Expectations

 We tend at times to set the bar too low in our expectations of doing good.  Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found it empty.  All she wanted was to find the body of Jesus and give him a decent burial.  She never expected that he would be alive, raised from the dead.  Jesus had much more in mind for her…to become the herald of Good News.  It is the same with an addicted person coming into their first few Recovery meetings.  Their hopes, expectations, are that they can find a way to stop the addiction, and stay stopped.  That they would have a whole new life does not occur to them.  So when you are trying to do “better” don’t set the bar too low.  Persist and maybe be surprised.  You too may rise to a new life.  Recovery has a beginning but no end.  

Witness To A Miracle

 If you have ever sat in a quiet room, dark, but for one lit candle, meditating, or at least being silent with a bunch of recovering addicts, it is quite powerful.  It is one thing to sit in a worship space with a bunch of “Holy” people, all practicing quiet prayers.  They are holy.  They pray.  But a bunch of people who have lived notorious lives of bad actions, sitting there quietly trying to let in some light to their darkened hearts, that is quite a moment of wonder.  It is a miracle.  Some of these meditation meetings are open to normal people.  So if you are normal, a leap for some of us, then try one of these Recovery Meditation meetings.  After the meditation, some of the more honest addicts will tell you of their notorious life before the miracle.  It can bring tears, if not to you, then to them.  They lived the darkness.  

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.