with no alternative, or just blew it off half-way through the day, then you may very well have a problem with alcohol.  The pain of a hangover can be a benefit if it pushes you towards trying a different solution, not based upon your inadequate will-power when it comes to alcohol.  If you can find your cell phone, look up Alcoholics Anonymous.  They have admitted defeat and found a way to avoid hangovers.  

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 I remember the butter cookies with the green sprinkles on top.  I remember the muffins with green icing.  I remember the Parade up 5th Avenue in New York City, and how Fordham made a big deal of it.  Catholic schools had the day off so we could go and celebrate.  But since today is a Sunday, we don’t have the St. Patrick’s day mass because the 5th Sunday of Lent takes precedent.  I got to write the Pope about this.  As we Irish say, “Offer it up.”  Let’s celebrate anyway!.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all.  

The Motive

 Do you want to be a better person or do you just want to look good?  In other words, what is the motive behind the motive, as someone suggested to me.  So I try to examine my actions more now.  Why am I doing this so-called good deed?  If I simply want to be noticed in a way that gets compliments, or that makes people like me, then the motive has nothing to do with becoming a better person.  If I meditate in silence or solitude, take a nature walk alone, clean up when no one is around to notice, then I am doing it to become a better person.  All these good actions are about anonymity.  No one notices or gives praise.  I am more consistent if I focus on becoming a better person rather than trying to impress you so that you will like me.  It used to be easier to be consistently phony, but now it is too much work and drags me down.  

Too Alone

 One of the ways that we isolate ourselves from the world around us is to focus exclusively on our problems.  We get obsessed.  We become all about ourself and people pick up on this while we are with them.  They tend to cut us off in some way or other.  Maybe they change the subject or just get as obsessed with themselves as we are with ourselves.  A room full of misery.  I have found that a way out of this self-isolation is to be of service.  What can I do to make the scene a better one for someone else.  Maybe a listening ear?  Maybe a little housekeeping, cleaning up?  Get out of oneself to enter the bigger world that always needs a bit of attention.  

Dulce Pontes

 Who is Dulce Pontes?  If you are from Brazil, you know.  She is the Frances Cabrini of Brazil.  Talk about a male dominated world of early 20th century USA, the Latino male with their machismo is the worst.  And Pontes would not let that stop her.  So, say you are a woman who was a drunk, beaten by alcohol, but now you are recovering on a spiritual path.  For what purpose?  To feel better, no hangovers, to have a job, family, health, are all good things.  But these are all under the umbrella of “fitting in.”  I suggest that God, my God anyway, made you a woman for a purpose.  Fitting in was not the ultimate purpose.  You have recovery tools to help move into a deeper life.  Recovery is the beginning, not the end.  If you have a family, with a daughter, or teach girls in some way, and all they want is to “fit in,” then I suggest, there is lots more work to be done.  Just sayin’

Who Do We Serve?

 “We can serve our weakness, or we can serve our purpose.”  Which will it be?  And probably we need to decide it anew each day.  This is a quote from the movie, “Cabrini,” at which you will cry by the end.  The doctor said that Cabrini would be bedridden for the rest of her life because she almost drowned before being rescued by a hand reaching out and her reaching back to grab it.  She would have lung issues the rest of her life.  She had her bad moments, but “it will pass.”  What would not pass was her indomitable will to serve her purpose.  Which was what?  Well, go see the movie!  And then ask, “What is my purpose,” and how will it make this a better world, and you the best person you were meant  to be?  

The Don’t Fit Ins

 What I like about the Paulist Fathers, of which I am still one, is that we do a ministry to people who don’t fit into the rules and regulations.  Many a priest give such people the “short shift.”  “I cannot help you,” they might say in a nice way, or simply say no.  They are trained to follow the rules in a more narrow fashion.  That is, if you don’t go to church, or are not even affiliated with the parish, you don’t get much help.  This is especially the case with people wanting to get married.  We Paulists run marriage prep programs that respond to a lot of these “outsiders.”  A notorious drunk, rebellious against God issues, religion and lots of other things, sobers up, falls in love, dimly recalls being baptized Catholic, and comes to ask for a wedding ceremony.  They have no idea of the rules or protocol.  We specialize in such cases as well as any dropouts.  Old St. Mary’s here in San Francisco does a good job of this.  

Consistent

 One of the ways that we show love is by being open to the needs of others.  I have found that as a priest I do this ‘Professionally” but in a review of my life, some would call this a “Tenth Step” I have found that I have not always been consistent.  When I am less noticed, less in my professional clerical role, I can be quite unconcerned about the needs of others.  “Not my problem,” or “They got what they deserved.”  Whether or not both of these statements are true, love responds positively because love makes me a better person.  Being helpful keeps me out of “self” which is a sobering way of living.  So, when I feel that non-caring attitude that no one will notice, I am on the way to my own misery.  The good and the bad often starts with little things.  

Cabrini

 This is one the best movies I have ever seen.  It just came out this weekend.  It was directed by an amours Italian director and he knows his stuff.  Acting, scenery, dialogue, and history are all so well done, so it is not so much a movie about religion as it is about the indomitable spirit of a woman in a man’s world filled with prejudice against the role of women in a world ruled by men in both church and secular New York City politics.  Cabrini refused to give in to any physical or political limitations.  This year’s Oscars were just announced.  This movie will be up for next year in several categories. At the end the mayor says to Cabrini, “You would have made a good man.”  She answers, “No. You could not do what we did.”  And the voice over ends with the NYT obit, “What kind of world do you want it to be and what are you willing to do to make it so?” 

