Limits Are Good

Belonging means limitations.  When you belong, you are part of something bigger than yourself and this means you have limits.  Community has limits by its very nature.  If you want to be free to do anything you want, you will never be shaped into becoming who you were meant to be at your best.  Attachments, belonging, are what shape us.  Tarzan had issues! A young child without attachment to a parent, such as in orphanage, may very well have their emotional and psychological growth stunted.  They may survive yes, but growth is survival plus.  Attachments are the plus.  Refugees are detached from home and at times from family and community.  This will take a terrible toll down the road for and from the survivors.  Alcoholics are isolators who begin to recover and grow up through belonging to a group of fellow recovering alcoholics.  They meet regularly and begin to bond in friendship and service impossible in their isolated, selfish, fear-based drinking days.  I try not to do life alone.  Happy Leap Year.  An extra day to love.

Faith In Action

I don’t see faith as much use if it is an assent to a series of doctrinal statements.  I see people recite their creed but then see no action that builds community among those believers.  If I see people who have a “faith” community as they call it, this did not come from their doctrinal faith, but rather from some activity usually associated with children or some common event of interest in which they met one another.  Send your child to a Catholic elementary school and you meet other parents.  Put you child in a sports program and you meet other parents, and these adults may become your friends.  But it did not come with doctrine.  I think that a faith which leads to community building directly is from a response to a God experience.  God acts in such a way that energizes you to build community.  You might have the sense of the sacredness of each human person, the homeless as well, and you go and work in a food program that brings the hungry, the homeless, the lonely together to meet one another on a regular basis.  When senior citizens move to a new place, they don’t have the child school attachments to bond them to others.  It can be lonely unless they find a way to meet people with a common interest.  Going to a church of their faith generally does not do it.  Faith builds community not walls.

Pebbles

Some people want only to do big deal kindnesses that will feed their ego or make them think they have accomplished something important and unique.  But Dorothy Day suggests we not wait for or desire such "opportunities" as they are rare for most of us anyway.  Why not do "pebbles" of kindness she says.  These are the many small things that we can do to treat one another decently.  There are dishwashers, coffee machines, dirty sinks, rides to a doctor, a smile as you pass someone on a walk, letting someone cut into line who seems frazzled, helping someone with their luggage on an airplane and so on.  You don't have to go off and run a soup kitchen, or develop a parish helping committee if you ignore those who you see everyday or with whom you share daily life.  Pebble kindnesses do not go unnoticed unrewarded, except to big egos.  The reward?  A transformed, fully your best self person.

All Those Statues

Some people wonder why the Catholics have all those statues and paintings of people in their churches.  Is it idol worship? Some other strange thing like delusional talking to statues?  Not really.  The meaning behind all this art, if you will, is to celebrate and remind Catholics that their God came to earth in the flesh, as a human being.  It is called the Incarnation.  These images can be looked at and touched as a reminder of what this God did, so freely, and without anyone earning it.  Besides that, the statues and pictures remind us that we are flesh too, and have this goodness within us.  It is a reminder to be good and caring toward our bodies and do likewise for others.  There is a sacredness to human life, and all life for that matter.  Some pictures have animals in them too.  Even when no one else will listen to you or pay attention to you, there are always statues and images as a reminder that we are not alone and that we are being listened to.  It may save you from despair and depression and other dark moods.  To have a 24/7 chapel in your town can be a lifesaver.

Middle School

I heard from a middle school student that their teacher called the whole class “stupid.”  The teacher might have been frustrated but I would still think it bad pedagogy.  The middle school student wants to learn, but maybe does not want to learn everything or at a pace that the dreaded curriculum wants to rule as “school learning.”  Why not ask the students to write down what they are good at?  What they are good at might be of interest to them.  Be ready to be astonished by the potential and hope-filled surprises that come up in the student.  Encourage them to pay attention to their gifts.  Their light may begin to shine.  Too often these young people worry about how to fit in and be popular, to have friends.  So they might dummy down a talent because they don’t want to stand out or appear odd, or off center, whatever that might be.  I think of Billie Eilish and “Winner.”  Very popular with these young people.  Does not fit into Hollywood glamour.  If you don’t know who Billie is, (a girl), go to middle school.  You will learn something!

A Talent

There is a saying, “The one who has not, even what they have will be taken away.”  Who has not what?  Encouragement.   For instance, a child might have a gift, a talent that they don’t even know is a talent.  It has not been made visible or developed.  So maybe the child needs encouragement.  What they have not is encouragement to develop a talent.  Otherwise, it might remain hidden or lost over time from lack of use.  A talent that eventually becomes big, accomplished, always starts small and maybe a bit hidden.  It needs encouragement and loving support.  How sad it is for someone to kill themselves because of loneliness or a sense of not fitting in, when in fact they had the talent to be a great artist, but no one encouraged them?  I keep doing what I am doing because people encourage me.  Be a talent scout for others especially the children.

