Capacity

 I prayed, but heard nothing.  This can be quite common an experience in prayer, especially for the beginner, who is pure need.  We think that God did not answer or ignored us, or does not exist.  But maybe we simply have not acquired the capacity to listen.  We have all met people who simply do not have the capacity to listen to another.  Such people “do not take incoming calls.”  What does one do who wants to run a 10K race?  They don’t have the capacity to do it now.  It is just a desire, a goal.  So you begin to train.  You run a little each day or every other day.  Gradually you work up to a distance that allows you to actually run a 10K race.  So it is in prayer.  You have not the capacity to listen, to have the ear of the heart to access the response of God.  So you begin to pray each day and in time, deepen the prayer with practice.  You learn to listen to the still, soft voice of God in the depth of your heart.  Our intentions in prayer become purer.  We begin to pray out of love and not out of need to get some “results,” some answers.  

The Beloved

 We will never surrender to God until God becomes the beloved.  As long as the ego gets in the way, we are our own beloved.  I have seen where people in recovery will “surrender” to their Higher Power, but it is more because they are so miserable with their shallow or empty heart.  In time, they feel better from the steps and program.  The surrender slips away.  The need is not so great.  Indifference edges into their life.  But if the conversion goes deep enough with daily meditation, there will be further conversions and God will become the Beloved.  It is a conversion of deep interior desire.  We empty ourselves.  Yes, there may be blah days of prayer, boredom, but this is just to test our surrender, to steel our resolve to pray.  We will more likely be able then to do active things, helpful to others without wanting or receiving any recognition.  You become the anonymous beloved of those you serve.  

WAIT

 Some of us need a program of recovery from talking too much, or at the wrong time, or in manner that offers no help, no solution.  Whenever I do this, I am in need of the W-A-I-T program.  This stands for "why am I talking."  I stand guilty of this.  My sermons have to be short, because the longer they are the stupider I am.  Short and to the point.  And the point better be helpful, not judgmental, egocentric, or confusing.  I was taught in preaching school to "learn how to land."  That is, learn how to come to an ending.  Some of us just stop talking eventually, and everyone else has to assume "that is the end?"  I sometimes have nothing to say, but if I am brief and to a pointless point, and stop, people generally show me some mercy.  My blogs are short, even if they can be pointless sometimes.  Only sometimes, right?  Show me mercy.  

The Apology

 I am reminded that "apologize" merely lays the ground for a future offense, if there is no action beyond the words of apology.  No action means empty promises many times.  If someone apologizes, 10th steps me, I wish them well, in the sense that I wish they do some actions to change their lives.  Guilty feelings generally do not bear enough energy to get us into action for the better.  If I tell someone that I apologize, I ask myself, "And what is my plan of action, step by step, to not do this again?"  If you make a mess, and then apologize for not cleaning it up, what do you do next?  Walk away from this mess or the next mess?  In recovery this would be called pre-step one.  

The Wounded Bread

In my Catholic tradition, a lot of people generally go to receive the host, Holy Communion, to give them comfort in this life of ups and downs.  But I am reminded that the host is the Crucified God, Jesus Christ.  It is not so much for comfort but rather to call a person to bear their own wounds in being more generous and self-giving in love, especially for those who have not "earned" your love, or those who have actually rejected you.  In recovery program meetings too, one does not go to always want to feel good.  One goes with their own wounds, to be of service to others, to love others without any thought of a return or guarantee.  Love then is not always or even often about feeling good.  We recognize our wounds and then love others who are wounded too.  God is not only hidden in the host but also in the person  sleeping rough on the street.   

Sursum Corda

A disheveled drunk walks into an open church.  Sits down and stares at the altar in the front.  At what?  On the altar is a big white, thin wafer of bread.  It is displayed inside a luna inside a monstrance on the altar.  The church is not heated.  The pew is not comfortable, though better than lying rough on the street.  The drunk is not there for warmth or comfort.  The drunk has what is called subsum corda, an unmistakable longing of the heart.  Longing for what?  For the complete and loving attention of someone at that moment, with no judgment, no condemnation.  The visual eyes in the head may be blurry from a rough night on the streets, alcohol ingested.  But the eye of the heart is  clear.  This inner eye is not looking at a "thing."  The host is not a thing.  It is a presence, a personal presence, completely focused in unconditional love on the person who sits in the pew.  This person is not a drunk, a description given by the "better" people, but a human being in need of love and acceptance.  I know that person.   