Depression

 If you have something like clinical depression, what can be learned from this?  Acceptance is one thing.  Don't beat yourself up for failing to be better, whatever you think better is.  And you can learn humility.  You are not perfect but that only makes you a human being.  Others have issues you do not have, so gratitude can be something learned.  And maybe there will be a time when your knowledge about clinical depression might help someone else who is just coming to grips with it, or is suicidal about what seems like a dead end to them.  You may be the bearer of hope.  We can all work with what we have and what we don't have.  

Give And Get

 For many people it seems so much easier to give help than to ask for it.  We seem to be able to respond to someone who genuinely needs help which is to our credit.  But why do we find it so hard at times to ask for help?  Think of asking for help not as a put down to your ego or weakness, or lack of knowledge, but as an opportunity to allow someone else to respond and be of service.  By asking for help when you need it, you give someone an opportunity to get out of selfishness and even their own isolation.  In this way, you asking might be helping another person.  

Double Whammy

 Two things get in the way of becoming who we are supposed to be.  One is illusion and the other is conceit.  The illusion comes from pretending to be someone we are not.  The conceit comes from pursuing this illusion with all our energy.  We dress, act, talk as the illusion.  We are not fulfilled, yet the ego does not give up simply because we are a bit out of sorts or unaligned with who we really are.  A spiritual path of meditation will eventually bring us around to the path we are supposed to be on.  Alone, letting go of our false self for a bit each day, in the silence and stillness, allows space for someone else to begin to peak at us.  That someone else has been hidden by the double whammy of illusion and conceit.  A spiritual power will show you how to be your truer self.  Acceptance will come in time.  

Coffee And Donuts Pracrice

Why do many Catholics, who go to coffee and donuts after their mass, rarely talk to newcomers, while agnostic-atheist Alcoholics seek out newcomers in their meetings?  One of the reasons might be that many Catholics seek safety in being part of the right religion.  They go to the coffee after mass to see their friends, who don't really challenge them to think beyond their comfort zone.  Strangers don't fit in here.  In AA the members are taught from early on that they have to reach out to the newcomer.  As a Catholic, I was never brought up that way.  Religion is private.  You do what you do and I do what I do. It is between me and God.  No outsiders fit this equation.  Newcomers, whether in a church or AA meeting, feel like outsiders when they go into a group setting.  The newcomer did not go to the coffee and donuts to talk to God or just have a donut.  They are waiting to see if this "community" is open or closed.  The AA meeting that does not welcome newcomers is a failure.  

Guide For Living

I am not sure I know what a "guide for living" is in its internal workings, but I do know it when I see it.  The results are what I can see.  I see a person go from fearful to relaxed, from feeling like an outsider, to feeling a part of something, some group.   I see a person who is always critical, judgmental, resentful, and whining about the state of the world, who then become accepting, helpful, understanding, compassionate and into solutions.  I know they have found a "guide for living."   I have to be diligent about my guide for living.  When I wake up, I have to have gratitude and then ask for some help in specific issues.  I don't even get out of bed until I have prayed a bit and brought my guide for living into focus.  Though the body may rest in needed sleep, the mind can become forgetful.  Assume nothing of yesterday's practice flowing into today.  But then, I am a difficult case.  

Nineteen Steps

 Bill Waters is the hero in this book.  To say more would be to give the plot away.  A new author, Millie Bobby Brown, born in 2004, quite young, her first novel, and it is very good.  She writes about what she knows, young women coming of age.  It is set in WWII, centered on an event in London during the German bombings of the city.  I discovered the book in the local library, sitting on a rack of new books.  Kate Quinn, an author I like, recommended her on the front cover.  It is only 303 pages, so I still did my prayers, mostly.  Tough to put down once you get going.  For me, Billy Waters stepped up and did the right thing.  The right thing is not always easy.  

Gossip

 Gossip and talking about people behind their backs can so often give the ego a good buzz.  But this can be seen as stumbling off the spiritual path.  A good image of this was given to me.  It is called “Stumbling over your own tongue.”  Whenever I find myself drifting into “innocent” gossip, I recall this phrase of stumbling over my tongue.  To stumble is to fall off the path, to cease to move forward in a healthy fashion.  Maybe this image of tongue stumbling will help you too, should you find yourself ensnared in gossip.  

Outsides

 Addicts and some others tend to look outside themselves to feel better.  A drink solves the issue for an alcoholic for instance.  Looking for a community or a gym or relationship are other ways to search outside oneself for the solution to feeling badly.  I find that the solution is to look on the insides first.  This would be the long term ongoing solution.  It is a spiritual solution because the bad feelings are most often spiritual issues.  They are about our insides not getting proper attention.  It really is mystical and no outside solution can touch the mystical.  

