Service

 One way of being of service is to use fewer words.  Like what?  Well, if someone says, “How are you?”  And you have some physical issue, just state the issue.  Simply.  Information can create and feed a relationship, but let the other person decide how much they want to know, which is, how much they want to befriend you.  Say you tripped recently and hurt your shoulder in the fall.  Your response can be simple:  “I tripped and bruised my shoulder.”  That is it.  How is that being of service?  It allows the other person to ask more or not.  If they are uninterested, why assume they are interested?  They may not want that much of a relationship, or their time to be taken up with listening to you.  Allow them to ask for more information.  If they change the subject or say, “Have a nice day,” then you have not burdened them with your miseries.  And you have found that this relationship is not worth your time either.  Which is a service to yourself.  

Sabbath

 In the Bible creation story there is a Sabbath.  The seventh day, the Creator rests.  Jews have a sabbath.  Other religions do too.  Sunday is supposed to be it for Christians.  Not happening much in our frenetic modern world.  Why not try a Sabbath time each day?  Make some time for rest to allow your spiritual life to flourish.  Call it a time for gathering some stillness.  This is stillness in mind and body.  It may well allow your spiritual life, your soul depth, to flourish.  You could take a slow walk, not an exercise walk.  You can slowly read a little of a spiritual book, one spiritual to you.  You can do nothing but look out at the world around you and let your heart tell you what you see.  You never know until you take this Sabbath time on a daily basis.  Rest. 

The Warm Up

 Athletes tend to warm up before they do their event or practice.  The body cannot just jump into something from nothing.  So you need to loosen up, stretch.  Why not do the same with prayer?  Don’t just jump into it from something quite different.  Do some preparation.  Like what?  Like trying to relax.  Try breathing slowly, or more slowly if you have been frenetic.  Slow down your thoughts.  Get quiet outside as well as inside.  Breathing exercises or a mantra for a few moments to transition from busy to attentive.  Think of prayer as spiritual athleticism.  You are trying, on a daily basis, to get spiritually in shape.  Some days are better than others.  Athletes know this, but the more you practice the more good days you will have.  

Words

When you pray, fewer words can be better, so that you pay attention to what you are saying.  If you don’t pay attention, then why should God or your Power pay attention?  I find that when people use a long explanation, when a shorter one would do, I tend to lose focus on what they are saying.  One way to say fewer words is to pray out loud if you can.  Out loud, you might even listen to what you are saying.  With fewer words we don’t have to rush to get it all in.  Besides, the Divine knows what you need before you ask. And often due to some insanity on your part, you don’t know quite what you need, only what you want.   

As You Can

 Pray as you can, not as you want.  You read a book by a monk about monks praying and you are attracted to that way of prayer.  But you are not a monk.  They have no spouse, mortgage, child, commute.  You are a jogger who reads about the training of a champion runner, maybe an Olympian.  You want to train like that, but you have not that time, or maybe talent.  So do what you can.  Pray as you can.  You may have a realistic plan, but that is interrupted by family illness or sudden events outside your control, to which you must attend.  I have come to know the difference between being lazy as opposed to being delusional.  

Ocean

As I write this I am in Florida near the Atlantic Ocean.  I watch people jump into the water and splash around from my window in an apartment at the beach.  I see the vast ocean and these tiny people in relation to it.  They are having fun.  The spiritual life is coming to the realization of our right size, not overblown falsely by ego and not diminished by shame and guilt or condemnation from others.  Recovery is about becoming right-sized.  You once saw yourself with your overblown big deal ego and then arrive at the door feeling like you are a nothing loser.  You recover your right size.  I have been in a small pool so far.  The ocean awaits!  Yikes.  

