The Cave

Going deeper into the cave will not generally get you out of the darkness.  Yet, that is what many of us do in our behaviors.  People have a few drinks, feel good or better, and decide to have more.  People run and feel good, and so they decide to run some more.  Things often do not get better with more.  They get worse.  A lot of the "more" behavior is an effort to feel better.  It is all about going deeper into the cave, but such behavior thinks it is going toward the light.  Even in our prayer life, we think more is better.  The mystics speak of dark nights, which might be OK for mystics, but most of us are no more mystics than we are Olympic runners.  Prayer has to lead to action from the fruits of the prayer.  Pray daily, but with some moderation.  We might try that with a lot of behavior.

Columbus Day

One of the great things about growing up in New York City and going to Catholic schools, is that we got off from school on Columbus Day.  It was always on that exact day, no "Columbus Day Weekends" where you move the date to accommodate travel or sales.  There was a parade in Manhattan to celebrate the day.  We all loved Columbus for getting us this day off from school.  A normal kid would trade "fun" at school for a day off anytime.  There was plenty of stuff to do on our day offs.  Lots of play things.  I am afraid that life outside of school might be more boring for kids today.  What does one do in a neighborhood where kids do not live near one another, and everyone is worried about being abducted?  Columbus Day is no longer a day off from school or work.  Days off have become a burden for parents and missed by kids.  So school is supposed to be the place to have fun.  The nuns never got that memo, and would laugh if you sent it to them.

Yom Kippur

This evening starts the Jewish feast of Yom Kippur, a day of penance.  It is also a day off from school for Jewish kids, and when the feast comes to the end, great food.  So we Catholics lose out on a day off from school, and great food.  We think Jesus was God and God is supposed to be smart.  Why would God found a new religion that keeps kids from getting out of school and from really great Jewish food?  We should of all have stayed together.  I think Jesus would agree.  I think too many guys who don't know or care about good food must have gotten my church turned in some other direction.  We do plenty of penance but not with the day off from school and the good food.  We Irish could learn something from our Jewish neighbors.

Potential

I don't know that it is good idea for me to tell people that they can be anything they want to be, that they are free to follow their dreams.  Some of us are delusional and our dreams are unrealistic.  I might want to be a baseball player and make lots of money playing at a game, but I have no talent for baseball.  So I cannot be anything I want to be.  I cannot do physics and math, so I don't have the talent to become a physicist.  What I can be is all that I am made to be with my unique talents, dormant or realized.  As a God believer, I am made with a God plan in mind.  The spiritual path is to actualize this potential.  But even if you believe in no God, you can only become what your talents allow.  To discover, develop and use your gifts for a greater good is a life well lived.

Dead Mail

I just got an email from a dead person.  He was a friend of mine.  In the email, he told me that he had something very important to show me, and I should click onto an attached link.  Now what could a dead man have to tell me that is so important?  I got it.  There is a God and there is heaven and my friend, a good man, in his time on earth, is there enjoying it all.  It must be true as well as important since it is on the Internet, right?  Isn't this why the millennials spend most of their waking day on their smart phones?  To keep up with what is important, and true, well worth knowing?  I gotta go.  I need to get a life.

A Foreboding

I had a vision in a dream one night.  It was my sister Maureen, and she looked happy.  She looked very happy in the dream.  So I asked her, "Maureen, why do you look so happy?  I thought that you were in purgatory."  "I am  not in purgatory anymore," she said.  "I am happy because I know where you are headed when you leave this earth."  "How do you know this?" I asked.  "Because I am very close to God now, and God told me where you are headed with this earthly life you live."  "Well," I asked, with some trepidation, "What did God tell you?"  "You are not coming here, directly, and maybe never!"  "What!" I exclaimed.  "I am a good boy."  "You are delusional.  You think you are good.  I know better," Maureen countered.  "I am going to purgatory?" I asked fearfully.  "Doubtful on that," she said.  "God has used up his bag of mercy in your case.  Only a big bag of comeuppance awaits you, baby brother."  "You are happy that I will suffer torment?" I asked.  "Shush  Don't tell God!" Maureen exclaimed.  "I am happy I am in heaven.  My guardian angel pointed out to God that a mistake had been made in sending me to purgatory.  So it is all good now."  "Can my guardian angel get me out of the torments?" I asked pitifully.  "No, yours has gone into retirement.  You overworked your angel," she said.  Just then I woke up.  Only a dream.  Maureen is still in purgatory.  But is my time running out?

Bad Habit

I hear people say that they want to get rid of a bad habit or shortcoming in their manner of living.  Well, when you get rid of something, what replaces it?  There is no such thing as a void in behavior.  Either we do the right thing, the virtue, whatever that my be, or we do the wrong thing, the vice, bad habit. When I do not seem to be getting rid of a bad habit, I find that it is because I have not practiced sufficiently a good habit.  Someone says, "I want to stop drinking."  What is going to replace it?  If you drink too much, it is your solution to some misery, identified or not.  If I run too much and am hurting myself, I cannot simply say, "I will run less or no more."  I run too much as a solution to something.  What is going to replace my running too much, that will deal with why I run in the first place?  All bad habits lead to misery for the practitioner or those around them.  A void does not replace a bad habit.  Gotta go and run.  People say I am looking a little skinny.  What do they know?