Hope

 People who are suicidal have no hope.  Suicide seems like the last option, the final solution to a life off the rails.  But for whatever reason, if the same person seeks outside help, such as a spiritual practice, therapy, steps, recovery program, something seemingly outside themselves, they discover hope.  Hope says there is a way out of my misery.  I may be clueless as to how the way works, but I grab desperately for it, and that is hope in action.  Sometimes hope just shows up.  You think you have lost everything and your life is over, not worth going on, and suddenly you have an inspiration that seemed to come out of the blue or from some past trifling experience, and you grasp for it.  If your addiction seems fulfilling, you don’t jump into a recovery program, but if someone along the way drops a hint, by word or action, you might put that into your memory bank.  Later, desperate, you recall that past seemingly trifling encounter.  That recovering person was driven by hope in you.  

Reprieve

 I like the phrase, “Daily Reprieve.”  Whenever I think I have arrived at some spiritual depth, I must remind myself, first, that this is an ego trip and second, keep doing the daily practice.  My ego says, “I have arrived.”  I no longer have to do whatever I did to get here.  I have come to find this is a disastrous way of thinking.  Actually, in this case all thinking is the wrong road.  The mind plays tricks, but the heart knows.  Listen to the heart.  It tells me that I am on shaky ground and must continue to do my daily practice whatever that might be.  Insanity is to think I am better than I am.  I have but a daily reprieve from insanity.  I am having a good day.  Continue to practice the spiritual path.  

Leap Year!

 Today is an extra day in the year for us all to grow a little bit more, to do another act of kindness, so let’s not blow it.  It is the one day of the year where we can cherish the gift of life that we have with whatever makes it such a gift.  All other days we seem to take for granted.  This Leap Year day comes only once every four years.  If you were to have something only once every four years, would you not treat it as special?  So make this a special day for yourself and for someone else,  especially if they might be in a gloomy mood.  

Retirement

A spiritual practice has no retirement.  It is the one job that never ends.  Whatever you did or do in order to grow as you have, does not stop with today.  You do a spiritual practice one day at a time until you no longer can, like with death.  I hear people say, “I have been a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem for thus and so long.  Jews say they are Jews.  Recovering addicts give you their time of sobriety.  My question: “What are you doing today?”  The spiritual path can never be lived yesterday or tomorrow with its good intentions.  I try to do something of this path early in the day, lest I fool myself into thinking I will do it “later.”  Later often never comes.  

Likable You

 People sometimes overindulge in order to present a more likable self.  It is a form of fantasy.  Drinking and fantasy often go together.  We think we are fine, though we are drunk.  We think we are popular when people wish we would leave.  It can be the same in a spiritual sober practice.  Because you see yourself on some guru path, or the right religion, you fantasize that you are complete and attractive, when in fact, you might be a hypocrite and obnoxious.  None of this stops with sobriety or a change of spiritual path.  We cannot seem, on our own power, to shake the fantasy that we are wonderful now.  What to do?  Forget about yourself.  Don’t worry about popular or being on the one true path.  Do your path faithfully, be of some help to others, simply by accepting them in their own shortcomings and imperfections.  Give people some of your precious time.  Be real.  Fantasy is for Hollywood.  

The Seed

Look at a seed before you plant it.  The seed does not look like much.  But looks deceive the power that is within, the unseen power.  Now plant the seed in some soil.  Water it a bit or let the rain do it for you.  Without you seeing what is going on beneath the soil, the seed is at work.  It does not need to be noticed.  It works best unnoticed.  In its own time, the seed may sprout and grow.  You can work around it with weeding and maybe water, but the seed does the heavy lifting with the power it has.  On the spiritual path and recovery, the heart is like the seed.  Given proper care, it will sprout into our truest and best self.  Meetings, meditation, service, worship, reading, fellowship are all the weeding and watering.  But the power is within.  It only asks for a little cooperation.  We are born with a “Heart-Seed.”  Don’t drown it in booze or ego-centric false self.  

The Tiny

 I think God likes tiny and insignificant, at least if some Christians have it right.  Many believe that a tiny thin wafer of bread, with no taste, is the Presence of God.  If so, then God likes to reveal this Presence in the small, insignificant and fragile.  Whereas, in our culture, so many want to reveal themselves in the powerful, significant, and lovely to look at.  Ego is pretty obvious.  Mystery, not so much.  And maybe our desire to be significant in the eyes of others, hides our sense of insignificance.  But if God does not mind being small, why should we be beating ourselves up and exhausting ourselves in efforts to be noticed?  People shine out on the spiritual path, not from their own efforts, but from God’s light within.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.  

Who Are You?

 When you begin to get into some spiritual practice, recovery, meditation, life-style attempts, you might meet someone you really don’t like.  It is you!  When you were inside your bad behavior you could not get enough perspective on it.  Your way of living and responding to life was such a habit you accepted and even defended.  Until you got far enough away from its daily activities or caught yourself doing some behavior that suddenly seems so wrong, given the circumstances.  We see our pettiness.  We see ourselves trying to control life in a selfish, ME manner.  So change for the better is shocking at times.  But others will appreciate your efforts.  They may not have liked that old you either.  

