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?