The Judge

 There is the story of the unjust judge who callously ignores a poor widow.  She wants justice done for her so she can survive. But she is poor and has nothing the judge might want.  She cannot bribe him.  She is knocking on his door and he does not answer.  We think he is a terrible person right?  Well, think of God knocking on the door of your heart and being ignored because God has nothing your selfish, self-centered heart might want.  When people say they look but cannot find God, it might be because they are blind rather than God is absent.  Self blinds us.  

Indifference

 Indifference has its place.  If you have problems with things changing, why not embrace things with “indifference.”  That is, embrace them lightly.  I don’t mean people, but rather stuff, the things that fill up our storage spaces, attics, garages and basements.  We all have a vocation to love, and lots of our stuff does nothing to support such a vocation.  If you have a job, rather than a career, hold it lightly, as you may be sooner let go than you might prefer.  If you miss out on something for one reason or another, hold what you missed lightly, or with indifference.  Then it won’t so wound or bother you.  I think a spiritual path teaches us what to hold onto and what to hold lightly or with indifference.  Hold lightly the groups that might reject you.  

Serenity Stealers

 So you have any serenity stealers?  If you move to my state you will encounter more than enough of these.  Try getting a new driver’s license from the DMV.  Or finding a medical conglomerate that will give you a primary care doctor and take your insurance.  One medical complex said that I first had to find out if that my medical insurance would pay to that complex.  Maybe things have gotten more cumbersome over the years since I had lived as a resident of Colorado for so long in terms of doctors, insurance, and DMV card.  I live in various places and no one cares until I try to change the above.  So now I have doctors in various places.  And my spiritual life is geared to deal with serenity stealers.  

Imperfections

 Imperfections, character defects, can be burnt away by the fire of love.  But not our own love for our own imperfections.  It takes the power of God or a Higher Power than our own, to burn away imperfections.  Prayer, meditation, is what can kindle that fire.  God’s fire is always present and ready, but waits for our prayers.  We have to want imperfections to be burnt away.  Prayer is what can make us more entirely ready.  God’s work wants our cooperation.  So I work on my “entirely ready” attitude.  Meditation helps because my “entirely ready” is not always so entirely.  I trudge along.  

Presence

 I hear people say that when they go to a meeting they have nothing to offer.  They miss out on the value of being present.  Or someone might say, “Why go to church?  No one cares.”  Well, maybe your presence there makes people feel less alone, less weird since someone else is there too.  You never know when there might be another newcomer in the same place you are.  And just because you think you have nothing to offer a group does not mean that you have nothing to offer.  It’s simply just your opinion.  Show up.  Let God do the heavy lifting.  

Bless And Change

 As I enter December and all its events, my prayer is “Bless them, and change me.”  If I find people problematic, it usually means that there is something the matter with me.  Such persons can be a reminder to check on my own inventory of defects to see why I find them problematic.  So they become a blessing in my life.  I will work each day, trudging, if I must, on changing me for the better.  And I never can do this alone.  I need the God I celebrate this month, and friends who travel the same path of self-examination.  

God

I hear many people in alcohol recovery programs say that they don’t believe in God.  Yet they are sober and becoming better persons than when they drank.  They are following the recovery program of AA.  So I think that they do believe in God, but don’t want to let go of their skepticism with organized religion.  Don’t blame God for some earlier brush with religion.  Recovery people really do believe in God because it says in their recovery program that alcoholism is fatal and incurable, except that God could and would, if God were sought.  So they are seeking a God they don’t believe in.  That’s a lot of work.  Maybe it would be easier to accept the existence of a God you don’t believe in.  It would make meditation a lot more productive.  

Proof

 Did you ever say to your self that you would not believe something until there was more or some proof?  Well, faith and proof don’t mix.   Nor does such proof change you.  Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus had lots of proof, but it did not make him a better person.  And he probably did not get a second opinion before his betrayal of Jesus.  Some people say they believe that AA will keep them sober because they see, they have proof, of sober people working AA Program.  But if they don’t work it, then even such proof is useless.  Christians think they would be better Christians if they had more proof.  Action is what makes us better, not proof.  And belief is only a first step.  No one ever got sober with only a first step of belief.  

Junk Mail

 Someone reminds me that God does get “junk mail.”  It is when I pray all about me and how miserable I am, or how I want to win and not lose something that is quite trivial in the larger scheme of things.  When it is all about me, nothing is trivial.  So now when I ask God for “me only” stuff, I say first, “God this is junk mail, but” and then go on from there.  It keeps me in a good humor and this is better than whining, or resentment.  But when I ask for forgiveness or mercy, well, that is never junk mail.  I know this because God answers with the solution.  That means action on my part.  This puts self-pity out the window.  

Happy Thanksgiving

On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks for all those people who have been a window for me so that I can see.  But first I must see the light in my life.  And my hope is that my prayer practice, spiritual reading and service to others will make me a window for light to shine where someone might only be seeing darkness and gloom in their life.  But first I must let in the light come to shine brightly.  For this I give Thanksgiving.  

Loss

 Some solutions call for the asset of loss.  It is the letting go that solves a problem or dilemma.  The sacrifice of something precious to us can make us a better person for the sake of another.  When one becomes an alcoholic they lose their ability to drink like a normal person.  The solution to this situation is to lose the practice of drinking totally.  Abstinence.  The loss of drinking, if in a Recovery program brings great assets.  When one takes on a religious or spiritual practice of meditation, they give up time for some other things so as to practice the meditation.  And that leads to a sense of compassion for others.  Which in turn leads to letting go of something for the sake of another person.  Love is an asset of loss.  With surprising gain to often follow.  

Thanksgiving Plans

Do you have Thanksgiving plans this week?  I am going to my sister Jane’s home for a family dinner, and some football on TV.  But if you have no place to go, why not go where people are fed who have no place to go?  Alcoholics Anonymous will feed you.  Or you could go to somewhere that feeds people who have no place to go.  Be of service and become one of the servers or one who cleans up, and eat with the many who are there.  There is rarely “no place to go,” in a town.  Local churches, synagogues, can tell you where to go.  Self-pity can end up in a bar drinking alone with others.   

Grace

 I love the phrase from Romans, Chapter 5, in the Bible.  “Where sins abounds, grace aboundeth more.”  No matter what mess I make, God has my back.  I just need to surrender and cooperate.  So I like the phrase, “Turn it over.”  I don’t so much solve something unaided, a mess I have made, as I cooperate in letting God in, trust, hope.  This is often part of my meditation.  While I will never become a guru, I can get out of my own way.  A mess cannot solve the mess unaided.  

Sharing

 If you want to practice detachment, try sharing.  Share something you prefer to have all to yourself.  Share your time listening, helping, being of service to someone.  Share your precious time on behalf of another person.  Giving good things away, like clothes, to someone else is sharing.  You are letting go of something you like so that you don’t get too attached to “things.”  I like to share books that I buy.  While the book is gathering dust on the shelf, I tell myself, “I might read that book again.”  Temptation to hold on.  I rarely if ever miss a book that I gave to someone.  Detachment has a way of cleansing us.  

Daily Does It

 Some people tell me that they find it difficult to pray.  When I make inquiries as to their practice, I find they pray about the same as non-fit people exercise: occasionally.  Exercise is hard when you first start it.  Practice is what is needed.  Be consistent.  Don’t worry about expertise or becoming a guru.  Results are not up to you.  Prayer includes some other Power, Entity, Energy that is not you.  So it is not all about you talking to yourself.  Well, in the beginning who knows!  Pray daily and at the same time.  Make it a discipline.  You find discipline hard?  Maybe because you have not developed it yet in prayer.  Daily does it.

The Script

 I hear people tell me that a parent did not love them.  That is a pretty dead end relationship.  The parent, on the one hand, might be very loving but not according to the script we have for them.  We want them to act and say things according to our script for them.  On the other hand, the same people might be acting very badly, selfishly even, in the relationship with the parent.  I often suggest that such a person work on themself and not wait around for a parent to “change.”  I have found that often, when we change, the parent is discovered to be loving us all along, but simply not according to our self-focused script.  They even loved us when we were jerks.  We just did not know we were jerks.  

The Problem

 You can try to solve a problem or escape from it.  But what if the problem is you?  Oblivion is an attempt to escape, but it just fools the mind and body into forgetfulness of yourself.  Being very busy is another way to escape the self as the problem.  Puts the problem off to the side, but then if the problem is you, business gets compromised.  You act out your problematic self ins some way, such as a rant when things don’t go as planned.  A spiritual practice and being of help to others as in selflessness, kindness, action, and meditation can be a way to get the problem out of the way.  I don’t so much fix me as I try to keep my shortcomings from manifesting themself in my daily life.  