Loneliness

 Why do Christians fear and avoid loneliness?  It is the cross.  Jesus felt it on the cross, but so-called believers shun loneliness.  They try and fill it in with trivia, internet browsing, social media, busyness, entertainment.  But the nothingness of the desert transformation is filled with loneliness.  It is part of letting go of “stuff” and entering “nothingness.”  But nothing is only apparent to the senses, the feelings.  Nothingness is the palace of God.  It helps that you like yourself enough to be alone with you.  Maybe this is one of the reasons people avoid being alone.  But “Alone” in itself could just be an avoidance of others.  The Alone is to allow us to enter into a prayer of no content, to contact this Mystery within us.  Jesus followed, “Why have you abandoned me,” with “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Crazy

 I have heard that Recovery groups are unique in that no one who joins came wanting to join, and no one in their right mind ever came into a recovery program.  They are all insane.  Fascinating.  A group of insane and disgruntled people end up helping one another selflessly, and becoming sane and useful members of their community and family.  To me, the only way this happens is with some spiritual power that was inactive in their lives before they came into the recovery group.  Once discovered, this power cannot seem to be abandoned by a member.  Otherwise, the member seems to leave the group, go back to their addictive behavior and die from it.  Know thyself!  

Unfinished

Rather than look at myself at "imperfect" I try to think of myself as "unfinished."  I am made right when I came into existence, but I don't yet know what that is.  Life is learning about who I am in my daily prayer, work and interactions.  God made me just fine.  Imperfect identifies me as somehow wrongly put together, or missing parts.  The spiritual path is not finding missing parts, or reinventing myself, but rather discovering who I am and then living that out the best that I can.  It is an inside job on a daily basis and then action.  Transformation is about coming upon our unfinished self and embracing it.  It is called growth.   Recovery is only partly about repair shops.  

Worthy

 I find a good way to treat someone is as if they are worth something.  A lot of people lack self-worth.  If I try and be helpful but with an attitude that they are beneath me, then I do not subscribe to their having any self-worth.  The action is all about me and my self-worth.  This is the problem with clericalism.  Clergy act as if they are above others, better than others and so on.  I try to act with the attitude that helping you actually helps me.  Then, if my efforts to help you fail, at least I am helping me to stay on a spiritual path.  Results are not up to me.  

The Fix

Are you meditating or doing anything to get some specific feeling?  Then you are trying to take control.  Meditating is not about control.  It is about surrender, to letting go, to allowing God, your HP to take over the journey since your ego does not really know where and how to go in a direction best for you.  If you are drinking, ask yourself why?  Are you thirsty?  Do you want to simply relax?   You probably did that with the first drink, but you did not stop.  You tried for control.  Who ever drinks to control their drinking probably should not be drinking at all.  I ask myself why I am doing something.  Often, I find the reasons somewhat akin to insanity or self-centeredness.  In such instances, the original purpose got lost somewhere in the action.  Or the action was not good in the first place for me.  

Waking Up

 If you wake up in the morning and you have feelings of despair, frustration and bewilderment, then whatever you did yesterday at some point was not a very good idea or decision.  Morning feelings or wake up feelings often tell us how some actions are not good for us.  Example: you thought you had the answer to a relationship that had gone sour or bad.  You tried your answer yesterday.  You woke up with the above feelings.  That says something about your answer.  Maybe better to just let the relationship be as it is.  These above feelings tell us that it is important to prioritize working on oneself, and not for perfection.  This is another bad idea as a goal.  I try to take time early in the morning to work on me.  It helps me later in the day when I think I have a plan to fix people, places and things.  I wake up at peace more often than not.  

Perfection

When I embrace the day, I am not trying for perfection in my actions and efforts.  I am trying for improvement.  Perfection is an ego trip.  I won't embrace the day if it is all about me.  The day will include encounters with others most of the time.  How can I improve their day with this encounter we have?  Sometimes, allowing the other person to do something first is a way to improve their day.  This works well for you if you are shy.  Give them the chance to open the door.  It might make them feel better.  And if you do make some effort of action and think later, "Well, I could have done that better," don't beat yourself up.  For one, you tried and two, you want improvement not perfection.   

Hen House

As someone said, " Sitting in a hen house does not make you a hen."  I think the same goes with sitting in a church at a worship service or just sitting there.  It does not make you a Christian.  Or synagogue make you a Jew and so on.  There has to be some action.  People sit in recovery meetings and do little else and wonder why they are not doing and feeling better.  There are instruction manuals, bibles, big books, sutras, upanishads and so on, but one must read and follow them to make some positive change in one's life.  Ordination gave me the title, "Paulist priest," but only ministry and daily prayer, makes me a Paulist.  Simply saying mass is not enough.     

Rain Or Shine

 Just because it is raining or snowing during the day does not mean that the sun is not shining.  It just means that you cannot see the sunlight.  Not seeing or experiencing something does not mean it is absent.  Rather circumstances make it impossible for you to see with your eyes.  People say there is no God or Higher Power because they cannot see or experience it.  This is why I meditate.  I cannot see all there is from my senses alone.  I have an inner eye, the eye of the heart.  Meditation helps me to get connected with my interior vision.  Then I can see with the inner eye of the heart.  A fuller world, and a better day.  

Ashes And Flowers

 Today is Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.  So what to do if you are into both?  A dilemma!  You and your sweetheart getting all dress up for a dinner of bread and water while you have ashes on your foreheads?  For me, it is a good juxtaposition.  It brings together the giving and the getting of life.  Valentine’s Day for those who celebrate it is about getting something.  Sure, you give someone something, but it is because they give you something important to you, such as love. It does feed one’s ego for sure.  Lent is about giving.  You are to spend the next forty day or so in surrendering, giving up, being of service for the sake of those who may never give you a thank you.  It is about less and not more, the cross instead of the Easter Lilly.  So today, I will thank God for what I get, and then surrender some of my self for the sake of a better world.  A more selfless me benefits others.