Matins

 Some prayers are meant to be prayed in the pre-dawn darkness or at least before you “begin” your active day.  Why?  Darkness precedes light in the creation account.  In the beginning is chaos, darkness, but a darkness that listens.  Then “Let there be Light” and the chaos is transformed into light.  So if we don’t want our day to be one of chaos then it is important to begin with prayer.  And let the prayer begin with listening in the darkness.  God awaits our attention.  Be still.  Be quiet.  Listen with the heart.  Allow your God to be Lover and not your fixer or rescuer from problems.  Not at this moment.  After this stillness, then some set prayers, psalms for instance, scriptures, spiritual readings, and then meditation.  Then let the day begin.  

The Timer Buzz

 I can set a timer on my watch.  It simply buzzes for a moment that is timed.  I can do this for during the daytime when I am about this and that.  The timer is to remind me to pray, or at least recognize that I need daytime prayers.  I am not all about work and tasks.  I am not all about being important or needed.  I am also about love, the heart.  So I pause as soon as I can after the buzz, and be still, listen.  Then I have prayers on my cell phone I can say, recite, like psalms, scriptures, thought for the day, and so on.  This can keep me grounded and centered.  It minimizes my insanity.

George

 George comes into the usual social gathering where everyone seems to be having a drink and snacking.  George looks the same as when you saw him a month or more ago.  His hair is uncombed, he looks physically out of shape, and still has no sense of fashion when it comes to clothes.  Though he appears the same on the outside, something seems different about George.  He is not having a drink.  He seems more relaxed, less noisy.  He is making eye contact, instead of being evasive.  Outside the same.  Insides changing.  This is recovery.  It is a bit like baptism.  The baby look and acts the same, but is different on the inside, for believers.  The round host at a Catholic mass looks the same before and after consecration, but it is different.  So work on the insides.  Who knows!  You may eventually realize that brown does not go with blue.  Or does it?  

Could And Should

 A “could” person is one who has a way of seeing from a heart that is fed in deep prayer.  This person knows what they can do and what they cannot do.  They do not act out of shame and guilt.  They have no neurotic self-need to stay busy.  One who prays deeply cannot stay busy in the exterior life.  The “should” person lives a more shallow spiritual life, if any at all.  Their energy to act, and the petulance that usually accompanies action, comes from shame and guilt.  They want to make themself feel better.  When I get upset, whiny, or resentful while doing good deeds, I know I have flipped from could to should.  It is always about me and not much about others.  

Never Enough

 Are you distracted or preoccupied about saving the world around you, if not the whole world?  Your distraction might be more about being needed, than saving the world.  If so, then you might be diagnosed with “never enoughness.”  Many people find the solution to never enoughness by being busy all the time fixing what they think needs it.  Not that things and situations don’t need fixing, but the motive is important.  Why?  Because sooner or later the fixer will need fixing.  One needs a spiritual practice, time away from it all, in some quiet reflexive state.  One needs to listen to the heart.  And the heart listens to a power that is not you.  What will you discover while the world falls apart without you fixing it at the moment?  You will find you are enough.  Then what?  Then you will know a pace and manner of service in the world.  

The Gate

 In an amusement park the entry gate is different from the gate out, so as to keep the crowds moving.  Prayer is not like this.  There is the one gate for both in and out.  The gate in is an invitation.  The gate out is a resolution.  Going to the gate and through it is all our verbal prayers.  But once inside, as in a sheepfold, there is space for quiet, safety and rest.  It is not the place for our verbal prayers.  The sheepfold is a place for silent intimacy.  I believe God appreciates our verbal prayers and recitation of psalms, but at some point, I believe that God would like a deeper intimacy wherein God can connect to our deeper self.  There courage resides.  Courage on the spiritual path is fed on intimate love, not fiery speeches.  It is the courage that energizes resolutions so that when we leave through the same gate, we go out to serve with love.  Love takes courage, because it is often not returned.  God knows this.  

Your Place

 If everyone says you should be doing this but you say no, you need to do that, well, who is right?  Can they all be wrong?  Sometimes.  Look at two spiritual icons, Jesus and the Buddha.  Everyone thought that the sitting under a bodhi tree or being crucified was crazy.  Everyone but Jesus and the Buddha.  But they were spiritual giants.  Are you?  Every time that I went against the trend of others, and I was wrong, it was because my spiritual life and practice was shallow to say the least.  But my God saved me from myself, my self-centered decisions, and I ended up way better than if I were on my own.  So I know that I have to stay in touch at some deep level with my “Savior” if I am not to get lost in trying to do it on my own.  