The Wallowing

 Why do people wallow in misery?  Why not start a new path to lift oneself out?  Well, I tend to wallow in misery because it is familiar.  It may be addictive bad behavior, the same old, same old.  But I know the way.  No fears.  No unknown scary stuff.  New stuff is scary with anxiety.  Ok.  Yes, staying in the old way seems insane, excerpt when you are there and don't recognize the insanity.  What gets me to give up the misery is "desperation."  I found desperation to be a gift.  It overcomes my fears of the unknown path.  So if you are miserable, don't ask the misery to be taken away.  It might be the light in your darkness.  And someday, on your new path, you will become the light in someone else's darkness.  

Commencement

There have been a lot of school graduations, called "commencements" in the past two months.  Though it is celebrated as the end of something, one's school career, it is called commencement.  Curious.  To commence something is to begin, not to end.  Graduation is a transition from studies to career, action in the world, hopefully to make the world a better place for your work in it.  Or you commence to the next level of education, but eventually to a career.  Unfortunately, at the end of "higher" education, all that is higher is debt.  No job, much less a career.  I have found that anything worthwhile that I seek to commence has some hills and valleys.  It is never a smooth road.  But most often that is part of what makes the journey worthwhile and worth the effort.   

Free Love

I think of "free love" as something that you do as a commitment.  When we are free to love, not bound by addictions or other impediments, it does not mean that I gain some control by my love.  You say, "I love my cell phone."  This is a love because you control the phone.  It is your possession.  It responds to what you want and can be fun on demand.  But it is not the same as, "I love a person."  You don't possess a person.  They do not belong to you like a cell phone or property.   Your love does not control the person you love.  They may die on you, ignore you at times, act contrary to your wishes.  But you are committed to love this person.  Your cell phone does not respond or work as you like, you toss it into recycle and get a new one.  Jesus loved his 12 apostles and they did not respond as he had hoped.  But he did not discard them.  He had made his commitment to them.  

Higher Than What?

 What is this “Higher Power” stuff?  Well, let’s look at gradations of power or power levels.  The alcoholic, for instance, has some power to do a few things, like make bad decisions to drive while drunk.  Alcohol has more power than the will of the alcoholic.  So alcohol is a power greater than the will power of the alcoholic. The alcoholic cannot control alcohol intake.  But there is a power greater than the alcohol.  This greater  power is called “The Higher Power.”  It’s greater than the power of alcohol.  Ask any alcoholic in recovery.  Their own will power was no power at all.  Alcohol ruled.  In recovery alcohol is defeated on a daily basis by a higher power than alcohol.   

Office Clerk

 When my prayer practice drops off, is neglected, or skipped, I tend to become the “office clerk” priest.  I get a lot of stuff done, but the priority list is off-kilter.  I do things to make me feel better, to satisfy the ego, to be busy, so that I don’t have to look at how shallow I have become.  Without a goodly amount of meditation time, letting go of agenda thoughts, fantasy, resentment or fear, I tend to lose a grip on priorities.  The ego says, “wow, look at all we did!”  But it does not feed the inner me, the space in my heart.  I have de-coupled from my Higher Power, my God.  The really important things get out of focus or simply covered up with activity and busyness.  There is nothing wrong with being an office clerk if you are an office clerk, or getting some practical things fixed, done, filed and so on.  But without meditation I become out of balance.  

The List

 OK. Things are going badly, or at least not going your way.  Yes, you can check your ego, or try for more acceptance, but often the vibes remain uncomfortable.  What to do?  Write a gratitude list.  I find this helps me to regain some serenity, especially when nothing else seems to be working.  Why I don’t simply start out with the gratitude list, is well, a character defect.  I sometimes have to do things the hard way.  Even amidst, “My life is over!” I have some things for which to be grateful.  Making a list forces me to bring up the good things that were buried beneath my self-pity, or genuine feelings of remorse and defeat.  I am grateful for all the people who read my blogs, even the blogs that make no sense.  Readers forgive and come back the next day.  Or not?

Tabernacle

 For us Catholics we like our tabernacles.  God can be encountered on our own terms, quiet and tranquil.  In our chaotic world, God is manageable in our unmanageable life.  It is why many of us prefer quiet meditation, controlled by some method we use to encounter our Higher Power or the Divine.  We don’t like unmanageable people or situations.  We want control.  Tranquillity is our power to control our surroundings.  But if we ever learn to pay attention, we might notice that God prefers, for us fearful ones, to come in the chaos of our life.  Too often we pray that God changes the chaos, the other person or situation.  We do not pray that God changes us.  For recovering people,  go to some newcomer meetings or ones in the seedier parts of town.  