Woe Is Me’d

 I can get into that “Wow is me’d” place in attitude.  If so, I am living in the problem as I see it.  I cannot change a problem by wallowing in it.  I need to live in the solution.  If I don’t know a solution, ask someone or pray.  Maybe I will be led to a YouTube video solution.  Who knows.  Well, at least I don’t know at the moment.  And living in the past won’t change that either.  I need to live in today or else I won’t have much of a tomorrow.  These are all things pointed out to me by others.  This is why I try to stay in touch with people who are living in solutions and not in problems.  

The Silence

 My team lost the Super Bowl.  Taylor Swift’s team won in sudden overtime fashion.  We turned off the TV.  Silence in the room.  Then I noticed that the streets of San Francisco, and I live in a busy downtown Chinatown, are dead silence.  It sounded like 3:00 AM.  No cars, no fireworks and no people walking around.  We are a stunned town.  My 49ers had the lead and then we did not.  It is a bit like death.  You live with it for a while.  Something has ended, unwanted.  In time, we will become thankful that we were in the Super Bowl.  Only two teams make it this far each year.  If you don’t care about the 49ers, but you live in San Francisco, I would keep a low or profile for a while.  Recovery will be slow.  “Wait till next year” is not on our agenda at the moment.  I still am wearing my “Purdy” shirt.  

Unnoticed

 If you do almost any good deed selflessly, unconcerned about being noticed, but out of love, compassion, or connection, then you probably won’t be noticed.  Serve people food in a soup kitchen, and you will generally be unnoticed.  You do kind deeds and are rarely thanked much less noticed.  It is not the action that gets you ignored.  It is the way you do it.  There are nasty bus drivers and they are noticed.  Nice bus drivers, not so much.  It is not that recipient people are so self-imploded, although sometimes this is the case.  It is more that in your kindness you have emptied yourself of “self.”  Jesus on the cross looks nothing like any God you could imagine.  It is because he emptied himself of his divinity, out of selfless and unconditional love.  

The Agenda

 I came back to the monastery after being away for about a month.  All my Christmas mail awaited me.  Plus other mail and items to attend to on the internet.  Appointments to make and such.  Foolishly, I tried to take it on all at once, and my body took a toll.  Instead of "easy does it," I ramped up a lot of written replies for the mail.  I was in the "grind" mentality.  After about two days of this, my body said, "Enough."  My mind may be a mess, but at least my body tells me when I am doing too much too soon.  "Life all at once" does not work for me.  "Do a little each day," I told myself, and sit for a longer time in meditation.  It began to work.  I don't have to pay a price for being away.  I am unavailable to respond and that is life on life's terms.  

Surgery

 Successful surgery often means that you are free of whatever was destroying or inhibiting your health.  You have a broken leg and it gets fixed.  Maybe it will now be stronger than ever.  You get a new knee.  Better than the one you had.  Fixed.  But there is no such surgery for addiction.  You are one step away from a relapse.  One drink, one fix will do it.  With humility one can accept this.  What such a person can have is a daily reprieve, not a surgical fix or a pill.  If you were told that surgery took away a cancer, but it could come back unless you did such and such on a daily basis, you would do such and such on a daily basis.  Addicts are often not wired that way.  They start to feel good from recovery, and stop doing the daily such and such.  They go back to their addiction and die.  Not from old age.  

The Wrong Path

 Being on the wrong path is trying to find something, but on a path that won't lead to what you think you want to find.  For instance, drinkers are trying to find peace, serenity, acceptance, worth, importance and so on.  The path of drinking won't work but they don't know that.  They are sometimes referred to as "lost souls" which implies some spiritual aspect of their search.  Recovery is where the lost soul gets found and put onto a path that drops some of their wants, instills others, and gives them a less self-centered way to serenity, acceptance and peace.  It can happen in careers.  You go into the wrong career, job, trying to get certain goals, but that career, job is not a good fit for you.  A career guide, trusted friend, wiser person, gets you onto the right career, job, to help you become you and not the job.  People say, "I am sober, I am a lawyer, doctor, truck driver," but how is any one of these things making you the best you?  Without some spiritual part of this search, I just don't know.  

The Camera

 I have a friend who takes camera pictures of Central Park.  They are all quite well framed, and speak of one or another mood of the park.  But they also speak of the interior life of the photographer.  The camera is the way his soul looks at the world at that moment.  It speaks of his own emotional condition at that moment.  That is why he took that picture at that exact time.  The camera is a way of praying.  Each scene reveals something of nature and of the human condition that is part of it.  On the periphery of Central Park are some very tall buildings, beautifully designed from some years ago when the outside of a building, its appearance, was important.  When you take a photo you are being touched by the world you see and the picture is how the world touches you and those who see it.  

Discernment

 Don’t get all so anxious about trying to correctly discern God’s will for you.  It can make you crazy.  Better is to just make sure or pray for the willingness to do God’s will, whatever it might be at this time in your life.  You might have interests, but then find out such were the product of ego and not of the heart.  I pray for willingness here in the monastery.  I know I am in some transition, but not sure as to what.  I am not just waiting around, but simply or not so simply, trying to do the next right thing.  