Going Deep

 I suppose if you believe there is no God, Power, infinite Source, then emptying the Mind might be the purpose of deep meditation.  I am not so sure my mind ever gets empty.  Rather I might become unaware of random thoughts.  Since I believe in an Infinite Source I believe that there is an intimate union, One that is transcendent, and ultimately a sense of Union with this Power that is not me.  And when it becomes Love, there is only Union.  I believe in this Power because for a few people this sense of Oneness and Love can come without any practice.  Just read the Bill Wilson experience, the co-founder of AA.  Love is always a gift.  

Your Stuff

 Are you an adventurer or a watchman?  As someone said, it depends on how much stuff you have.  Too much stuff and you become a watchman.  With sufficiently less stuff, you can travel lightly and become an adventurer.  I still have a lot of stuff.  But working on it.  And I cannot take it all with me when I make the ultimate journey.

Relecture

 When you take an old text and reinterpret it according to changing times and events, it is called “Relecture.”  New Testament writers did it with Old Testament text.  The old is correct but expanded or deepened in terms of new events.  Bill Wilson wrote the Big Book in 1939.  It is correct for its time, but new information comes along about addiction and people expand their original understanding.  New research gives deeper information.  Social relationships have changed and so on.  It is not about right and wrong, but about expanding in a reinterpretation.  

Clingers

 god does not seem to like clinging people, but rather ones who pass on an experience.  The story of two people walking away from the debacle of their leader, executed back in town, are talking about what happened.  Suddenly the leader, not quite as dead as they thought, appears to them but they don’t recognize him.  As they walk along, he passes on wisdom to them, and then eat with them.  In the meal event they recognize him, and in that instant he disappears.  He did not want them to cling to him.  So they ran back to town and passed on what had happened to them.  Kind of like a Recovery situation o evangelization, whatever you call it.  

Forgotten. Memory

I go to Sea Ranch, California for holiday/retreat with my sister Jane each year.  We go to the same house each year.  When I get there, I suffer from “forgotten memories.”  There is something that can be done, or needs to be done, but I have forgotten how to do it.  Example: I know the overheard fan works but what switch turns it on?  Don’t we recycle food wastes?  But what is the process?  There is the gizmo for the tv, but which is it?  And so on.  In time it all comes back.  Forgotten memories build patience, acceptance and in time wisdom.   

Anniversary

 Today I am a priest for 49 years.  Who would have thought that I would last this long?  I have been blessed with work in wonderful places and people.  I am a New Yorker, but started out my first days, weeks and years in Houston, Texas.  I had never set foot in Texas before that.  It was great fun.  I was good at fun, but not at holiness.  I had long hair and a beard, short hair and no beard, an Afro, all in search of an identity in this new and unfamiliar role as a priest.  The people of St. Leo the Great parish gave me the grace of their patience and love, so that I could form a base of being a priest for them.  My first wedding, the bride passed out in front of the altar.  I became a Houston Oiler fan.  Lots more in the next places I went, but enough for now.  

The Alone

 In some circles of spiritual practice God is referred to as a Power.  Another aspect of God, also a verb is “The Alone.”  This is a way to make sense of meditation which is done generally, alone.  Alone is away of being in the present moment.  It is not the same as loneliness, which gives one a sense of isolation and failure.  God has a lot of time to be alone before creation materialized into people, places and things.  So God knows alone and wants to share it.  Great mystics seem to come to a wisdom connection through spending time alone.  Jesus sent off to the desert.  Buddha sat under a tree.  Alone time in meditation keeps the ego in check, so that when you do go out to be of service it will not be all about you.  