Pause Press

 I go outside to exercise I set my timer for the exercise.  But I have city crosswalks with stop lights and traffic.  I used to walk way early in the morning dark when there was no traffic and lights were on yellow blink.  But I prefer prayer, meditation and reading early in the morning rather than fit it into my later part of the day.  It frustrates me to have to stop at a light and hit the pause button.  Why frustrated and irritable?  because I do not accept life as it is where I live, lots of traffic.  People drive.  They don’t use ferries, trains and buses to get in and out of town for work or whatever.  So the pause button tells me how I am doing on my spiritual practice.  Acceptance, life as it is, out of my control, means I am in a a good space.  And there is always the gym.  

Belonging

 I am like a borrowed book.  I belonged to God, like a book belongs on a library shelf.  But the book is not meant to stay on the shelf.  That is its home, yes, but its purpose is to be read by borrowers.  The book does not belong to the borrower, but serves its purpose when off the shelf and being read.  My purpose is to be borrowed by others, but they do not own me.  My daily prayer is to remember to whom I belong and where I will eventually end up, I hope.  Without prayer, I will end up in a trash heap, taking up space and of no service to others.  

Control

A sage saying, “Control your emotions, or they will control you.”  We cannot prevent an emotion from coming up into our consciousness.  Better there than hidden away, secretly working on us.  It is what we do with the emotion that matters.  If I feel anger, I can leap into trying to punish a person, or situation to satisfy my anger.  The uncontrolled anger sees the problem as out there and not in me.  On the other hand, I find that when I respond negatively to a situation, with anger, judgment, distain, I have to look first at myself and see what is the matter with me, that I got angry.  The situation could be bad but anger acted out is not the solution.  If you have a disagreement with your neighbor, you don’t burn down their house.  Besides, your own home might catch on fire.   

Amends

 An amends is an attempt to fix or improve or heal something.  It is not just saying “I am sorry.”  Nothing got fixed except the person saying it wants to feel better.  It is still all about them.  The point is, can they improve the situation.  “I am sorry I stole,” is a lot different than, “I will pay you back NOW.”  “I am sorry I broke your window,” is not an amends.  Nothing got fixed.  Repair the window.  “I was wrong” is part of the amending.  It is all part of a “living” amends.  

Stepping Up

 Jesus said to his disciples, his followers he had chosen, to “Love others as I have loved you.”  That is a step up from love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus loved his followers in spite of themselves and their shortcomings.  He loved them without conditions and accepted their failures.  He gave them a lot of rope to become changed.  He was the Power and they were the Problem.  So no matter how I feel about myself, even on those days when I feel pinned to a cross, I am reminded to love as he loved.  No conditions.  

Giving Our Best

 Jesus told some people to simply follow the commandments.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  But what if you don’t love yourself?  A problem for sure.  So for many people who listened to Jesus in his teaching, loving themself was the stumbling block.  Some very selfish people think that by loving others to get what they want, is love.  It is never fulfilling nor is it healing.  So I ask myself each morning and check on it at night before bed, “Do and Did I love myself today and how?”  If I wake up and realize that my day is not about loving myself in a healthy way, then I need to do something about that right away.  Spiritual reading and meditation can help to get me in a more positive frame.  I might need to forgive myself or make an amend to someone from yesterday.  Maybe all someone and get a second opinion.  It may come to me in my “Holy” time in silence and reflection.  God is at work if I let God.  

Vacations

 It is fairly easy to keep to a spiritual practice when I am at home in my routines.  I fit it in.  I have some control and discipline.  I pat myself on the back.  Bu when I get out of my routine, such as travel, vacation, visiting, I seem to do far less practice.  I might do just enough to hold myself together, but not enough to be of service to others, to get out of a narrow self-interest.  What I need to remember is that my faults, character defects, don’t take a vacation.  For that matter, no addiction takes a vacation.  So, I need to find a way to keep up my daily spiritual practice.  It is not an option in my case.  

Imprisioned

Our hearts are imprisoned in God. What is that all about?  Well, we come into this world with our hearts encased in our Creator, God, Power.  The world, on the other hand, sees this as being imprisoned.  We long to be free to do as we please.  This is “self-interest” as the world sees it.  So a smattering of spirituality, makes us feel imprisoned.  Self-interest in this case rejects all spirituality that might reveal we are not imprisoned, but rather encased in love.  If we were to deepen our spirituality, often out of desperation, we wrestle at first with feeling imprisoned in the daily discipline of practice.  Daily mediation is to let go of worldly self-interest and discover that we can die to the world focus and live encased in love.  How might this be lived out?  In service to others, especially when our feelings don’t want to be of service.  “What can I do for others,” becomes more of a focus, than “what can I get out of this.” 

The Focus

The focus that we have when we go into a meeting or receive Holy Communion is what can change us.  If you go into a recovery meeting with the attitude, “What can I get out of this?” Then it is more about you.  If you receive Holy Communion with the attitude of feeling better, or an opportunity to ask God, “Here is what I want or need,” then it is all about you.  Why not go into these experiences with the question, “God what can I do for you?”  Or “What can I bring to this meeting?”  The growth comes with getting out of self.  

Service

 If you are inclined to pride, glamour, fame, and have an inflated opinion of yourself, then being of service to others can bring you into a better balance.  Being of service to others can bring us to humility.  For one, it might not bear fruit as you had hoped or expected.  But it might deflate you sufficiently so you don’t think you are better than.  It is very difficult to feel part of something if you see yourself as better than or above others.  It is why service is expected of someone in addiction recovery and of someone who says they follow the Bible or follow Jesus.  I suspect you will see it as part of any spiritual path.  

Gimme

 There are prayers and then there are prayers.  There is the “gimme” prayer, as in “God give me this or that.”  It is a lot of focus on my agenda, what I want. God is the fix it God, who does the heavy lifting so my agenda gets accomplished.  But what if I am being selfish, or asking what is not good for me?  Anyhow, this prayer with such an attitude is not very productive in our gimme favor.  So I like to think that a prayer, “What can I do for you, God?” Might get me out of my own way.  

Winks

 It is called a “God wink.”  Things happen, or take place that people might call a “coincidence.”  But many people who pursue a spiritual practice, know that it is God, Higher Power, at work.  It is not hearing voices or having wow moments or a deep meditation, but rather just a quiet “Oh,” I got the wink.  Someone is in charge and it is not me.  A moment for gratitude.  

Prayer For Change

Do you pray for someone to stop doing some addictive, bad habit?  But they don’t?  Did God abandon the situation?  No.  Maybe the prayer needs to be that the person first experience the depth of pain that will bring them to seek help to change their addictive life.  In some circles, it is called a spiritual bottom.  In their darkness, there is a light.  But they might not know where to go for help.  So, along with your prayer that they might survive their bottom, have a phone number or place that can help.  Few people stop bad behavior for the sake of others.  OK.  Maybe, but it will be temporary.  They are too selfish.   They stop when it hurts themself too much.  

Obsession

 There are physical obsessions.  The body is obsessed with getting something.  We think we can overcome the obsession simply by not indulging in it.  The body does not get what it wants.  But it does not work.  Why?  Because the obsession is of the mind.  Until you decide to do the addictive action, you will refrain.  It is the mind that has to be worked on.  The mind decides.  The mind says it will be ok this time to do what destroys the body.  Recovery, any spiritual practice works on the mind, the decision process.  Think of vertigo.  You stand on a cliff or high place and the mind tells you to jump.  The body knows better but the mind has the power.  You cannot work on becoming more spiritual until the decision process is transformed.  That is why recovering people are told to go to meetings.  Don’t wait until you feel like it.  

Solutions

 People make big, life changing decisions, in order to solves their problems.  You could marry the right person, but for the wrong reasons.  You could make a geographic move, quit a job and take a new one, become an exerciser, all to solve some issue in your life that bothers you.  So now you are married, living in a new town, with a new job, and jogging.  But you are not yet happy, fulfilled, serene.  A good reason to have sober friends, balanced friends, mature friends, is that they will tell you truth you cannot see or do not want to hear.  Unfortunately most people who make bad life decisions lack such friends or the trust in them needed to actually hear a second opinion.  

Pouring

 “Pouring” is a good metaphor for conversion or change of life from chaos to serenity and usefulness.  A drunk pours too many drinks into their body.  Someone with little spiritual life practice, decides to work on this lack thereof.  Neither the drunk nor the spiritual seeker will get anywhere unless they “pour” themself into recovery and/or spiritual practice.  Religion like recovery is dry unless one pours themself into it.  I have met a lot of “use to be” people.  They use to go to recovery meetings or religious practice. They use to meditate.  They are spiritually “dry.”  Eventually, sooner or later, their old mismanaged life will come back and be worse.  As a priest, I must pour myself into prayer, otherwise I am just a bachelor.  

The Darkness

 Whenever life seems to be full of darkness, I like to be around people of hope.  Darkness otherwise seems like, well, just dark and hopeless. But I am reminded that flowers grow in the dark.  Just because we cannot see it, does not mean there is not growth.  And when we come into the light, then we will see.  Hope is the light.  