Space

 Space, the stuff between the stars is not really empty.  It just looks empty to our eyes and consciousness.  In prayer, never think empty is empty.  Outer space, as we call the universe, is filled with the consciousness of God.  Even scientists are saying something about Consciousness.  That is why it looks like space, as if nothing is there.  God is No Thing.  Energy, power, presence, but not a thing, or an idea, a noun.  The full moon hides the stars around it, but not the darkness of the sky.  God is in full sight, but hidden.  The eye in my head, the seeing faculty, says there is nothing but dark space.  The heart sees differently.  I like to pray in the darkness.  

Nada

 If you want a desert experience in prayer because it is recommended as part of spiritual growth, or because you think it will make you an adept, a spiritual guru, or just feel good, it won’t be the desert.  If it is to happen and when it happens, it will be on a Power’s time and not your own.  In the desert you lose all interest in a God, Power, sense of relationship with such.  It is nada, nada.  It is Mu.  Nothing.  Most people run back to their place, book, space where they had good feelings or some interest.  Nada gets rid of all your previous sense of prayer and ideas.  From Nada, nothing, you grow if you have the humility and patience to sit it out over time.  When a person in recovery begins to go to meetings that they used to enjoy, and say, “I no longer get anything out of this,” they are growing but don’t know it.  To be present with no palpable return is part of Nada.  But it is not nothing.  It only appears that way.  

Habits

 We think we are who we are supposed to be, when in fact we are simply stuck in bad habits formed over time.  We don’t even know the bad habits are habits.  We call them routines, or simply our way of living.  If we are lucky, we will come across someone who sponsors good habits and can see our bad habits.  When the bad habits bring enough misery, we will listen to the good habit person.  But meditation can also be very helpful because then some spiritual power within us will begin to show us a better fit for our daily life.  There may be some habits or practices that might be good but not for us.  You could be practicing a religious path, but not in the way that best suits you.  A drunk cannot take a drink which might be good for some one not a drunk.  And so it goes.  

Candlemas

 Yesterday, February 2, was Candlemas Day in some Christian denominations.  It is the day that new candles are lit.  People bring their candles from home and they get blessed with holy water.  They are not yet lit, but are for the home at this time of year when we begin to see more light in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is a date and time that celebrates more light. We are about six weeks past the Winter Solstice.  Daylight is longer, and candles help to keep light into the night.  It is also the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, his first public presentation after his birth at Christmas.  For Christians he is the Light in the Darkness.  I hope my life can be like a candle, bringing light to those who only see the darkness.  

Desert God

 For many people, the desert God is pointless.  There is nothing to do and no rules in the desert.  It is empty.  And it is not very homey.  Until you get used to the desert simply by spending time in it, the emptiness, the silence, the stillness and the night-like darkness is yucky.  No light.  Meditation can feel good pre-desert, but then the invitation to go deeper is when most people give up and move on to something more “tangible.”  Mind, imagination, emotions all get fed outside of the desert prayer.  But that is not all there is.  There is some deep place, some “heart” place.  If the invitation comes, enter into it.  God knows timing better than our ego.  

Busy Believer

 Another type of believer is the busy one doing a long list of good works.  They are building up their resume for when they get to the gates of heaven.  Efficiency is important because there is not enough time, it seems, to do all that God seems to want this person to do.  For them, there is no rest on the Seventh Day.  Meditation gets nothing done.  Just to sit there, accomplishing nothing anyone can measure, is pointless.  It will not go onto the vitae for that heavenly interview.  Be busy doing good deeds and impress God, is the way to go for this person.  Meditators might make it to purgatory where they can reflect on how much time they wasted sitting there or taking a nature walk.  

The Rule Keeper

Some people prefer a God of rules because rules are clear. If you follow the rule then you are right with God and there will be rewards for this.  You keep the rule and your God keeps you.  Such people don’t care much for meditation.  It is too fuzzy and inconsistent.  They don’t have any way to measure “how am I doing?”  For them, often, if you break rules, ignore rules, diminish or deny rules then God will get you.  They see only chaos in that way of life.  If the sermon is long, pointless, redundant, you go to worship anyway.  It’s the rule.  Growth?  One can only hope.  

A Manageable God

 We do not want a God of the desert with the uncertainty of silence, solitude and a seeming absence of anything.  So we conjure up a more manageable God of theology and concept.  We prefer our idea of God, assuming that our idea is God.  Then we come up with proofs for the existence of God so we can debate and prove that we have the correct God.  All this avoids the fiery encounter with the power of Presence, free to act beyond our control.  We fail to live, breathe and love God from a transforming depth.  We do not surrender.  The cost is too much.  

Reading

 One who simply reads about spiritual stuff, such as my blog, or a book, but does not practice what is suggested in the reading or the tape, is like a person who spends a lot of time looking at a map, but never actually setting out on the journey.  You can learn a lot from reading, but not grow very much with only information.  One gains a lot more by the journey or the practice in meditation.  One gains a lot by being of service rather than just thinking about it being a good idea. 

The Opposites

 One of the best ways I have found to explain meditation is using words together that seem opposite to one another.  It is like a koan.  At first, it makes no sense, but in time, it is a very wise saying.  “Silent Music,” is one such phrase.  There seems to be no sound, but in fact there is, for one who has ears to hear, the contemplative.  The emptiness becomes full and yet no thing is here.  “Pregnant Emptiness” is another such phrase.  Where there seems to be no life, there is new life.  Empty is not empty for one who is at the heart level of prayer.  In a meeting where meditation is part of the meeting, nothing seems to be going on for one who lives in their head, or is full of fear and self-centered, but in fact, much is going on for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.  