Living On the Streets

 As a priest, I often think that I am bringing God to people in the mass.  In does not occur to me, in those instances, that a person in that church building is bringing God to me.  God is often hidden in someone.  Like who?  A person walks or stumbles into mass and sits in the back.  They look rather disheveled.  That person has spent the night on the streets and fell asleep or passed out from some drink/drug.  My thought is, “Oh I hope they don’t disrupt the mass.”  At such a moment it does not occur to me that God is hidden in this person.  God is hidden in plain sight for me but my fear or judgment blinds me.  I bet that Jesus was rather repulsive on the cross.  How many times have I avoided or ignored a person lying or sitting on the sidewalk outside a church, so that I can go into church for a visit to God?  I just passes God in that person.  It is the same in recovery meetings.  Your Higher Power just showed up in that smelly, gruff person who walked in mumbling and disoriented.  Your level of recovery will lead to action or inaction.  

Idolatry Of The Self

 In my religion, the Catholic one, I see some people go into the mass, the worship service.  They listen, and pray to God.  Then they leave and go about their business.  They say nothing to anyone.  They greet no one.  But they say they belong to a church.  Church means community, not the freestanding individual.  I hear some people say that they like the zoom mass on their computer screen, but that they miss the Holy Communion or Eucharist.  They do not miss the other people they do not see on zoom.  This is what can be called “Idolatry of the Self.”  On the other hand, Recovery meetings for addicts are communal or they are not recovery meetings.  Each person realizes they are part of a community which means reach out to others in that meeting.  Don’t come late and leave early, talking to no one.  That is the way of the fearful and ashamed newcomer.  The “members” do not let that newcomer get away.  Someone in the meeting goes and “bothers” the newcomer.  So “bother” someone.  You never know how God is at work in you. 

The Corrector

 Learn how to live in the world as it is.  That is, the world right around you, with the people you encounter on a daily basis.  Don’t become the great corrector, with your mind mumbling about the faults of others, and your mouth telling them what they ought to do.  Make the world a better place by your actions.  And let your mind quiet down by becoming a more accepting, forgiving and compassionate person.  I find myself wanting the larger world to become more loving, while I am wanting to critique the persons with whom I have regular, daily encounters.  Change and growth is always local.  Waking up means becoming aware of your own shortcomings before you correct others.  

Young Wonan and the Sea

 Trudy Eberle swims English Channel in 1926. First woman to do so. A wonderful movie of a woman going with her sense of self against a male prejudiced world. Swimming was for men. Trudy showed otherwise. I suspect that when and if young girls get to see this movie they may take to the water instead of other sports or endeavors. Disney knows how to build the drama too. She was New York City. Immigrant parents in a world decided for her by men. Until she swam otherwise. 

Grabbing On

 Seek so as to become rather than possess.  You never possess God, as if you could hold onto God and be in control.  So many of us want to have good feelings in our meditation.  Rather than feelings, prayer is about becoming rather than possessing.  One does not hold onto sobriety as if it is one more item in their purse.  One becomes sober.  It is about action, a manner and a way of life.  In prayer, we are all seekers.  We seek to change, to become our better self.  And we no longer seek the tangible and the momentary, but rather “eternal life” as a quality, a way, rather than a possession.  And eternal is one day at a time.  Good feelings, money, power, esteem, these can all pass.  Meditation is about the deeper journey of interior change that affects our actions and will effect the world in which we find ourself.  

Listening Eyes

 I sometimes hear people counsel or advise others how to act by quoting words from their instruction books, such as the Bible or Big Book, or Koran.  But people don’t listen with their ears.  They listen with their eyes.  It is not what you pontificate that will help another, especially a newcomer to the scene.  It is your actions that they see you doing that will make a difference.  A lot of people reject worship groups in religions not because the visitor rejects what is said.  It is the hypocrisy that they see that sends them searching elsewhere.  You cannot say, “All are welcome,” and then ignore the newcomer, or someone who does not look and act much like yourself.  The shortcomings of zoom meetings is that the newcomer on the computer hears words but does not see actions of the video faces.  Zoom has its place but can never replace in person gatherings.  