Judgments

We tend to judge people or label them according to our own emotions.  If I am a fear based person, for instance, then a lot of people would be judged by my reaction to them.  If I am frightened by them, even though I don’t know them, they must be bad people.  A lot of prejudice might be fear based.  I remember long ago walking into a meeting of people I did not know personally, but who had “problems” that brought them there.  I had fear, though I did not know it at the time.  I judged them weird, or crazy and was quite uncomfortable.  But for whatever reason I went back and back again.  In time they became wonderful people, quite enlightened, I discovered.  What changed?  Me.  I dropped my fears.   

All Saints

 Today, in my spiritual tradition of the Catholic Church, we celebrate “All Saints Day.”  It is the day that I can honor all those people who I think are saints.  This would include my Mom, Margaret, my Dad, Bernard, and my Big Sis, Maureen.  They were saints for me and have passed on into the next stage of life.  In a Recovery Program it might have been your deceased sponsor who put up with you in your own recovery.  Today we thank our saints for their good example.  Many people in my tradition are recognized as saints by my Church.  I broaden the base with my own added list.  You can do that too.  

Doing Its Job

 If the past has been a mess, due to your own actions, then it has done its job.  It does a great job if it brings you to your rock bottom, where you know it is either death or a new life.  You might not know what the new life is, but the past has taught you that the old life is disaster and ruin.  So you take a leap into the unknown, in part out of faith but mostly out of hope.  If your past is full of addiction, then you find a recovery group on a path that gives you hope.  They once were as you are now.  Follow them.  In Christianity, Jesus said. “Follow me.”  If the past has been a good enough teacher, you don’t have to keep living it.  Just follow those who have found a way out of their mess.  Happy Halloween!

The Dust

 Good intentions are like dust if we have no depth to a spiritual life.  Meditation is the firm foundation, like being upon rock.  In my Church that would include the sacraments and worship along with my meditation.  In a Program of Recovery it would be the Steps, Traditions and Concepts that build a firm foundation.  People have good intentions after a hangover or some bad action, that they know is wrong.  But then there is no working on the heart, no connection with others on the solid path to recovery.  People often know what to do but lack the power to do it.  Dust in the wind.  

The Bronx

 I go about San Francisco doing “supply” work.  That is, I help out here and there at various parishes without living there.  I am sort of a now and again presence, forgettable.  I accept this as I am still trying to be of service.  But when I get really excited in a homily, I tend to go into my Bronx accent.  San Francisco people know this accept from movies and tv stuff.  Gangsters, street people, young uneducated types and so on with the stereotypes.  So when they hear the Bronx accept suddenly pop up in a homily, they probably think me dreadful and tell the pastor to not invite me again.  And maybe they don’t listen.  So I might be a complete failure but I am still glad I grew up in the Bronx and went to Fordham College in the Bronx.  God’s primary language may be silence as I have often said.  But God’s second language may be “Bronx.”  

Hate Or Love

 You can never hate your true self but you can hate your false self.  The false self is what you built up to impress, or to follow some image/lifestyle you read about.  Eventually, you will not much like this self.  Addiction is one way to forget that you dislike this person you have manufactured.  You probably have few friends by then because people want to be love and accepted.  And if you don’t love or respect yourself then you won’t have it for others.  Recovery is about changing yourself to find your true self.  Recovery has steps since you don’t know the way to finding your true self.  If I want to know how I am practicing my religion I can simply ask myself how many people I hate, dislike, judge or ignore?  

The Message

 In any spiritual reading we must embrace the message before it will change us.  Many believe that God loves them and loves everyone.  But saying it is one thing.  Believing it is another, but neither change you until you embrace the message.  Meditation is what builds relationship into our depth.  What is the significance of these words or facts in our own life?  It is the same with tenants of recovery.  Lots of wisdom but without meditation and then practice, it is just information and intellectual belief.  That is why people in recovery are supposed to help others after they have sobered up.  Religious belief and recovery are not all about ourself.  

Informed Not Reformed

I meet people who know about religion or recovery.  They read and may even memorize.  They are informed.  But that in itself does not lead automatically to being reformed.  Reform, change, is what religion and recovery is all about.  I read a lot of things that I quickly forget, unless I put them into practice.  A good idea is just that until I try it on myself.  Meditation is crucial as a follow up on reading.  It allows what informs me to go deeper into my heart where change is needed.  

The Past

 After you have cleaned up your past, be that necessary, then try to leave the past in the past.  You don’t have to keep reliving it.  This is the messy part of your past, not the good memories or friends.  I still find people who I knew in my messy past, who keep bringing up the old stories.  I don’t respond to this.  I don’t live in that past.  And I don’t spend a lot of time with such people.  I want to live in the now.  A spiritual path helps me to stay in the present.  God does not live in my past so why should I?

Continuity

 Stick to your path.  If you are going to meditate, then do it every day.  Ultimately, all we can control is our continuity, our daily practice.  My running coach preaches consistency.  Run on a regular basis.  Don’t worry about any one run, slow/fast, easy/difficult.  Just show up and run.  Wanting to run does not matter.  If I only ran when I wanted to run or meditated only when I felt like it, or “needed” it, I would get nowhere.  Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins.  This I know from personal experience.  

The Giving

 You might say, looking at your money, or lack thereof, “I have nothing to give” to those in need.  Well, that is from your pocketbook.  But there is another source from which we can give, and that is the heart.  If you can develop a generous interior spirit then you can give from your storeroom of kindness, hospitality and compassion.  Even giving someone a hello or a smile or asking how they are doing is a “giving.”  People are starving for connection in the midst of their loneliness.  So work the spiritual path that fills your heart.  

Willingness

 Willingness and willpower are not the same.  Willpower accedes to the demands of the ego.  OK, but that does little good for the heart’s desires.  Such requires a surrender and this is where willingness comes into play.  Willpower says I will surrender, but that will get you nowhere.  Well frustrated, but that is about it.  You become willing to surrender, maybe out of a deep mess, whatever, and then you wait for some Power that is not you, to take you on the journey of surrender.  Silence and solitude will show up somewhere along the way because the heart feeds on both.  So pray for willingness.  

Becoming Ourself

 Who we are is not the same as what we do.  Doing does not verify our identity.  Who we are is a given.  It is given to us.  Grow silent in meditation, or however you quiet your inner self, your anxious heart, and receive the gift of yourself.  Distractions, striving, consumption create labels that cover up who you really are.  They leave us feeling restless.  Sometimes irritable, and ultimately discontented.  We receive in silent prayer who we are, as a gift, a discovery each day.  Busyness disguises it, but cannot crush it.  We are eternal.  

Distractions

 Distractions numb us to our inner longing.  We consume, experience, entertain, exercise and these can all be good, until they numb us to our inner longing.  Setting priorities helps us to keep the balance.  I believe that our deepest connection/experience of God, the Divine, is silence rather than nature.  Before the universe there was silence.  But not emptiness.  Whenever you meditate and feel alone, that is just an opinion.  Go deeper, or allow yourself to be taken deeper into the silence and you will get a second opinion or rather you will get Truth.  

Courage

 When someone prays for the “courage to change the things they can,” one of those things is our inner longing.  Once we discover we have such a longing, it takes courage to act on it.  Silence, solitude, meditation, however we do it, acts on behalf of that longing.  Little support will come from anywhere else to do this, so it helps to have some community, some fellowship that supports your efforts at “prayer.”  Sometimes you may feel that you are going upstream against the culture and this takes courage to keep going.  And if you lack courage at times, discontent will be your wake-up call.  

Change

 I remember when I thought life was about change of things in the outside world.  I was upset with people, places, things, from time to time and my solution was to change them or avoid something.  But I had very little success and so I stayed disturbed.  Then through some fortunate circumstances, that is the wisdom of others, I learned that what had to change was me.  I was powerless over the outside stuff, but could work on the inside stuff.  But I could not do it alone.  I needed mentors and meditation which meant I needed God.  The prayer had to change from, “God fix things (out there),” to fix me.  So now whenever I am disturbed, I know something is the matter with me.  When I am spiritually fit, the same outside stuff that would bother me at other times, does not bother me now.  I started to grow up!

Peace

 Peace does not mean no strife.  One can drink or drug themself into “no strife.”  But that is not peace.  People who meditate to be peaceful might simply be all about themself.  Rather, think of peace as acceptance, as a surrender to that which is.  One can be peaceful with a busy, thought-filled meditation because they accept that this is what is at the moment.  You might feel better at the time of your meditation, but that will soon leave you as you enter into your more active day with no acceptance.  Meditation is not about control.  It is about growing up.  