The Boxer

 Interior Prayer is like a boxer in the ring.  The boxer has to stay undistracted, and focused on what is in front of him/her, or else the fight will have no chance of success.  In meditation, there can be a lot of distractions in the mind or from sounds/sights around us.  We have to ignore all that so we can be focused on what we are trying to do.  We sort of close ourselves off from the mind so that we can be open to the heart where the battle with ourselves is enacted.  In recovery meetings one must focus on what is being said, while distractions may go on around the room.  

The Routine

 Some people look for beautiful, stunning churches, temples, nature scenes to find God.  They think God is in the spectacular.  And it is only momentary.  They move on into their ordinary, routine, and uneventful life, thinking they have to get back to God in some other special place.  But God is in the routine, the ordinary and the seemingly uneventful.  It’s we who are missing in these very moments, longing to be elsewhere.  Incense and drink are delusional.  They only make you think that God is showing up.  God is always right here now.  Why don’t you show up to the present moment.  Meditation might help.  

Heart Conversion

 Some people only partially convert or buy in.  They agree in their head but not in their heart.  For instance, a person says they are a Christian because they believe in the dogma and rules, but they remain judgmental and prejudicial against people who are not of their skin color, language or ethnicity.  People “join” AA recovery but only believe in the steps, and think they follow them, but are still just as prejudiced as the above Christian.  Conversion that goes deeply into the heart sees Oneness, not differences in the room.  It says in the Bible, “Anyone who hates his brother is in the darkness.”  

Just Talkin’

 Catechism allows you to talk about God.  Meditation can allow you to experience God.  Reading the bible can give you information, historical, mythical and so on.  But it will hang around in your mind and imagination.  It won’t make you a better you.  You can read the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” and know about history of recovery, but you won’t become a recovering alcoholic until you actually do the steps, which have meditation as part of the twelve steps.  I know people who are quite familiar with their catechism answers and rules, but I would never want to be like them.  Not because of what they know, but because of what they have not yet experienced at sufficient depth.  

Standing Still Journey

 Some journeys you take by standing still.  This is the desert journey of interior prayer.  The desert image is a good one because the desert is simply the desert.  You move about and it is still the desert, empty, silent, nothing to do.  A great genre for meditation, wordless prayer with just you.  At first, you simply get used to it.  “What am I doing here?”  “This is a waste of time.  I should be doing something productive.”  These are the temptations, the demons.  But you stay.  In time, as you get used to it and some method to keep you in silence and stillness, you may become aware that you are not alone.  You are in the home of some power that is not you.  Eventually, it becomes a power that is you.  Non-duality.  It is the standing still journey.  

Demons

 Buddha did not come upon Nirvana by simply reading books on wisdom or being a good social worker.  He got there by dealing with his demons.  This is a lot of what meditation is about, and why many people abandon it early on.  They want to feel good.  They don’t want the desert experience.  Loneliness, and darkness a silence, solitude are a bit too scary.  It is the realm of the demon who is quite at home in all this.  If you are human, you have demons.  Perfect and human is an oxymoron.  Jesus and Buddha never bothered to call themselves perfect.  They spoke about eternal life and Nirvana, but not becoming perfect human beings.  Jesus would do some healing and preaching and then go off to a deserted place before dawn.  Reconnect with the inner self.  Don’t give free space to your demons.  The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert after Baptism.  Beware of ones who offer to save the world, but don’t go into their desert.  

Follow Me

 Early on in John and Mark’s Gospels Jesus invites people to “come along” or “follow me.”  What makes someone follow another?  I think that first, you sense something missing in yourself but you don’t know quite what it is.  Second, you sense that this invite comes from a person who might have a Way for you to become more fulfilled.  You have tried the ego-centered way, all about you, and it did not seem to fill you up.  In 12 step recovery, one person follows another because the one without recovery senses in someone else, a Way to recovery.  They follow.  A sensed need and a felt solution is what can bring people together to make a profound change and a life-long relationship.  People often leave a spiritual practice because they no longer sense a solution in the practice or a need in themselves.  Sufficient suffering consequently, might make them take another look.  

Debate Confronts Action

 I find that some people like to debate he existence of God. Those on both sides of the debate often end up in doing nothing to make the world a better place, more just and peaceful.  Those who say God exists, simply feel that being in the right religion or the right belief is sufficient.  Action beyond this or some pious worship is sufficient.  They remain more or less selfish and self-centered.  Those who say there is no God, then also feel no need to action for a better world.  There is no God, no religion so what is the point of doing good.  Get all you can for yourself.  Both sides remain selfish and ego-centered.  I don’t waste time on this debate.  Act on my belief.  Get out of my head and into my heart with compassion, some desert time, and do good for others without caring about a thank you or recognition.  Twelve-steppers know this.  

Absorb It

 I know many people who have taken the boat trip along the Danube as tourists.  They tell me how beautiful a trip it was.  But that beauty covers up evil.  The Nazis used to take people to the Danube, strip them, shoot them and dump their bodies into the river.  The remains are still at the bottom.  But evil did not have the last word.  In time, the Danube became beautiful especially in the those who had no memory of WWII.  Sometimes I experience evil and like the Danube, I am challenged to absorb it and in time to respond with beauty, the beauty of a life full of love, acceptance, service, selflessness.  A spiritual path is a way to not allow evil to overwhelm us such that we become the evil in ourself.  

