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.  

Earthquakes

 I live over a fault line in San Francisco.  April is Earthquake month.  Am I prepared?  Well, on the level of foodstuffs and what to turn off and such, yes.  But for the rest of my life, not so much.  I live too much down the road.  Earthquakes take out the road, real or imagined.  We already had an earthquake this month.  It reminds me that I need to ask what am I doing today, instead of being a Scarlett O’Hara, and saying I will think about that tomorrow or down the road.  I will go to a meeting some other day.  I will pray some other day.  I will call so and so some other day and so it goes.  Life lived tomorrow.  So I write this blog today so you can have something in the now.  I feel so good about myself, I will now go off and read the Sports pages.  

Listening

 One of the beat things about listening to someone else is that it can break the stranglehold of self-centeredness.  I find that spiritual paths that focus on sanity, surrender and service, the “Three S’s” are very good for getting me out of myself.  So I try to be a good listener when I know that someone is trying for self-expression, or to untangle emotions, for instance.  On my better days I will even put down the Sports Pages, my breakfast bible, and listen.  If I wish the person would finish so I could get on with my important day, saving the world or whatever, then I am not listening.  Looks can fade and strength can fade, but being a good listener can be an always thing.  And can keep you attractive, or at least worth keeping around!  

Erasure

 If you write something down with a pencil on a piece of paper and then erase it, there is still some mark where the writing was.  It is clearly visible but still there.  Oh, for those who don’t write or don’t write with a pencil, the erasure is at other opposite end of the pointy part.  I digress.  Anyhow, I hope that I can be the kind of person that when I am gone from someone, though my presence is erased from their mind, I leave some good impression.  Like a blog that you read and then forget it.  But you remember it was good at the time.  Or it was so stupid and shallow that you cannot fully erase it from your mind.  Let us try to leave good impressions.  

The Killer

 If you offer an alcoholic in recovery a drink of alcohol, they will refuse.  It is not a choice.  Alcohol will kill them.  Why?  Because they cannot drink just a little.  Would you in-jest something that would kill you?  Not if you are sane.  Someone with a height phobia would not go near a high cliff.  They have a propensity to jump or get dizzy and fall off.  If you have the propensity to check your phone while driving, you would leave it in a bag or out of reach or just turn it off.  The life you save might not be just your own.  So too it is with foods.  Once you know, you know.  Second chances don’t always end in survival.  

Elsewhere

 Some of us like to live in “elsewhere.”  We don’t much care for the real, our real.  Elsewhere is found through fantasy, drugs and alcohol, entertainment centers or events.  Elsewhere can become addictive.  You will know this if you find yourself pretty much escaping your reality when not doing a focused activity.  Walking down the street is an example.  Did you see the flower just blooming today?  No.  You were there but then not really.  An attempt at meditation can bring us suddenly to elsewhere.  How did I get there?  I was trying to not pay attention to thoughts or to have a “spiritual” thought.  If we are comfortable with our real life then elsewhere may be just a now and again thing, a brief respite, a concert or movie.  But beware.  It can be addictive.  

Baptism

Today is the Anniversary of my Baptism into the Catholic Church.  It came about four weeks after I was born, and was at St. Frances of Rome Church in the Bronx.  Though I drifted off now and again, I am thankful that I am a Catholic.  It gives meaning to my life.  If the Catholic Church were perfect it would not want me.  I am always a work in progress, trudgingly slow much of the time.  I like the use of created things to express the spiritual.  Oil, water, candles, incense, bread, wine, and the physical actions that give expression to what we are doing in our worship.  We wear certain clothes at certain times to express what we are doing.  Things express meanings of the heart.   And when I mess up, backslide, I know that I am still loved, if not by me, but by my God, who died on a cross to show me love.  “Come to me all you who find life burdensome, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon yourself and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart.”  Jesus said that.