Taking Inventory

The phrase, “taking inventory” refers to looking at shortcomings, bad habit, defects of character to see what needs work.  I do this frequently.  Unfortunately, I do it of others much less than of myself.  I think I am very good at judging the faults and shortcomings of others and know what should be done, unless I think they are helpless and hopeless to change.  What people say, how they look or sit or talk, and I have the list of their mess.  When I do get around to my own faults, this is one of the first ones I seem to notice.  A daily examination of conscience in the evening, if not a daily spot check catches me at this bad behavior.  So I don’t often go to sleep or to bed with resentments or anger or muttering to myself.  Unless of course I am muttering to myself about how I keep doing the same old, same old.  At this point the only people I think should burn are those who don’t park between the lines at grocery store, mall and church parking lots.  But I am working on it.

The Skid Row Of Success

I have heard of the "Skid row of success."  It is when things look good on the outside but on the inside you are coming undone.  Outsides are often about things, your stuff, your toys, or appearances.  Job, home, income, vacations, lifestyle, clothe, family all look good.  It is the way we often judge ourselves and others.  It is where we put a lot of our energy so we can have all this outside stuff.  So why is it skid row?  Because on the inside we are killing ourselves and if we don't attend to our spiritual center, we in fact may literally kill ourselves, should we have the courage.  Fear and cowardice are good things here. We are destroying ourselves, just like people do who live literally on a skid row situation.  We destroy ourselves by trying to fill the insides with the outsides.  Such unfulfilling activity is often muted momentarily by drugs, alcohol, sugar, exercise and sex but to no avail.  All temporary and then such solutions become the problem.  Thus the metaphoric skid row becomes the reality of life.  The outsides are gone and the insides are empty.  What remains? Desperation.  If you get that gift, you don't have to stay empty.  And if you follow it you will live with gratitude forever.  I never forget where I came from.

Old Forest

Look at an old forest that has not been “Managed” by some agency or property owner.  What you may think you see is a mess, no order, lots of rot.  But what you see is not all there is.  That old forest is interconnected within itself.  The dead and rotting trees as you call them, are not so dead as they appear.  They are contributing to the growing trees and to future new trees.  Forestry services tend to like some order, and managed growth, so they clear away the fallen trees, the “debris” as they see it, to get more trees that can look nice or be cut down for wood products.  Such action loses more than it gains.  A lot is going on beneath the soil that you cannot see.  It is the same with the funeral home business.  They embalm bodies and put them in boxes and bury them.  I think the monastic communities have a better idea.  Bury the body in the ground the day after death, with no box to surround it.  Our dead bodies are valuable to the eco structure of life.  We are interconnected with the earth and serve it even in death.  Like the dead trees we are not so dead after all!

Love Your Best

Jean Vanier founded a ministry to live and work with people who had developmental disabilities.  Did he cure them? No.  Did he help them to live on their own? No.  So what did he do?  That question begs for results.  Vanier was not into doing extraordinary things.  He did not raise the dead or cure the sick.  His goal was to do the ordinary but do it with extraordinary love.  If one can do that, then there is a healing.  Extraordinary love heals, at least in the one doing the loving.  Many people suffer always or from time to time from the developmental disability to love selflessly.  I have my moments.  Vanier challenges me to get up and try again.

More Babies

I have heard it said that the reason young adult women marry later in life and have fewer babies is because they are career oriented and too self-centered to have a bunch of babies.  I beg to differ.  I think economics and the work world affect women’s decisions.  For one, there is usually a lot of college or post-college debt to be paid off once you get a job.  Then there is the job insecurity with a lot of outsourcing of work, lack of medical benefits and geographic insecurity.  Then there is the high cost of buying a home in many a place where there is work.  Then you have to pay for child education and some day care.  It is not so much our young women who have to change, as it might be more the economic model and culture of our modern western world.

David And Goliath

David is a small guy.  Goliath is a big guy.  David put himself into harms way since now Goliath wants to kill him in battle.  What to do?  David makes a decision that affects Goliath.  David sling shots a stone into the forehead of Goliath, which knocks him out.  David then kill Goliath with his own sword.  Many decisions we make affect someone else, in this case, not so innocent a person, Goliath.  But what if you are about to make a decision that does affect someone else who is good, innocent, not deserving of the consequences of your decision?  Do you say, “I am free to decide what I want to do?”  Such decisions are not all about me.  So I have to take into consideration as to how it will affect others.  What has changed for me is that I used to do pretty much what I wanted, if I could get away with little tolerable consequences.  Now I find myself asking, “How will what I want, affect others?”  I find in this new attitude, that I don’t as often want the things I used to want, when it was more about me.  But there are still moments when growing away from bondage to self that is hard.