Recipe

 Those on a spiritual practice have a recipe for this practice.  That is, the person mixes a little of this with a little of that and a main ingredient for their recipe for holiness.  They indeed become food for others because of this recipe in practice.  How so?  One is by example, that is, their manner of being present and listening, such that they make helpful responses if response is called for.  Another way the person becomes food for others is their helpfulness, their service, their putting aside of self, self, self.  The spiritual person is caring for themself by their recipe of practice.  The parts of the recipe come from listening to others or readings from those who have a practice.  A good recipe is always food for the soul.  

Mother’s Day

 Yesterday, Churches got a bump in Sunday attendance.  Why?  It was Mother’s Day.  Lots of adult children dropped out, or have but a tangential connection to Sunday worship.  But they are visiting Mom or Grand Mom, so if Mom is going to church that her kids abandoned, they tend to go too.  It pleases Mom and does not cost much in time and energy.  Many such adult children say that worship is meaningless or irrelevant.  But these same people are hooked on internet stuff.  Or their daily worship is at the gym, exercise class.  Or shopping can do it too.  It is a temporary fill-up.  It can become a work to how you look or want to look, or feel connected to the world out there.  Meditation does not try to get you hooked so that you will come back for more.  It is a humble Power that waits.  But it will fill something that nothing else can.  And it will make you less self-focused.  That is, you won’t be looking in the dark store window as you walk by seeing how you look.  

The Hole

I had a hole in my heart from a very early age.  Before adolescence and girls, I found this hole filled by a spiritual practice of prayer and Sacraments in my Catholic upbringing.  I loved being an altar boy.  I was filled up by the mass and Holy Communion.  It was a God-hole requiring my God as I knew God, to fill.  But then came teenage years and in the pressure to date, to have a “girlfriend, I tried to fill it up with a person.  That did not work.  Next I tried to fill it up with “career.”  Get a fulfilling job for instance.  That did not work.  I had left behind me the idea of priest and regular prayer.  No substance could fill this hole in my heart.  When I seemed to run out of options, God had not run out on me.  This Humble Power waited for my humble response of surrender.  Life of daily prayer and meditation, and then service fills up that hole.  

Meeting God

 Some people say that they like the silence of prayer, because that is where they meet God.  They meditate.  They do Lectio Divino, or the 11th Step.  But if you find God in silence, do you pay attention to other silences during your day?  Maybe your God is found in that silence too.  Like?  You pass by a person sitting on the sidewalk, just staring out, saying nothing, maybe begging in silence or just homeless.  There is silence.  They are not bothering anyone and no one is bothering about them.  Maybe your God is in that silence?  Or the silence of a newcomer in a Recovery meeting, who is ignored by others because they want to talk to their friends.  Maybe God is waiting to be recognized in that newcomer?  God is sometimes hidden in plain site. Maybe a simple “Hello” is like a prayer they are waiting to hear?   

A Bit Off

 I know I am in a bit of a spiritual deficiency only after the results.  I pay the price for learning.  What is the deficiency?  I trust myself in something instead of grace.  It is trusting nature, me, my human limitations, instead of asking for and trusting a Power, spiritual that is a bit better than simply me.  I don’t ask for help.  I can figure this out myself.  I am lost, clueless, staring at old behavior?  No problem.  I will figure it out.  It is better to pray early in the day to build up some grace power, so that I don’t get deficient later.  Slippery slope.  

The Catch

 “Did you catch mass?”  It was a phrase I might have heard as a boy when mass was said in Latin and there was no homily, no sermon.  Mass went by quickly, even if you were paying attention.  I always paid attention even before I was an altar boy.  Latin can be said very fast as most people did not understand it anyways so there was no reason to speak slowly for comprehension.  Some people used English missals with the Latin on a parallel page, so as to follow and know what was being said.  So you caught mass like you would catch a ball or a firefly.  It was quick and done.  Some people catch recovery meetings the same way.  Come late, leave early, talk to no one.  They “caught a meeting.”  If you eat in a hurry while focused onto something else you “catch a bite to eat.”  I try not to catch life.  It passes quickly enough as it is.  