Past

Just because you had a bad past, does not mean you are a bad person now.  I am a good priest with a bad past.  There was life before priesthood, and it was chaotic.  The past can stay past.  A spiritual program, something that feeds your insides, your heart, will keep the past, if chaotic, in the past.  We cannot change what happened, but we don’t have to wallow in shame and guilt about it.  We each have today.  So God must have a plan.  Spiritual practice tries to make my plan aline with God’s plan.  Some days are better than others.  We are not saints.  Well, at least I am not.  

The Plan

When I graduated from Fordham College in 1965, I had no plan.  There was nothing I really wanted to do.  Not even go to graduate school.  For what?  But I had to do something because, well, that is what you did after college…something that looks like a career.  My heart was not really into it.  Well, if the heart is not into a work, it will go into something else.  I liked to party.  That is not a good career move.  It is costly, not only in what you lose, but in what it costs.  Now, I go to bed at 8:00 PM and get up in the wee hours of the morning, exercise/pray/work.  What happened to the party guy?  He decided to live.  Now that is a plan.  

Beginnings

 If I say, “Today is a new beginning!” It will not be a real new beginning unless a past “new beginning” comes to an end.  I can make resolutions, but they bear no fruits or little fruit, if I do not let go of the past, which at one time was a new beginning.  I cannot start one thing while still doing another.  It would be like an alcoholic who said they would get into recovery, a new beginning, while still drinking.  Or starting a fitness program while still smoking.  Or getting into a relationship with a new person while still in relationship with someone from your past.  The past is never past until we surrender it.  

The Last Time

 I hear some alcoholics whine about life not being any fun after they stopped drinking.  I try to remind them that they are still alive after their last drunk.  Every alcoholic has a last drunk, but not every one of them lives to whine about it.  When I am going through a patch of a bad day, I try to remind myself that today is a gift and whining was not the purpose of the gift.  

The Poor

 You don’t want to work with or for the poor?  They just stay poor anyway, you think and that is frustrating for your desire for change in the economic system.  Well, you are not God.  But if you can work with the poor out of love, then they may stay poor, but they are poor being loved instead of ignored.  Loneliness is a poverty too, a poverty of soul.  Talking to someone living “rough” on the streets, may not change their living on the streets, but it might change, for the moment, their sense of isolation.  Talking to a newcomer alcoholic might not make them sober, but it might give them a sense of connection.  

Abundance

 Ever feel like your day is empty?  “I got plenty of nothin” is the refrain.  Well, I have found that giving myself in service to others can fill me with abundance.  Abundance of what?  Abundance of companions and connection.  A fellowship is never scarce.  Being all about me is quite lonely.  

Slavery

 Mother Theresa of Calcutta said that work without love is slavery.  I try to keep this in mind when I have some obligation to do, such as go help someone out in my church work.  Am I whining?  Then it is slavery and that is demoralizing.  So I try to put some love into the effort and if I cannot conjure it up myself I ask God to put love into my heart.  Of course, my heart may be full of selfishness and “all about me” stuff, so it can get crowded in there.  I do a daily inventory to see what needs to be tossed out and if I lack the power to do it, God provides the energy.  

Belief

 Some people say, “I do not believe in God.”  But often this is not so much a thought out process, as it is a way to avoid something that requires work.  It is the same with people who do say, “I believe in God.”  Both can be cheap statements, that is, neither one can require much work.  God cannot be had cheaply.  Some don’t believe because it would be costly in time and talent.  Belief to be real requires that you give your all.  “I believe” and do nothing, is no real belief.  To not believe can also be a cheap way out.  Time and effort is costly.  What effort?  Well, the corporal works of mercy, or working on avoiding the seven deadly sins would be work.  I hear some people say how hard it is to just do a few minutes of meditation each day.  God belief is more full-time than that.  

Options

 It can be a good thing to run out of options.  Too many options and you can end up choosing nothing, or choosing something but not “with your whole heart.”  When a drunk runs out of options, cannot stop drinking on their own, this is a bottom for them.  They have run out of options.  If hey enter a recovery process of some sort, such as AA, they just might embrace it with their whole heart and find ongoing sobriety.  People who “try things out,” generally don’t stick to it.  The whole heart is what makes an option a true choice.  

Self-Punishment

 One of the reasons that someone tries to reform their life for their own betterment is because they want to become a friend to themself.  Their addiction to bad behavior has harmed them as well as others.  I like to think that becoming a friend to oneself can be energizing for someone who knows they need to change.  I can apologize to me for causing myself a bad day, but then how am I going to amend my life to make tomorrow better for me.  The spiritual way of becoming friends with oneself avoids self-centeredness.  This is the only true way to change.  It is an inside job that will bear fruit on the outside eventually.  

Old Tapes

 Do you ever judge people by what they used to be like?  They might have changed, but you will have none of it because you live in your past, not their past? At times people repent after their life has gone really bad.  Selfishly, they want to feel better, so they find some spiritual and practical action path to change.  But eventually,  they decide to go tell someone, “I am sorry,” or “I apologize,” or something that admits to the mess they made of the relationship.  They do this as part of their action so as not to fall back into their old way of life and subsequent behavior.  The victim hears the apology but keeps the same judgment about the “reformer.” The victim lives in the past.  They cannot see a changed person, but only the person as they knew them in the past.  Living in the past makes one a double victim.  Forgiveness is a lot more uplifting than resentment.  

St. Francis

 In my blog yesterday, October 4, I spoke about talking to the flowers and trees.  October 4 is also the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.  He spoke to the plants and the celestial orbs.  Some people thought him crazy.  He was overflowing with love for all.  And not just all people.  The St. Francis Prayer is the one used in AA as their 11th Step prayer.  It is a beautiful prayer that challenges us to be a positive upbeat force and not negative, dragging others down with us into a dark, lonely and isolated abyss.  

All Creation

In Christian Circles, at the end of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, Risen, asks his disciples to proclaim the Good News to “All Creation.” So this would include flowers, plants and trees, if not your pets.  Include pets.  So when you pass by a flower or a garden or a field of growing food, say hi, and tell them the Good News you have discovered today.  Recovery people have their big book, which they are supposed to be reading and Christian’s have their bible.  Every path has some spiritual literature of good news.  So I talk to the flowers that are blooming in San Francisco.  If I have nothing good to say, it is not the flowers fault, but my need to work on my spiritual life.   

The Purpose

 The monastic life is never chosen for itself.  It is chosen as a conversion process.  The techniques and discipline is for the conversion, to live more deeply in the Spirit of Christ.  It requires a contemplative path.  The monastic life is a vehicle to help take the monk somewhere.  The vehicle is not the goal or the life.  Recovery is not chosen for itself.  It too is a conversion process.  That is why people in recovery practice the steps, go to meetings, help out.  Recovery is not a life.  It is a vehicle to take one to a new way of living, free of addiction.  To just stop drinking is not a conversion process.  It is a dry drunk.  And that is hell.  

A New Value System

 What might be the results of this “inner transformation” that comes with a contemplative way of life?  Values change.  The secular value of success, prestige, acquisition and esteem for instance, begin to be de-valued by the contemplative.  Outside stuff loses its interest.  People don’t choose a simplicity of life, or “poverty” for that matter because they want to have little or nothing.  They simply lose interest in acquisition and “things” for things sake.  A monk who chooses poverty but has no contemplative life, will be a rather unhappy monk.  So practice the prayer first and let the de-valuation process follow more naturally.  

Hospitality

Contemplative prayer is about hospitality.  You become an expectant watcher, focused to become hospitable for the Presence, the experience of God’s dwelling in the true self center of our heart.  God is hidden within.  We cannot “Make” God happen in our experience.  God decides.  We wait.  Become like a good waiter, ready for the call, the invite to come closer, to be of service but not in control.   

Deep Root

 Contemplative Prayer is to help us to get to the deep root within that fosters and strengthens a religious commitment.  Someone might say, “I am in Recovery.”  Well, that is a commitment, but many drop out.  Why?  No commitment deep enough, spiritual, to hold them to their commitment.  No meditation.  I am a Catholic.  Any reform that simply changes the rules and practices, or rearranges institutional structures will not hold me.  Many people dropped out when all that took place.  A contemplative life is what will hold me to being a Catholic.  Why?  Because it is not about feeling good, which would be all about me in a subtle way.  Some people like a mass to be a certain way or language because it makes them feel good.  It is not about feeling good in recovery or in church.  It is about deep inner change.  This will hold our commitment.  

Thinking Prayer

 Some people have the sense that prayer is “thinking about God.”  Prayer ultimately begins to change us when we pray as “resting in the presence of God.”  Vocal prayer with all its images and ideas can end up in Illusion and self-absorption.  So what is vocal prayer for?  It is to lead us into resting in the Presence, beyond our images, words and thoughts.  So at some point in your prayer time you stop talking to and thinking about, and just be.  God can do the heavy lifting from there.  Changing you is heavy lifting!