The Why Of It

It is a good thing to do something that affects someone else for love of them, as in love of neighbor.  Such action might be motivated by compassion, a sense on oneness with this other person.  But I have found that there is another reason for doing an action that affects someone else.  It is motivated by insecurity and/or low self-esteem.  If I get caught up in this, then I act in order for you to like, praise, approve of me when in fact your opinion of me is none of my business as my sane friends remind me.  Or maybe I act from a blotted ego that needs constant feeding.  No one likes to think about their death, their mortality, but it sure is a way to keep us right-sized when ego and insecurity are out of control.  Or hang around with people who are working on these issues successfully.  Or keep an honest diary or daily inventory/examination of conscience at night before bed.  Don’t assume your motives are always selfless.

Old And New

My experience is that I cannot place the new on top or in the old.  There is a saying, “You cannot put new wine into old wine skins.”  The wine is meant to expand and it would break the already old wine skin that cannot expand.  So the old me is not going to do much with suggested new behavior.  I might do a little better, live a little more sane and less self-centered, but not much.  I will survive, but there will be casualties in how I treat and live with others.  I need a new me.  Meditation, reading to expand my horizons, listening to other people who are trying for a “new me” transformation really helps.  Just trying on my own will power won’t do it.  The old me has a broken will power.  It needs more than repair.  So each day I wake up and say a gratitude prayer (that I have another chance at change) and then ask for a new me.  Since I am asking for a lot, I have to put in a lot.  Action beats wishing every time.  Even trudging is better than complacency and fantasy.

Temp

I just finished the book, “Temp” by Louis Hyman.  More and more we are becoming a temp work force rather than full time security and benefits.  I was feeling badly for all those people who want full time challenging work with benefits, and then I realized that I am a “Temp” worker.  I am a temp priest.  Right now I help out at a parish because they do not have a full time pastor.  But as soon as he comes, I will be dropped from being a priest in that parish.  This is the life of the temp.  When I work I get paid.  Don’t work.  Don’t get paid.  A retired priest who has a retirement income can help out here and there at different places, a mass, confessions, and maybe a funeral.  But it is to supplement his income.  Me...I have to work.  The life of a temp is that there is no full time work out there.  You can develop the virtue of humility and acceptance when you realize you are not really needed.  I wake up with gratitude that I have any work to do each day.  

Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!  It is a day to talk about love.  I realize that I am not in love with God.  At times, I am in love with God but I don’t love God with much consistency.  Let me explain.  When you were young or are young now, you may have fallen in love.  “I am in Love,” you tell anyone who will put up with you.  When in this state you will do anything for your beloved, pretty much.  That is, you give up your will for their will.  You go out of your way for there wants, much less their needs.  But what happens when you move on from being in love, to loving?  Notice that you don’t do everything your partner wants.  Your will takes over quite often.  You might negotiate who gets what when.  But basically you don’t do much surrendering.  You did that when you were falling in love and that stage is mostly past.    So it is with me and God. ON a good retreat I might be in love with God. But retreat emotions pass.  But generally, on a daily basis.  I don’t do everything that God might wish me to do.  I am self-willed.  So obviously I am not “in love” with God.  Only occasionally do I do God’s will, but quite often I just do what I want even though I know it is not my best self.  I don’t really sacrifice of obey or surrender on any consistent basis.  So now and again, I “love God” but it seems to be when our wills coincide.  So how does it go with your partner if you have one?  What does “Happy Valentine’s Day” mean?  God is supposed to be a significant other in my life, but today reminds me that I am of the tepid variety of love.

Cancer Report

So I had a polyp removed from my colon and it was sent off to the lab.  I get this colonoscopy exam every five years. A week later, a live person calls from the doctor’s office and says, “How are you?”  How am I?  My heart is in my throat and hardly beating.  I am waiting to hear that my life is over.  Please don’t start out with chit chat.  I would prefer, “Fr. Ryan you are cancer free.  This is the doctor’s office.”  Then we can do nice, pleasant talking.  She can tell me what the name of the polyp is and that I will have this done again in five years.  All good.  I talk the talk of hope, faith, God has my back, but I walk the walk of gloom and doom when it comes to biopsy reports.  But for now I am good to go for another five years.  This could mean endless blogs.