Membership

 It seems to be a recent newsworthy phenomenon how many people are joining the Catholic Church this Easter.  What has been found in the past is that about half of those joining actually stay and practice their faith in worship gatherings after a year of joining.  It is a bit like having a library card but never using the library much less actually reading a book.  It is much the same with people who join recovery groups to stop some addictive behavior.  They may practice the steps or not for a while, go to a few meetings for a while and within a year are gone.  They might consider themself to be members, but without a practice like 12 steps and service at meetings.  For me, membership is work.  Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes it is a bit of a burden, but feelings pass.  Trudge, if you must, but do it daily.  

Meals

 I notice in the Resurrection stories of the Gospels, Jesus seems to be eating or offering to eat with his disciples after he appears to them.  Eating together is a way to get to know one another, and to actually forgive one another for bad behavior.  Not eat and run, but eat and talk.  So you might ask yourself how often do you sit down and eat with someone in a leisurely fashion, and talk?  It can be a great way to work out differences or to make peace over some differences.  I have seen where people are in a room full of others in some common “spiritual” effort, but afterwards, a few go out to eat or have coffee, and talk.  The meeting after the meeting it is sometimes called.  You can live alone, but it does not mean you have to be alone.  

Baby Baptism

 Catholics have baby baptism.  It reminds me a bit of rehab programs.  Both can be experienced with some kicking and screaming.  The baby is immersed or has water poured over them, usually ice cold water.  The baby may kick and scream.  They just pooped in diaper, or want to be fed or want their nap.  The person entering rehab is reluctant to say the least.  But both purposes are accomplished.  The baby is Catholic and the person in rehab is dry, not drinking or drugging.  But then what?  The baby grows up and needs teachers, training, practice in order for the Catholic to grow in them and make them truly transformed adults.  There must be a daily practice and regular worship.  The rehab person must have mentors, a daily practice of recovery, meetings, when they get out of rehab.  What we have now unfortunately, is a lot of “used to be” persons.  I don’t want to be a used to be person, but I have to have a daily practice too.  

The Core Mission

 If you line up the four Gospel resurrection stories, they don’t match up completely.  Jesus appears but the details are not the same.  In one instance the disciples are supposed to go back home to Galilee where they will see Jesus. In another instance it says that all will begin from Jerusalem.  In another, he appears and shows them his hands and side.  In another he shows them his hands and feet.  Then there is Acts of the Apostles with some differences.  What to make of all this?  Well, there is the core belief, Jesus is Risen.  Then there are different experiences, emphasizes, memories of the core event, but the core event is the same.  Look at church.  Lots of differences in worship but the same core belief.  In Recovery, there are lots of different meeting styles but it is the same core belief and reason for being there.  Differences need not divide if we can hold onto the core belief.  The problem comes when we forget the core and argue over the way it is expressed.  Martyrdom can result from this.  

Heart Change

 A lot of people say they are Christian, that is, they believe Jesus is God.  But their faith remains in their heads, yet does not move to their hearts.  How so?  They don’t forgive so easily.  They hold grudges and resentments.  When Jesus rose from the dead, as Christians believe, he came to his surprised and terrified followers, who at that moment were not following at all, and said to them, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.  Whose sins you retain, are retained.”  Jesus was forgiving them for their cowardice and betrayal, so they should do the same.  In recovery, people see others who are not drinking, and they may stop drinking themselves.  But that is not recovery, until it moves to the heart where one begins to forgive and let go of resentments.  You can go to church, synagogues, temples and meetings.  But this is but a start.  

Cactus

Become an aloe, like a cactus or aloe plant.  They grow in desert places, dry places and have the capacity to retain moisture to feed birds, air and soil.  They can even flower when least expected.  Prayer gives you the succulent of aloe which is a healer, just like the plant.  Your spiritual life practice can become of service to others who are short on soul-feeding.  So if you feel like life is a bit dry, and desert-like, keep at it.  Your Power is like aloe.  And it is for a purpose.