The Searching Way

 The contemplative search is not just a practice or something we do on some timed basis.  It is a way of life.  Saying, “contemplative prayer is a good thing to do, when I have time,” is not a way of life.  A way of life blends in with the gift of each day.  You pray in this manner of silence, solitude and stillness.  You might walk about some in nature, silent and alone, but you are still within, not filled with commotion, plans, or regrets.  And not fantasy.  It is what you do, like eating, bathing and breathing.  The search takes you ever deeper into the previously unknown.  

Awareness

 Contemplation is often thought to be about awareness.  It is not awareness that we can put into words, but we can put it into action outside of the meditation time.  If someone wants to know about this word “contemplation” I tell them that I cannot explain it but I can show them how to meditate.  Awareness is unique to each individual because the awareness comes from some Power, Energy, Source, that becomes apparent in my solitude, silence and stillness.  This Power, God if you will, can peek through nature, created things, but that will not change me for the better.  The awareness comes in the contemplative moment, out of my control, and that is the Source of my becoming my best self.  

Solitude

 Our interior solitude that can develop with meditation practice is a way to forget this false self that seems to guide us along into the mess of our life.  Interior solitude touches and activates a deeper energy that can course through us so we can act in a more loving way.  This deep energy, this spark, is the only thing of value to give someone in love.  Too many times when we say, “I love you,” we mean that you give me something that makes me feel better.  And so when I stop feeling better I will move on to someone else that will give me good feelings.  This is consumer love.  It is an illusion.  

The No Thing

 What is the value of getting to the center of our being?  Well, it has been said that the center is no thing, not an object like flesh or an apple for that matter.  No thing is nothing, yet it exists as our center.  The value of it being no thing is that it cannot be held by illusion or the damages we do ourself in our fears and selfish resentments.  So it has the purity of our very conception into life.  It is that space, power, that can hold the infinite, the spark of our very real self.  Meditation helps this spark to flow through us.  We recover our very being.  

Ourself

 In meditation we are always ourself.  We don’t become someone else simply because we are sitting in silence and stillness.  But we do reveal to ourself deeper levels through this sitting in silent meditation.  We are gradually reaching down, or being taken down into our essence that remains unaware to our thoughts and actions.  As we touch deeper levels of our true self, essence, we will begin, outside of these silent times, to live as a better self.  Thus we begin to share our meditation experience with others in our more active life.  Everyone benefits by our taking time away from everyone.  

The Mirror

 Parents are the first mirror for their infant child. The child begins to know itself from how the parents act, speak, are present to the child.  Self-value can begin to develop.  Likewise, a newcomer to recovery or to a church will perceive themself from signals given by those already in the room or worship space.  If ignored, the newcomer sees themself as low value, an outsider and intrusion and so on.  Welcoming is important.  This is why Recovery meetings are focused on the newcomer.  By showing care and concern and friendship, the “old-timers” allow the newcomer to see value in themself.  The newcomer arrives with very low self-esteem.  They need new mirrors.  I always try to welcome the visitor or newcomer in church and other groups to which I belong.  

An Identity

 Next Friday, my church in Boulder, Sacred heart Of Jesus, will have an Octoberfest.  It is a way to build community.  How? Everyone is invited to come, no charge to show up.  The food will be prepared by some of the community.  It will be shared by all.  You simply buy a ticket to eat the common food.  You sit at big tables rather than small tables where you might be just with a couple of people you know.  Everyone, eating the same food, has something to talk about, the food, prepared by others.  The money from the tickets go to a common cause, including the Octoberfest costs.  If you go to a concert, on the hill, you bring your own food and eat with people you already know.  The music does not get you to know anyone else, new.  Potluck gatherings after church are meant to build community by sharing foods.  The Eucharist does the same thing.  Who knows what you listened to in a meeting or a sermon or the Bible reading.  People space out on my sermons.  But eating is a common experience.  Jesus was pretty smart when he told people to remember him when they ate at the Last Supper.  

Doable

Some of us get upset if we cannot do our specific time frame for a meditation.  We discipline ourself to do say, thirty minutes of meditation.  But then comes the time when for whatever reason, we don’t have our precious thirty minutes.  We get all upset at the “chaos” of the day.  I resolved this by simply praying “doable” minutes.  I do what I can do rather than complain about what I cannot do.  God can adjust.  I am learning to let go of my plans, my program for happiness that day.  I become less selfish and self-centered.  So just do whatever doable minutes you have.  Let go and let God, as the saying goes.  

A Good Meditation

 We too often think of a good meditation as one that has some experience, some good feeling of peace and contentment to it.  But that is pretty much all about me.  Meditation is relationship with Ultimate Reality, God, Power and we are not in control of that.  A good meditation is meant to bring us to humility rather than the desired want for power, honor, and privilege that is associated with our secular culture.  So I just show up with no expectations.  “Good thoughts” are of no particular interest to me.  Feeling good can come or go.  And methods are not magic.  I don’t pay attention to my mind of passing thoughts, or my feelings that come and go.  All this is transient.  The Power will give me what I need as I need it.  How will I know?  I will live a less selfish day.  I will have more compassion.  I will be of service to others without resentment.  

Boulder

 I am in Boulder, Colorado, my home for many a year.  It is Saturday and I will teach as I do each time I am here.  Sunday, I will preside and preach at the 8:00 AM Mass here at Sacred Heart of Jesus Church.  I will see many familiar faces, but hope that someone finds me that I have not seen in a long time, for whom I have been helpful for reasons that even I do not know.  We frequently forget to tell people the good they were in our life at the time, but seem to be able to do it many years later when we run into one another.  The effect goes deeper and thus more lasting with time.  There is a funeral on Monday for Bill Eck, a Bolder Boulder competitor for many a year, among other things.  Like me he wore his running shoes to church.  Funerals are where we see people we have not seen in a long time.  A timely moment to appreciate the living while we are still alive.  

Houston

 When I was first ordained I worked in a parish in Houston, Texas, Aldine, to be more specific.  I was pretty clueless about being a priest, but ignorant of even that truth.  So I did a lot of stuff, trying this and that.  I woke up one morning recently and realized that I am not just an aging priest, but that I have left lasting memories, good ones, in the minds of many young people in that parish.  They are now parents of grown children and maybe even Grand-Parents by now.  But they remember my name and something I did.  Even I don’t remember stuff I did, but they do.  Grace is everywhere.  Never underestimate the impact you are having on someone that is unforgettable and good.  

The Garbage Can

 My first memory of the outside material world was not until I was 4 years old.  Until then, I lived in the spiritual, interior world, without images or change.  I lived in the eternal.  The first memory was of a garbage can under our sink while my mother washed up the dirty dishes.  The material world we value is passing and becomes obsolete sooner or later.  And clean things become dirty. They must be cleaned over and over including the material body.  And all wear out in time.  The interior world is eternal, unchanging, and very real.  Somehow, I have never lost that though I have let the material world tempt me away.  I need to be fed each day with the silence, the stillness, the darkness that is the light.  And do the dishes.  

The Disguise

 Spiritual hunger can wear many disguises.  One disguise is addiction.  Some say addiction is all about fear based life and this can be documented.  But it is also about disguising a spiritual hunger of the lonely, unfulfilled soul.  It is ironic that so many people come into and stay in recovery programs as atheists or agnostics.  Yet, eventually, without a change in any religious perspective, they begin to pray and meditate.  Why?  They have discovered their spiritual hunger which the addiction could not quench.  

Whose Job?

 In a spiritual practice we realize that it is God’s job to run our life.  Why is this so important?  Well, if we don’t have any spiritual practice we tend to let feelings run our life.  That takes away God’s job.  Why do that?  Some people would rather be on the roller coaster of emotions, than to let themselves have any Power or God run their life.  

New Information

 When people come into recovery programs such as AA they hear a lot about drinking too much.  They already know that they drink too much.  That is why they are in the meeting in the first place.  They cannot stop drinking.  What they do not know when they come into the meetings is that their whole life has become unmanageable.  Turns out this is the second part of the first of twelves recovery steps.  Sometimes our perceived problem is only a tip of the iceberg of our difficulties.  This is why we have to get the advice of others who are more advanced.  

The Insight

 I met a woman who related to me two feelings she had.  She was an alcoholic by her own omission.  One feeling is that she felt terribly lonely.  The second feeling is that she felt she was no good.  The second might be more of a judgment as well.  She drank over both of these issues.  She does not drink now, but the feelings can still come up.  Drinking can be arrested in recovery, but feelings cannot be so easily roped in.  A spiritual practice helps us deal with these feelings rather than act on them in some negative way.  Prayer gives us power to accept a feeling and respond to it in an appropriate way.  It is called growing up.  

