Batteries

 Our spiritual batteries will go dead if we have too much activity without enough prayer and meditation.  Meditation is like when you have some device on the recharger.  Nothing seems to be going on that you can see.  The device just sits there while you wait for it to power up to 100%. In mediation you just sit there, seemingly inactive to anyone who might see you.  But you are recharging your spiritual batteries so that you can function sanely in the world.  100% spiritual recharge means that you will be more about doing the next right thing and less about selfishness and egocentricity to include fear, anxiety, restlessness and irritability.  You recharge your body with sleep.  Recharge your heart with meditation.  

The Future

 Don’t feel too sorry for older people, the elderly, if you will.  We are living our future.  We are not anxious about the future or fearful of what might happen.  It is happening now.  So we tend to live in the now, not so anxious about what will happen to the planet, the economy, or income.  We have achieved our sobriety about what we can do and what we cannot do.  We are maintenance people.  And we have wisdom as our gift to others.  We have been “there.”  So we pray for the young people.  They have much to learn, mistakes to make and a fraught future to live.  We pray that they will experience things that are wonderful, but which we will not be around for.  Let them think they grew up in the best of times as we think we did.  I grew up in the Bronx in the 1940s and 50s.  Just lucky I guess.  

Exhausting Self

 What we accept has a lot to do with what we expect.  If expectations are unreasonable then we will have acceptance issues.  So I pray for sanity, to be right-sized about expectations.  I have limitations that come with age and lack of certain talents.  So I don’t try to amass what is beyond me.  I don’t exhaust myself in fruitless efforts.  I think of younger people, applying for one thing or another, be it job, school, a team sport, trying to amass accomplishments so as to “win.”  Wh helps them to work on realistic expectations?  It must be exhausting, so much competition to get something or obtain something.  It can be exhilarating too, but a right balanced is needed.  I pray for this each morning.  I call it my prayer for sanity.  

Silence

 There is silence and there is silence.  The silence and solitude that was imposed on us by covid was oppressive.  A silence that comes from an inner energy of the heart is fulfilling.  I think we all need silence, but not if it is forced.  Telling a class of students to be silent does not do much for the interior life of the heart.  I have to remember that if I talk an about silence as a good thing some people will be turned off because they have bad memories from covid imposed aloneness.  Imposed silence only makes people want to go onto their cell phone or computers.  So I tend to read something first so that I am drawn into a more meditative space.  It keeps me off my cell phone.  

MOM

 My Mom was a great shopper and she liked to shop for the bargains but always good stuff.  Yesterday my sister, Jane, and I were in a big Sacramento mall.  We came across an Apple computer store.  I had no interest in anything there, but Jane said, “ Why not go in and see if they have sales?”  Now, I think this was Mom working through Jane to get me into the store.  I asked about key pads to see if they had a sale on the iPad keypad that costs $349.  No sale on that but one of the clerks said that they had other key pads over on a wall that do not connect to the iPad as my $349 one does.  He showed me a $99 keypad that is very small and light for travel.  I never knew they sold these.  You don’t know what you don’t know.  So I bought one as a Christmas present to myself.  Now I can go on the road and not have to carry a heavy keypad for my iPad.  Maybe it even works for my phone.  But the point is, Mom is still at work and she has been dead for over 20 years.  I still pray to her, and she comes through.  God at work.  

Malls

 Malls are the cathedrals of shopping.  I like cathedrals and malls.  I am a priest who likes to shop.  I have my Mom’s genes.  There is so much to see in a really big mall and cathedral.  I walk slowly through them and take it all in.  Now you ask what is so spiritual about a mall?  Well, God is everywhere and anonymous.  Where is God in the mall?  Shopping. God does not reject the consumer society but rather works through it to help people to see that the brief happiness that comes with a buy is not going to fill them up.  Plus, God might be enjoying them enjoying their brief happiness.  Another thing I like about malls is that I get to watch and reflect on the people.  I do this in churches too.  Then I pray that each person I see will come to know this Power that works in all of us.  I sit in a comfortable place in the food court of the mall and meditate too.  Then top it all off with some pizza.  No place is beyond finding God.  

Dwelling Less

 How do you dwell less on the negative?  Acceptance helps me. It helps me to not overreact to situations. It helps me to be more realistic. I am not the center of anyone’s world. So I don’t fantasize my plans and goals. I spend less time trying to please people and this gives me more time and energy for the important relationships in my life.  And to do blogs.  A few people wake up and check my blog. So for this I am grateful.  My important readers. 😇