The Plus Factor

 I like my spiritual life to be prayer plus.  Plus what?  Plus service for others.  I think it is a combination that works for me because sometimes in my prayer, I think a lot about me or my woes, fears, wants, even though I try to ignore this stuff.  In service to others, I get out of myself.  If I am being of service to others but thinking all about me, I will stay self-absorbed and that is not the point of service.  Prayer is to attend to the insides of my life, and service is to attend to the outside world of needs and wants around me.  A good balance.  

Sick

 At this moment I have a lousy cold at least.  OTC stuff does not seem to do much but a couple of hours in a sleep stupor.  My dilemma is that I am supposed to go to a funeral Friday in Scottsdale, AZ.  I see my doctor not until Thursday afternoon.  Trying for something sooner today.  Not easy with no cell phone service at monastery.  My dilemma, readers, is this:  the funeral is for someone already dead, a long time friend and I am the preacher.  But what if I get on the plane and sit next to a litle ole lady (wait!  I am 80.  I am a little old man) and give her my germs and she has health issues already.  She gets sick or worse?  Or give all my 80 year old friends at the funeral my germs.  My covid home test says negative.  What do I know.  Everybody will be disappointed if I bail on the funeral, including me.  Suck it up and go?  And maybe next funeral is mine or worse someone else?  Maybe I am being too dramatic.  Feeling OK now in the morning but by night I feel lousy.  Funeral is in the morning.  maybe I only infect people at night

Time As A Gift

 How much time do I give to running?  I would say one hour a day.  But in fact I give my body more than that one hour of healthy exercise.  I warm up with stretching and some yoga.  I make sure I wear the correct clothes to factor in the run and the climate.  I stretch and yoga after the run.  Then, during the day I am choosing what to eat and what to avoid.  A little sugar, yes, and a lot of choices in which I say no.  And so on for diet.  In fact then, I give a lot of time to the point of my exercise for health.  It is the same for prayer or recovery.  One does not give only an hour to either of these.  The prayer and meeting is surrounded by good behavior and correct attitude.  Spiritual paths are ongoing through out the day.  I did come across a factory that makes Hostess Twinkies the other day.  I was tempted to stop in and buy a basket full.  Good sugar recovery can press the “no” button.  I did.  

Good Deeds

 If you are trying to do good deeds for immediate reward, such as $$$, or for applause and renown, you will find no peace in your efforts.  You cannot control the outside world by your good deeds.  You might have a positive result of your action in the person, place or thing of your efforts, but renown, even a thank you is not a guarantee.  I try to do my best to satisfy me.  “I gave it my best at this moment.”  Sometimes you won’t ever know the good you do.  I have found that some people will never tell you the good effect you had on them until you are about to move away.  

Rain Or Shine

 Just because it is raining or snowing during the day, does not mean that the sun is not shining.  It just means you cannot see the sunlight.  It is hidden from your eyes, but not absent.  We have to remember that just because we cannot see something does not mean it is not there.  If you focus only on what the eye can see, or the body feel, you miss a lot.  It is one of the reasons I meditate.  As with the flower before it buds, you don’t see all the work the flower is doing to prepare to bloom.  Inner work will make you bloom too, and then you will see with a new attitude, from the eye of the heart.  

Budding

 You can think of contemplation and how it works by imagining a flower that is still in its bud.  On the outside, all you see is the bud, but inside the bud the flower is growing, maturing.  You just cannot see it yet.  In time, when the flower is ready, the bud will open up and the flower will bloom for all to see.  So, just keep practicing.  If nothing seems to be changing within you, give it time.  The prayer is at work, but not in a way that is noticeable by you.  Patience.  You are not in control of results, but you are in control of showing up for the prayer.  This is how you water the plant of your heart.  

Easy Does It

 Sometimes, when things are not going “right” we are feeling out of balance, we try to change the he outsides first.  We buy something, we move, change locations, ingest something, get a new job, but yet with all this outside change we don’t seem to get a better balance.  I think we need to change the insides first.  Then we will see better what needs to change on the outsides, if anything.  Insides first, is first things first.  Practice becoming kind, patient, tolerant and considerate.  The action will become an attitude, and with an attitude change, I find the world around me changes and I don’t have to “move” or fix things.  I find that I even became loving, by action, and not by will-power.  Since my will-power is rather weak, I seek the spiritual power buried within me, through meditation, to do the right action.  

Reinventions

 Part of growing up for many of us is the reinvention of ourselves from the original invention which is conception/birth.  The Creator has a plan.  As we grow up, clueless of this plan, or afraid to follow it, we reinvent ourselves patterned on approval from others, desire to be noticed, praised, financially secure and such worldly magnets of esteem.  And we grow up happy, restless, irritable and feeling a sense of ‘unfitness” within ourselves.  But the Creator has not abandoned us.  At times, or for some few of us, there comes a light, a moment of truth, our truth of who we were meant to be.  It takes courage to go onto this new path, but there is a sense of rightness about it, a good fit, to help keep us afloat amidst the doubts of those around us.  At times it seems a trudge, but also a joy, a sense of new freedom.