Peripheral

 I came across a reformed drunk.  He was in recovery, not drinking.  He said he could not find this “Higher Power” he was told he needed.  I asked him if he did the 11th step, the prayer and meditation step.  He said he did.  “When?” I asked.  He did it for twenty minutes in the evening.  “And the rest of the day?” I asked.  He said he got things done that he never got done when drinking.  He was more helpful to others.  He went to meetings, and even cleaned up sometimes.  So I said, “Seems you have a peripheral god, the one who gets twenty minutes in the evening.”  I suggested that maybe the God he could not find during all the sober moments of the day, was the one who kept him from drinking or even wanting a drink.  Lots of “thank you” throughout the day can keep God in the center and our ego right-sized.  

Concealed Presence

 I have heard any number of so called believers say that they cannot find God.  Well, maybe because this God likes showing up concealed right in front of us.  Christians say they believe in Jesus but cannot seem to find him, the Risen One, in their life.  Apparently, he did show up for about 30 years in flesh and blood as a carpenter in a small town.  He did not seem to mind being unnoticed or obscure.  If he is God as Christians believe, then being obscure, concealed in plane sight, seems to suit God.  So give up thinking that your belief, faith, has the power to make God more visible to you.  God is plenty visible for those who have eyes to see.  It is the inner eye of meditation that opens us up to the concealed presence.  

Whose Willl

 Lots of people say the Lord’s Prayer, with “thy will be done.”  Sometimes, we think we really mean it when in fact there is an undercurrent of egotism.  How so?  For me, it is too often when I want to know and do great things for the love of God.  “What work do you have in mind for me God?”  Well, maybe God has no great work, that is, a work that will fill my ego.  Maybe God simply wants me to be kind, considerate, forgiving, helpful, to the person next to me or near me, someone I might run into during my day.  No one else may notice, not even the person we encounter.  The work becomes invisible to the larger world.  Too often, I can trample over the person next to me in order to do something more spectacular.  I have often said, “Take the shopping cart back to the store.”  No one notices you, or at least no one you see.  Do the unpaid little things.  It all adds up.  

A Decision

 Thirty Nine years ago today, I made a decision to turn my life over to God, as I understood God at that time.  I had been trying to manage my life, my happiness, joy, success, control, on my own terms and program.  There was a lot of “partial” asking for God in my life.  There was a bit of mediocrity too.  In many ways I seemed on the outside successful.  I was prayerful, meditative, but under my own conditions.  At 40 years of age I decided that I needed to take some steps in a more committed direction.  I needed God Power on a daily basis without my conditions or my damaged will-power.  Yesterday, two college students told me how they enjoyed my daily writings here.  I had not seen them since eight grade!  So I am doing good in an anonymous way, reaching young people, surprised at success.  I will keep trudging along.  

Presence And Absence

 The presence of absence is not the absence of presence, so I have heard said.  The early enthusiasm for prayer, at a young age, can easily dry up.  So much for the spirtual life.  The world seems to go on pretty much the same with or without my prayer.  But all this early life prayer was really all about the self.  All about ME prayer.  When one starts up again in more mature years, generally  one has times when God, whoever, is absent.  “I feel nothing,” or “Nothing is changing.”  Still all about me.  But maybe God is trying to get you to stop being all about you, your desire for “holy” feelings, or success in “contacting” God through your own methods and efforts.  When you were younger, there seemed to be lots of light in prayer.  Now there is lots of darkness. Trust it.  God is present in the absence.  It is the way God wants to be with you if you seek maturity and depth in prayer and the spiritual life.  Patience. Trust.  God is not giving you solace here, but rather energy.  For what? Being of service to others.  Get out of yourself.  

The Invitation

 I have realized that within any vocation, career, recovery, there is an interior call, a special task within the vocation, unique to each person.  I am a priest, a Catholic one.  I have come to realize that there is the generic vocation to be a ‘priest.”  But not all priests are the same, act the same or focus on the same things within their vocation.  I have a “call” if you will, within my vocation to be a priest in a certain way or activity that is meant to be of help to others.  I will be most helpful to the extent that I do not try to be like everyone else or fit in with other priests.  So some see me as odd, or different, or wrong in my vocation.  That is because I am not them, I hope.  It is the same in any vocation.  Not all parents are the same though they all have the vocation to be parent.  So too with teachers, and so on.  In recovery, each person has a call to live out their recovery in some unique way for them.  Meditation can be a great help in finding and staying in touch with this call within your vocation.  