Pain

 There is pain and then there is pain.  We can have a choice.  Pain one is affliction as in the pain of drinking too much.  Then there is the pain of a discipline, such as a spiritual practice.  Fasting can be part of a spiritual practice.  It can feel painful in the discipline of not eating something you really don’t need anyway such as sugar or bread.  But it is for a better purpose to fast in such as instance.  You can read something slowly or quickly in a spiritual book, or recovery book.  Quickly, you can say you did it, check it off.  But slowly is more painful because you have to pause and let some of what you read sink in.  It is reading with discipline and it might take a lifetime to read the book, but a lifetime changed by the reading.  

What Is The Rush?

 Lately, I let my body wake me rather than the alarm clock.  I generally don’t have to schedule really early morning things.  I am aware, though, of how I can push myself into some mental, emotional schedule that I think is fear based.  If I don’t get up at a certain time, someone will steal our newspaper.  If I don’t go out and run in the early dark, go to the gym, I will be unhealthy and die.  If this or that does not work I have an episode.  And so on.  Where is God in all this?  Bemused, I suspect.  I am trying to be present to the stillness and quiet of the early morning.  This is a gift to me.  Just let God be.  No fear.  

Doorknobs

 Beware of judging atheists.  I remember when one said to me they did not believe in a god. Their god was a doorknob.  I thought that was kind of silly, but then again I witnessed this unbeliever growing into a mature person, being of service to others, not judgmental or resentful of life as it unfolded in people, place and situations.  A whole new life seemed to be opened to this person by their doorknob god.  Then again, doorknobs open doors.  The person found a power that opened a door to a whole new life.  It challenged me, a believer, to look at how I am growing…or not.  

Together And Different

 Two people are sitting in a meeting or group gathering of some sort.  Someone else is talking.  One of them hears the voice of the speaker.  The other listens.  That is a big difference.  Hearing with the ears might give you some information but if your mind is “elsewhere” then the info has no place to nest.  Or you might nest the information yet not be changed in any way by it.  When one listens it is with the heart.  They make use of what they hear.  No judgment because when the heart listens it is for the listener to be open to growth, change, challenge by what they hear.  I can hear a sermon and leave unchanged or I can listen and be touched deeply enough to challenge myself to grow.  I try to read spiritual literature the same way.  

Belonging

 I used to try and make myself feel that I belong.  It was not about actually belonging, but feeling I belong.  The reality often was that I in fact did not belong, but that did not get into my psyche.  If I walked into a room with a lot of people, I might feel I did not belong.  Instead of saying OK and leaving, I would do silly stuff to make myself believe that now I did belong in the room.  The reason I might continue to go to bad-fitting places was because I was not fitting into myself.  Without a spiritual practice, I was an alien to me, my inner self, truer self.  Now I tend to ask myself why I might even think of going to someplace.  To explore something new might be ok, but to try and be someone I am not is a losing situation.  

The Second Drink

 Is the second drink of alcohol for physical reasons, like thirst?  Thirst requires water, not alcohol.  I never remember drinking the second drink for thirst.  I might be thirsty for a beer or want a glass of wine at dinner to complement the food.  But the second of any of this was not to feed the body but to feed the soul.  Alcohol never feeds the soul, the interior spirit with the second glass or bottle or can.  That interior self thirsts and it is only a spiritual practice that can attend to such a thirst.  At least I have found it so.  

Phyllis

Life is at times is so interconnected, and these connections are reminders of my past.  Her name is Phyllis and she follows my blogs some.  Anyhow, I met her during my two years in Chicago.  I think we worked for the same company.  I moved to San Francisco and who do I see working for my next company?  Phyllis.  And she remembered that I had a piano, though I did not play the piano, ever.  It was an impulse buy and I had it for two years, but it was not going to the seminary with me.  I sold it. It was a $500 impulse buy in 1970, a lot of money.  I was not much of a saver in those days.  Though I made thousands of dollars in those five years of working, I had about $300 to my name when I left San Francisco for the seminary back East.  These long time connections, like Phyllis, who is now moving to Colorado, and maybe even Boulder, where I work at times, is a reminder of the chaos of my life at one time.  I am filled with gratitude that I survived.   Thank you Phyllis.  

The Question

People often ask themself, “What do I want to get out of life?”  Or, “What do I want out of life?”  I think maybe a bit change in words can help to answer this.  “What do I put into life?”  It is the giving, the service, the emotional uplift that we give, that helps us get “something out of life,” that is quite worth having.  We seem to get in proportion to what we give.  Lately, I go around to different parishes helping out with sacraments when the pastor is away or has too many commitments at any one time.  I seem to get a lot out of this.  It is ‘meaningful” as one might say.  I don’t sit around being “retired” whatever that might mean.  And I learn a lot about how to get around San Francisco beyond my neighborhood.  Sometimes I just explore on the way home from doing some work.  It all fits into my life.  Maybe I will become my own GPS.   

The Talent

 If you don’t do well in academia, that does not mean you have no talent.  It means you have no vocation for the classroom.  A gift is never developed in a classroom, except maybe the gift for being a good college learner.  You might learn a skill like computer technology or in a blue collar trade you might learn plumbing or electricity.  A gift is discovered once you get the chance to exhibit or need it.  John Vianney was a French priest.  He was a terrible student in the seminary.  Latin was too difficult.  He was poor and thus poorly educated before the seminary.  He barely got ordained and then put into a very small nowhere parish in France.  Good riddance to this dummy!  Except, he discovered a gift for hearing confessions, reading hearts and making suggestions for the sinners.  Trains packed with people began to come to this nowhere place.  His gift would never appear in the seminary.  He could not yet hear confessions as he was not yet ordained.  So you may have yet an undiscovered gift or a discovered one that asks to be used for the betterment of those around you.  I was a mediocre student all through school.  I had no vocation to be a seminarian.  I use very little of what I learned there today in my vocation.  And unlike computer technology, it never goes obsolete.  

Money

 The Bible does not say that money is evil.  Lots of good things can be done with money, good things for people who don’t have money.  The root of evil and class distinction is more about the love of money, rather than money itself.  If you are more talented than others in some field then money can be the reward.  The problem begins when you hoard it more than use it for good.  Savings is fine, but everything has a balance if one is to avoid avarice.  The craving for wealth is like the craving for alcohol.  A little is never enough.  Addiction comes in many varieties.  

Equality

 One of the things that I like about Christianity is that the Incarnation was for everyone.  The rich did not get more than the poor.  That is rare in a a class society like ours.  Holy Communion in the Catholic Church is for everyone equally.  The rich don’t get more Jesus than the poor.  Even in the days when the rich and the poor were seated separately in pews, they received the same Jesus in Holy Communion.  Religion can be the great equalizer when it comes to ritual.  That is one of the reasons I like the Catholic Church.  

Roman Holiday

 You might look at famous and rich people and say, “I wish I had what they have.  I would be so happy.”  Really?  See the 1954 movie, “Roman Holiday,” with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.  It got two academy awards and is very good.  Princess Anna has “everything” except the freedom to just do what she wants.  She cannot simply take a Roman holiday and do whatever meets her fancy.  Her days are all scheduled and watched by a multitude of entourage.  If you can spend a day just being free to enjoy this or that, you might be far richer than you think.  

Freedom

 You cannot be generous unless you are free.  If you are locked into, fettered to, “getting what is mine” or “getting all you can get,” then you are not free to ensure that everyone has something, a piece of whatever you think is “all yours.”  I find people go to recovery meetings to stay sober by attending and listening and maybe share in the meeting.  Then they leave.  They do not welcome the newcomer, or spend time asking others if they can be of some help.  They don’t giveaway the sobriety that they have.  Some people hoard more than they really need of things such as food.  They don’t care much for sharing with someone who might be as hungry as they were before they stuffed themself.  You see this at a social event where the food is “free.”  They just keep eating until there is no more of whatever they are eating.  They are prisoners of greed and selfishness.  Generosity, thinking of others is when you know you are free.  

Earthquake

Earthquakes are to wake us up to the reality that we are ultimately not in charge.  We might say, “Why did the Creator make this earth so precarious?”  Well, when you are so self-absorbed, or there is a major conflict, like a war, nothing draws us away from this as a “natural disaster.”  We don’t call it “unnatural,” because it is quite natural to this earth.  A tsunami, that wipes out a whole army on a sea-shore would get our attention.  It certainly stops the fighting for land, power, control and wealth.  The rich build near the sea or on mountain tops.  The view is great…until.  So I remember this in my meditation.  Control is an illusion.  I live in San Francisco.  I have been in one earthquake.  It stopped a lot of pettiness.  It stopped a Wold Series!   

The Race

 If we always view other people as competition, or judge them in a compare and contrast attitude to ourself, we will never see them as being the Presence of Christ, for Christians, Presence of Allah for Muslims and so on.  In recovery we can be so competitive as to miss the gift of others in the room.  “Thank God I am not as bad as that person,” and so on.  If I can get comfortable with myself, my good and not so good, through meditation, or talking it out with other confreres, I have a chance to see the gift of the other in my life.  