Tyranny of Emotions

I like this phrase, The Tyranny of Emotions."  Why should my emotions run my life?  All emotions pass.  They are emotions.  But when I am feeling good why must I try and maintain or up that good feeling?  Enjoy it for the moment but I don't have to act on it.  I see a girl across the room and say, "I am in Love."  Never met her.  The emotion then takes over my life and I do whatever it seems to indicate.  We make mad passionate love that I say is undying.  I wake up one morning and say, "I don't love her anymore."  Whoops!  People who wait on such love emotions and don't act them out,  do so to avoid the tyranny.  They are not prudes.  When I am down, feeling depressed why do I have to do something about it?  I am down.  It will pass and drugs, alcohol and other substitutes are just that.  Yes, some people have mental and chemical body issues that require treatment but for most of us, it is just a need for patience.  We are human and the bad times remind us of this.  Besides, for me, God has my back.

God Feelings?

If you believe in a God, does your God have feelings?  You might say yes, because God loves you.  But love is an action, that does not require a feeling.  A lot of people may feel love, but they don’t act in a loving manner because they are unable to act with anyone’s self-interest in mind but their own.  I think of God as beyond all feelings and thoughts.  My God is love, an action poured onto me even when I am most unlovable in my shortcomings.  At my best, I love even when I do not feel love.  A person asks me to do something that I don’t want to do simply because I am into myself, but I say yes anyway.  This is what makes me a loving person.  Feelings pass and are usually more self-serving as in adolescent love.  But you Christians might have a leg up on God feeling love.  As I recall, Jesus is supposed to be God and he rose from the dead.  But what rose was a body.  Bodies car feel love, and the truly transformed body, and in this case, a resurrected one, can feel and act out that feeling.  So when Jesus ascended to heaven, he did so with a  body.  So now, God can feel love.  I thought this all up by myself, not in a book.  So if heresy, it is all mine.

The Restless Adventurer

What if education could be an adventure that appeals to the restless heart?  Not everyone who squirms in their seat in class has ADHD or needs medication.  Such a child might really want to learn but senses no appeal to the heart and no adventure though they cannot articulate it like this.  What is the adventure?  Well, education should be a risk.  It should not be so safe, as in learning a skill or vocation so you can insure a safe living.  That is not education.  Education helps us to find out what we are willing to live for, and as follows, what we are willing to die for.  Learn what is good and what is evil from traditions of the ages. Education ought to show us how to have the victory of good over evil.  We want the virtue of courage which can be learned from such an education.  How many people  finish up there advanced education with fear and uncertainty about what to do and how to act?  How many are paralyzed into conformity with a status quo that is at best mediocre or want someone else to fix their messy world?  A lot of this education is very spiritual, as it appeals to the heart, but we think spiritual is all about organized western religion with its rules and control issues.  I read and listen to what challenges me to grow.  You might say I live for this education.  IT took a lot of growing up.

Self-Interest

Adam Smith, who wrote the seminal work of modern economics and capitalism, “The Wealth Of Nations,” said that enlightened self-interest is the driving force for prosperity.  What is often forgotten is that he was a Calvinist minister.  Enlightened meant for Smith a moral framework to include the Ten Commandments, the Bible, and an empathy and love of neighbor.  But as religion and belief in God got dumped or diminished in modern times, all that remained is “self-interest” as in me and mine, and “more is better.”  Empathy for neighbor is out the window in economics, as is the commandments and the Bible with all its Wisdom sayings.  When we dump religion all together, there is a price to be paid.  We don’t hold onto any moral structure that connects us to one another in a healthy way.  Historically, bad things begin to happen and societies get trashed to build a new world in which a lot of people get murdered.

A Best Friend

Another dog story.  John Bosco, also called Don Bosco, connected well with poor boys in his town of Turin during the Industrial Revolution.  Kids were running around on the streets.  They lacked food and purpose, and some even homes.  Don Bosco founded the Salesians to minister to the boys.  He often walked the unsafe city streets at night looking for boys wandering around. Up pops a dog named Grigio.  He was three feet tall.  He could put the fear of dog into criminals and other bad people.  Bosco did not find the dog.  The dog found him.  At night the dog would suddenly appear beside him just as bad people were about to waylay Don Bosco.  Grigio never accepted any food.  He just came and went when Don Bosco needed protection.  It is said that Grigio appeared thirty years later when Don Bosco was lost in a marsh and led him out to safety.  Well, Guardian Angels don’t always need to show up with wings.

