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.  

Public Wearing

 When I walk around the streets of San Francisco or on public transport, I can wear my clerical collar.  I identify as a “clergy person.”  But that is just outside stuff.  Without a spiritual life of some depth, I have but an “outside” appearance.  I want my insides to reveal what I am supposed to believe.  The insides will reveal themself according to my prayer life.  If I am in touch with a spiritual power that I believe dwells within, this will be revealed the way I am with others, especially people I do not know.  Are those around me, or in a meeting or on a bus, strangers or are they part of myself?  Meditation points outs my shortcomings that make people remain strangers, but then can give me the power to treat them as part of myself.  

Ignorance

 Ignorance usually precedes boasting.  We think we can do something we cannot.  The ignorance often hides our sense of fear or cowardice.  It hides our sense of self-preservation.  So we say we will accomplish this or do that, but when the time comes we renege.  Peter saying he would die for Jesus is a famous example.  A spiritual path will reveal that which hid in our darkness.  You face your real self not the false one you show to the public.  Recovery programs do this.  Through self-examination a person discovers their inventory of strength and weakness.  They ask for “courage” to change.  They do not assume they have built in courage.  Ignorance is anathema to recovery.  Meditation, thought by newbies to be soothing, often reveals to us stuff we did not know was there, the darkness that trips us up.  Alone, we can do nothing much against this ignorance.  So we seek a power that knows us and can help us.  

Who Leaves and Stays

 It seems that I try to leave God on a too regular basis.  Skip prayer for some “urgent” something, or too much agenda of good deeds to pray and meditate.  This is all about self-will and ego energy.  I am at the “should stage” in these moments.  I have enough sense to know I should not skip prayer, but do it anyway.  The Good News is that God does on leave me.  Maybe it is like my blogs.  You skip them for more urgent things, but I keep putting them out there.  

Living Together

 I don’t have to go very far to find ways to be of service, to be helpful right in my own home rectory here in San Francisco.  I live mostly with old men.  I am one of us.  I try not to leave things undone for someone else to come along and do what I did not do.  And when I find things not quite right, I try to fix, rearrange, make neat, without whining or judging.  If I can get through the day judgment free and whining free, it is a good day.  

A Daily Prayer

 A good daily prayer is to ask God, your Power, to show you some truth about yourself.  So you keep an even keel, you might be shown some defect of character that you ignore or don’t see in yourself.  This may come when you are judging others, or full of your own self-importance.  Or you might be shown something very good that you did not notice or forgot about yourself, when you are having a down time.  Trust God will keep you in balance.  It takes courage to want truth revealed about oneself.  Courage is to change the things I can.