The Chair

 I was visiting with a mother of two young children.  They were under the age of 6.  It occurred to me that wherever the mother sat she could see what the children were doing.  She never sat with her back to the children.  If they were all at the table eating, she could sit and see them.  If they got up to go and play in another part of the room, she would change her seat.  Always the view.  God is like that.  We can be as little children, and God is always aware of us and available to clean up our mess if we are not able, while giving us a child-like free will to learn, grow, and yes, mess up.  God wants us to grow and is like a mother to us.  We have freedom, and yet God is aware.  Meditation is when I stop and become aware of God.  My chair of meditation, is so that I can become open to a view of God in the deeper part of my heart.  

The Magnolia

 After a several week visit to Colorado I arrived back in San Francisco and found the magnolia flower still blossoming on the tree outside my window.  I still see no brothers or sisters of this magnolia anywhere.  It is a singular flower, and it will continue to bloom for me to see.  I will be persistent too in whatever singular task I undertake here.  Just be me at my best.  Prayer helps.  

The Farmer

 Farmers live on optimism.  Otherwise they would not be farming.  There would be too much risk presented to them by naysayers.  I think it is a good attitude: optimism.  It can work well in spirituality, recovery, prayer.  We enter into a process such as meditation, and don’t see results we would like to see in the here and now.  The pessimistic person gives up.  I have heard many a person in a recovery program from alcoholism, for instance, say that they got “hope” at an early meeting.  Hope is the companion of optimism.  When I meditate, I have long term hope and optimism that this is the right thing to do, no matter what the here and now results are.  Of course, if you are an alcoholic, but you are optimistic that you can drink again, you are insane.  Get a second opinion.  

Place At Table

 When Jesus says take the lowest place at table it reminds me of meditation.  In meditation I have no expectations.  I don’t expect something good to happen to fatten my ego, like a “spiritual moment.”  I simply sit at the lowest place and wait.  Maybe the host, God, will invite me to a higher, closer spot to the host, God.  Maybe not. My job is to show up.  Prayer of this type is about the experience of union, presence, but I am not in charge of this.  So ultimately, meditation is very humbling.  People often say they are atheists because they do not experience anything when they tried meditation.  Either they are doing it wrong or there is no god.  So they give up.  

Joy

 Joy has become a radical act.  Many people decry the world situation.  There is drugs, trafficking, migration issues, intractable wars, worldliness focus on ME, polarization.  Well, joy in the face of this would be radical. But I have seen this joy in  the recovering alcoholic and drug addict.  They hit bottom, ran out of power to fix their life and turned to a Higher Power.  They have become radical people, and now they try to help others, which is different than decrying the state of the world but doing nothing locally.  This is a double action that gives me joy.  I see them happy within and then happy trying to share their joy with others who are where they once were, empty, scared and desperate.  

Matthew 13

 You think religion is irrelevant?  Well think again.  The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 13 is in the works.  What does it say?  “To them that have much, more will be given; while to those who have little, even that which they have shall be taken from them.”  Maybe the 1% rich are reading the Bible?  

Mending

 The word “remember” has a root meaning in “to mend” as in to sew something that has been torn or damaged.  Something in my life might have become torn.  The heart gets “torn” by a hurtful incident in our life.  The heart needs to be repaired, or sewn back together again.  It needs mending, but sometimes we tend to put off the mending just as we might put off sewing a button that has become loose or torn off.  It is not a matter of forgetting, for who can forget a broken or torn heart.  It is a matter of procrastination.  My prayer life is in part to keep me sewn together because daily life can pull me apart sometimes.  

The Child

 A child is often curious about new things.  A child is less demanding when it comes upon something new or puzzling.  Curiosity keeps the child engaged without demanding that something be labeled or identified.  A child realizes that it is a newcomer to what it does not know.  It examines, waits, maybe asks questions.  On my good days, I am child-like with God.  Each day is new for me.  Yesterday is over.  Meditation keeps me open to the now, the new, the unexpected.  

The Smoldering

 Moses came upon a burning bush.  It was the presence of God in the Bible.  Well, I think everywhere I am is the presence of God, Power, if only seeming to smolder and be unnoticed.  But if I can breathe the breath of silent meditation I have found that the smoldering does become a fire in my heart and energizes me to be my best during that day.  Then there become times as I am going about my day, and I come upon the realization that I am on holy ground, be it a nature scene, a grocery line, a meeting of friends, or just walking about.  

The Frequency

 Old car radios and old sound systems had to mess round with the dial to get the correct frequency.  Sometimes, a clear sound changes depending on where I am.  Well, God has a frequency that is rather consistent no matter where I am, or you are.  It is silence, the frequency of quiet.  God is always on that frequency.  Meditation tries to tune into it.  

The Past

 One of the ways to wallow in the past and skip the present is to stay with guilt feelings.  You are guilty for what you did.  Guilt does not change the past, nor does it energize you to act in the present.  Catholics go to confession to get rid of guilt, but it does not change the past.  An amendment is an action one can do in the present time.  Sometimes you need to make an amendment to yourself if you have done some self-harm.  Then do something that brings you some wholeness or repair.  People who slip in their addiction need action in the present time and if they have been in Recovery they know what that is.  The past is done.  Guilt just relives it and that is fantasy.  

As Yourself

 The saying goes, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  That is, remember to fill up your own strength so that you can help others.  You cannot give water from an empty tank.  So I try to do my meditation early and whatever other spiritual practice so that I am able to help my neighbor.  When I am cranky, I am not much good for helping others.  Putting off self-care does not do much for anyone else.  I have seen people do the right and helpful thing but from anger and resentment.  Who needs that?

Ignored

 I have found that one of the reasons that homeless people get into rants, shouting aloud to no one, is because they are not being noticed.  They long to be seen.  It is not just about ignoring their meds.  And they don’t want to be seen just so they can be threatened or told to go away or be quiet.  They rebel at direction because they are not first treated as a person who exists.  So I say “hello.”  No direction or instruction, just the normal thing one might say to a stranger in my path.  I have experienced the person suddenly stop shouting and begin to talk to me in a normal voice.  Now they may make no sense, speaking non sequitur, about one thing and then another.  So they might be insane but they feel recognized.  Eventually, they might ask for something and not always money.  Lots of people live alone in San Francisco apartments.  A simple hello can make more of a difference than you think.  

Speeding

 Do you find yourself living most of the time in the passing lane of life? Always in a hurry to get to the next whatever?  A monastery avoids this by having schedules for ordinary people who are not trying to accomplish multiple tasks in a day.  There is work and then it stops at a certain point, regardless of the status of the job.  Life can be about a steady pace, rather than a fast pace.  It depends on what you are trying to accomplish.  Meditation brings you into the right lane, the slower lane.  it gets in the way of accomplishing the next thing, but also frees you from becoming a slave to the “next” thing.  

The Journey

 Many people are on vacation this summer.  It is about going somewhere on an outer journey.  But many do not have a meditative life that allows them to be on an inner journey as well as the outer journey they are on.  And so, they fail to see deeply and thus fail to feed the heart at depth.  They come home maybe refreshed, but then daily life is just as they left it.  So make your summer travels both outward and inward.  You will see more than you expected.  You may see with the inner eye which no camera can capture.  It will show up in  your face.  Then the daily sameness will not be the same.  

Fantasy

 Fantasy is OK in the movies, but not in real daily life.  Why?  Well, fantasy is about what is not real, what is not actually present.  I am escaping my present circumstances.  This means that at the moment, I fail to see my spiritual connection with what is around me.  I may be in fantasy to avoid what is around me.  Boredom is often a failure to see more deeply.  Life is gift, not a drudgery to carry around.  Meditation helps me to see more deeply and become more connected with my surroundings. Fantasy just leads to loneliness.  

Secrets

 My God is one of Love.  Love is a great Power to heal.  If God were all about condemnation and judgment, I would not be doing very well.  Love, on the other hand, knows my secrets and bad habits, and forgives with compassion.  Why not just be a god of condemnation?  Because Love wants me to grow to be my best self.  If my God can forgive, then I can forgive myself.  Is this some easy way out?  No. Condemnation of myself fills me with shame and guilt.  I cannot grow with that emotional energy.  I might do the right thing at the moment out of shame and guilt but that would be all about fear.  A fear-based life goes nowhere good.  If I can love myself in my imperfections, then maybe I can love others in theirs too.  

Honesty

 Honesty is very important for me.  But it is more than just telling the truth to others.  It is telling the truth to myself.  I need to know on a daily basis who I am and who I am becoming.  Fantasy does not help.  It just passes time, which is limited for all of us.  To make sure I am telling my own truth, I sometimes need to check in with others who are also trying to be honest with themself  and in turn being honest with the rest of us.  Sometimes, I need to hear someone else talk about being selfish, or resentful, or simply whiny, to recognize it in me.  This way, I see a shortcoming and work honestly to be rid of its power at this time.  