Raging Silence

 Deep meditation is about taming the raging silence that we must encounter if we are going to get beyond the superficial exterior chaos and into the interior chaos.  Yes, there is an interior chaos full of our fears, unrest, narcissism, and confusion.  But beyond this interior chaos are our deepest hopes, our fullest feelings.  So you begin by being still and doing nothing.  You can do nothing, but not be very still.  Or you can be still but oppressed by the chaos around and within you.  Listen to the silence, without headphones.  Close your eyes.  Yes, this is all a tough start.  But so is any growth beyond the superficial.  There is so much more to you than what you wear, your job/career, relationships with others, where and how you live, and even your exterior spiritual practices, sobriety meetings and steps.  Fall into the arms of the One, Ultimate Reality, Higher Power, your God.  

Vending Machine

 I remember the time many years ago when I got fired from my very good and promising job.  I had called in sick which was not quite the truth.  My boss called back later in the day and said I was fired.  What did I do?  I got dressed in my business suit and went to church.  I had a vending machine God.  I wanted something from God: my job back.  So I went to visit the church near my office and pressed the button, like on a vending machine, “get back my job.”  My pay was promises.  Then I went to the office and met my boss’s boss.  He said, “Terry, this is the best thing for your life.”  I cried.  Then I left, newly unemployed, and got drunk.  So much for the vending machine God of my shallow spiritual life.  I have learned, slowly, to drop the vending machine god, and pray that my God’s will be done, and I become the best person I can be.  Do you have a vending machine god?  Oh, and if you are looking for a blogger who has a a pristine past, you might want to delete me.  

Partially

 Do I live “partially,” that is not becoming all of my truest and best self?  A person on a spiritual path is trying to become “the rest of themself.”  How do we do this?  I think it is at least in part, how we treat others, especially those who cannot give us much of anything in return.  It could be a poor person, a street beggar, an addict deep into their addiction.  It could be someone in front of you on the supermarket line.  You do not feel compelled to be kind, engaging, or compassionate, much less forgiving, but you do it anyway.  You don’t even expect a thank you.  Go into any group setting.  Who is sitting alone?  Or looking about nervously?  Live partially.  Just go be with your friends or people you know or for some need you have.  Or become the rest of your best self.  On my better days, I try to talk to the person others are ignoring.  Often, there are surprises.  

Fallen Petals

 It is said that when the petals are removed from a flower, the flower gives its best perfume.  Less can be more.  What an image for the spiritual path!  Accumulation does not always mean a movement toward our best self.  Renunciation is often the best way to become more our true self.  Where did self-centeredness ever get you?  Or always wanting more?  Nature, the flower, can teach us a better way.  In addiction, you get less with more.  In recovery, you get more with less.  Christianity has the cross symbol.  The desert experience of simple life-style can teach us much.  How can I be of service, rather than how can I get more, often leads to a much more fulfilling day.  

the Unlimited

 A drink can give you some happiness.  But it cannot give you unlimited happiness.  It cannot give you “more.”  A drink is not divine.  It is a concrete reality.  Concrete means limit.  When one begins to worship a drink, that person wants unlimited happiness from a concrete reality.  Obviously, it will not add up.  Eventually, their solution to unlimited happiness kills them.  The drink became the idol, a false god.  So much for the idol worshipping alcoholic.  But what about yourself?  What or who is your idol?  What are you using, that is concrete, in trying to get “more” than the concrete can give you?  And why do you want the unlimited “more”?  I have become a God-Meditator because I have this desire for the unlimited, but have sort it in concrete things and been disappointed.  And my desire for the unlimited is no longer in some concrete happiness.  The unlimited cannot ever be satisfied by the concrete, by the created stuff, be it persons or things.  It is a legitimate desire, the unlimited, but can only be found in something that is unlimited.  Thus my God, or Higher Power, One, Ultimate Reality.  I have found it nowhere else.  

Getting Along

 If you want to get along with any group or person(s), you will have to learn to forgive, and at times even carry their burdens.  I have learned this living in the religious life and especially living in a monastery.  In a monastery, I cannot simply go off to work and avoid unpleasantness.  Each day we are thrown together in our schedule of choir and meals.  We share facilities.  Not much for private bathrooms.  Lots of being together.  Men can be hard to live with, if they grew up with Mom taking care of them and then joined some institutional living situation.  Such men are not much for housekeeping.  And we all bring our baggage with us.  There is no divorcing if you stay here.  But in other groups, associations, recovery, partnering, there has to be forgiveness.  We are not perfect.  Judgment, criticism, false pride, ego-centricity are the ruin of any communal living or meeting.  So my June resolution is to be more forgiving.  Maybe after this month it will become more of a habit.  But for now it is in my daily prayer.