Freedom

 We need freedom on the insides.  That is, we need to be free of feelings controlling our actions.  Loneliness for instance is predominant in our society with all the focus on individualism instead of community, life lived through the cell phone and internet, and a sense of separation due to perceived differences.  We can be surrounded by people, so we are not alone, but we can “feel” lonely.  So it is an inside thing rather than something going on the outsides.  The spiritual path is a way to know the emotion is here but not to let it attach itself to our actions or responses to the outside world.  Without a spiritual depth loneliness can lead to violence, anger, depression that could otherwise be avoided.  I might have a feeling of loneliness, but I recognize it and know the solution for me.  Early morning meditation helps to set me on a good path to deal with the surprises that come up later in the day, be they on the insides or outsides.  

Stability

 Why do people seem to like visiting and staying at monasteries as on a “retreat?”  Stability.  Monasteries have a routine that does not change.  It is to allow the monks to grow deeper into their spiritual life because they don’t have to spend a lot of energy on change.  Our life can be so estranged, with lots of change.  There is the physical moving from one place to another for job or lifestyle.  Marriage and children are a lot of change.  Getting a pet is change.  Monks generally don’t do pets.  We are wayfarers in life.  The monks are anchored in their rule.  No one says they want to go to a chaotic family situation or work environment.  That is not respite.  If you have a very stable life a vacation of change can be quite refreshing.  But if your life is chaos, try a monastery visit for a few nights.  

The Purpose

 Many people say that AA is about not drinking.  Actually, it is about growing up.  For the addict, not drinking is the first step.  After that the next 11 steps are about growing up.  It is about connectivity both on the outsides, in becoming part of a community and on the insides, in becoming part of a power waiting for you to show up.  It is a bit of getting out of isolation within and in the world. You don’t grow up with a focus on self-centered individualism.  Rather you grow up by doing for others without wanting a reward or recognition.  Parenting can do this.  You get married for love and learn to grow up into your best self, without as much “thank you” as you might like.  If I went to church so that I would feel better, I probably would have stopped long ago.  Life is not all about me.  

The Darkness

 Faith must live with darkness.  People will say, “I have seen the light!”  That can be an initial insight, or outsight as the case may be.  Everything becomes clear, relative to the clueless life previous.  But if this faith is to grow, it must encounter darkness, such as in meditation.  It requires trust as well as showing up to the practice.  The Light previous may have gotten you going, but the darkness is where you will grow from the insides.  Many an agnostic says they don’t know.  This is their interpretation of the dark periods.  They can even meditate and “see nothing.”  So they think there is nothing.  But if they meditate and their life grows more mature, that nothing is the something.  

Together

 Why do religions have congregation?  Why does AA have meetings?  Because we don’t believe alone.  Spiritual paths need community.  Faith may start out as personal and seemingly singular for some.  But it won’t grow or be sustained without community.  The modern focus in the Western world is on individualism.  At the same time, there is a lot less faith in things spiritual.  The focused individual does not need or want a power greater than itself.  This would cause reliance on what is not you.  People can believe in God and not go to congregational worship, but that faith will be differently nurtured.  It is so easy to become singular.  Less work.  Community is work, but it is the way to become our best self.  

Many Paths

 I have heard it said, “There are many ways to get to the same place.”  It depends on the place you are trying to get to.  For instance, someone says that AA is not the only way to stop drinking addictively.  Perhaps this is so, if all you want to do is stop drinking addictively, or stop drinking altogether.  I have seen people do this without AA.  But they never grew up.  They remained selfish and resentful when things did not go their way.  They rarely volunteered for anything.  They worked only for what they could get, usually money or recognition.  They were egocentric.  In other words, they stopped drinking but did not grow up.  AA is not just about drinking.  But few alcoholics would join if they thought it was about growing up.  One step at a time.  

The Frequency

 It is difficult to hear two things at once.  If I want to meditate quietly to hear the still, soft voice of this inner power, then I need to turn down the frequency of other channels in my life.  Turn down the future-think, resentment channel, anxiety channel and so on.  I don’t read with the radio on, or sound buds active in my ears.  Outside noise, sounds, can get in the way of coming to know your deepest and truest self.  Many of us have trouble being alone in our room with no noise.  We feel lonely and solve it by turning up frequencies.  And we never get to know ourself.  

Dry Baptism

 Baptism is like a dry drunk if after the baptism, there is no follow up, no action, no sacraments or church or prayer or bible.  I call it a dry baptism.  Lots of people have this, as they tell me so.  They don’t even believe in God or at best are agnostics.  They call themselves, “I used to be Catholic/Christian.”  The dry drunk is someone who stopped drinking but that was about it when it comes to alcoholism.  No action beyond the non-drinking.  No recovery and no growth, plus they generally don’t believe that they need to do more.  Not drinking is not recovery, any more than baptism makes one a Christian in action.  I have found action must follow up any decision that I make, or else bad things happen.  

Assets

 Assets are something we gain.  Talent is a gift.  I am not a fast runner.  I don’t have the short twitch muscles or build for it.  But I can run a long time at a steady pace.  That is a talent which I developed.  Someone might have the talent for being beautiful in the sense that it was a given, a gift from heredity.  But an asset is when you become a beautiful person from the inside.  You can speak and act the language of the heart.  You can become selfless, patient, accepting, kind and so on.  You can become a good teacher.  In my case I am working on becoming a good priest, knowing there are so many better than me at being a priest.  Sobriety is an asset, not a talent.  No one gets sober naturally.  They work at it.  Outside of being able to run slowly for a long time, everything else about me seems to be an asset.  Life is work.  

The Blaming

 I have heard people blame something about their life that made them the person they are.  Their boss, teachers, parents, trusted adult, and so on were the cause of their misery.  Well maybe not all the cause, or any of it.  Someone comes into AA and says they became addicted because of a miserable life.  They quickly get reminded that the reason for their alcoholism is that they drank, and drank uncontrollably.  Drinking makes people alcoholics, not the circumstances of their life.  Two people can have similar circumstances, such as war, but only one of them becomes addicted to drugs and or alcohol.  You don’t stop going to church because the sermons were boring.  You stopped going because you simply stopped going.  In my own decisions, I try to place the responsibility or blame where it belongs, or else I won’t change for the better.  

Power Triumphs

 Being correct usually does not triumph over power.  There is the famous Bible story of King Herod having John the Baptist beheaded at the request of the dancing Solome and her Mother.  John was correct. It was known in the Law that Herod could not wed his brother’s wife, but because he had power, he did exactly that.  Herod was wrong.  John was right by the Law.  Everyone agreed on the Law.  Herod was a Jew.  He did not have a different law or alternative facts.  He had power.  Eventually, the Roman world of Power crumbled, as it seems does any empire that tries to live with Herodic vision.  

Convenience

 A lot of people think that joy comes with convenience.  They work to  make their life convenient with life-style, gadgets, up to date stuff and so on.  And they are lonely.  Why?  Because joy comes with meaning and not with convenience.  Many of us lack enough meaning in our life.  We tend to isolate in our convenience, with enormous time spent on the cell phone.  It is inconvenient to miss out on information, or it is inconvenient to be by oneself in silence.  Meaning comes with service to others, selflessness, in the way of being helpful to others.  Sometimes meaning comes with making life more difficult for others as in helping someone to stay sober by encouraging them to do the necessary work.  I wash up dishes, and other dirty things, load dishwasher and put away the food after dinner at times.  Is in convenient?  NO.  But it does give meaning to my life, a purpose outside of my ego.  I am part of a world larger than myself and that calls for stepping out of myself.  

Home

As I was flying over the Bay to land in San Francisco Airport from my Colorado visit of 20 days, I realized that San Francisco is still not my home.  I have been trying to make it home since last October 9.  I have to give it more time.  But for now, Colorado is still so easy and comfortable for me.  It is a good fit.  But I lived there for many years and did a lot of work, made friends, and felt the love.  In San Francisco  I help out at other parishes and am the “visiting priest.”  I do little in our tiny Paulist parish that is on life-support.  Not much to do as we have a plethora of priests here for mass and so on.  I think that whenever I start teaching in this town it will begin to feel at home.  I help out at other parishes, looking for a parking lot, a room to teach in and heat.  Our Paulist parish has none of these things.  Time is my friend.  I am optimistic.  Like a farmer.  

A Small Part

 Did you get baptized so that you would go to heaven?  That is like going to AA to stop drinking.  Becoming a member of a religion or AA is about changing your whole life, one step and one day at a time.  In the beginning of the process, people don’t yet know that.  The motivation might be to belong to the “right” religion.  Or to get out of a bad life.  But what you are getting into is the real work of change.  We would rather be right than to change.  But so be it.  At least it is a step and one can always hope that the light will go on to work with the grace of a newly discovered power in one’s life.