Blessed James

This fellow James was from near Lombardy, in Italy during the 13th century.  One historian said that the 13th was the Church’s greatest of centuries.  Well here is one to put a dark mark on that.  James studied law but then became a priest.  He finds an abandoned hospital and from his own expense restores it and cares for the sick.  He shared his legal knowledge with the poor, but he upset his bishop. Why?  Because in his legal research he found that previous bishops had unjustly appropriated funds for that hospital that had gone to ruins.  The current bishop was unwilling to acknowledge or rectify the injustice.  James brought legal suit in court and won.  So the bishop invites him to dinner.  On the way home, brigands arranged for by said bishop, ambushed and assassinated James.  Money and reputation often are behind a lot of bad stuff.

The Wrong Solution

What is the attitude toward drink that a person has when they begin to drink “too much” as we might say.  I think that the hope of such a drinker is that they expect things to get better the more they drink in any drinking session.  They have a tough day or they want to celebrate an event.  They think that a drink will make them feel better, and then another, to celebrate better.  More drinks to get even better.  Things turn into disaster by the end of the drinking session or bout.  So next they decide that they want to drink normally, but have more positive results, less car crashes, jail, spouse and family leaving, loss of job and so on.  This all sounds crazy to many of you right?  But ask yourself what you overdo in order to feel better?  The flu gets you down, but you think you will feel better with some gym work or a run or go to work.  The thought of bed and fluids leaves you thinking, “That is not enough.”  Where do you get into trouble when your thinking says, “More is better.”

Our Words

HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

LUKE 2: 22-32

FEBRUARY 2, 2020

Today is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord as a baby in the Temple.  A fellow named Simeon recognizes Jesus as the Christ and praises him as a light to the world. What wonderful words to say to a baby or a child!  Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Blaise, when we bless throats in the Catholic Church.  So today, I blessed throats too when lots of people are at weekend mass.  The blessing of throats is not just to avoid physical illness.  The throat is the place from which our words are sounded out, for good or bad.  

The blessing says, “May God deliver you from every disease of the throat and every other illness.”  That other illness is that God deliver us from saying unkind, and hurtful things to people.  I heard of a teacher who told a whole class that they were stupid.  Do we not speak words of darkness and hurt when we call people stupid, lazy, worthless, idiot, ugly and so on.  Think of what that might do to a child who is so unsure of themselves and so insecure.  

Jesus was always saying uplifting words to people who felt badly about themselves.  His biting challenges were only to those who suffered false pride and it was to awaken them to their smugness.  But otherwise, he was light for those in darkness.  Now, we may not be able to control our thoughts and emotions that simply, and suddenly pop up within us.  But we can control our words.  So we are invited today to be more like Simeon.  Choose words of light rather than words of darkness.  It may call forth the hidden talents that another person has.  Speaking such words can become a talent within each one of us!

Suffering In Silence

Some people suffer depression and anxiety in silence.  This means that they may not let on either in word or expression.  So what might I do with this thought in mind for today?  Well, maybe try for some more meaningful encounter with each person I run into, rather than a “Hello, how are you,” as I walk by.  They may simply say, “Fine,” since they don’t think I would care, or am too busy for them, or, if they are a silent sufferer, will go on silently suffering.  Make my encounters an attempt to be more meaningful or compassionate.  I am often in a hurry to complete some less important task than being of service to another suffering human being.  Today, I will be getting a colonoscopy.  How am I doing?  “Fine!” 😇

Comfortable Convictions

Sometimes we believe something is true because it makes us feel good.  Such convictions work well for us, and thus we think we are right and anyone who differs is wrong.  If others who disagree are not so wrong or we are no so right, then we stop feeling good, and who wants that?  Most people don’t like to live in a grey area of anything where truth is not so settled and certain.  We are OK with making some statements about the galaxies since it does not so much affect our comfort zone.  Black holes don’t make or break my day.  But talk about religion, sexuality, politics and you get into heated argument.  These arguments are not about learning new information, or taking an open look at another stance or view.  Such arguments are about feeling more comfortable with one’s beliefs and therefore feeling more comfortable period.  Such a stance always seems to presume to know God, and there is a God, and to know what God is thinking and doing.  I prefer the mystic who experiences the Holy but presumes to know little.

Validation

If I find myself trying too hard for validation, importance, being needed, it will never be enough.  People who are secure in their self-worth never spend a lot of energy or onyx on getting more feedback from others as to their worth.  If we are insecure about our worth even when we get some validation, it never seems to last long enough.  So I have tried to stop focus on outsides and work on the insides.  But I am getting a lot of validation from a nearby parish in Boulder that did not even know I existed until their pastor left and they were desperate.  It might be that the desperate will like anyone who will help so I won't get too prideful about it.  When they get a new pastor I will return to anonymity.  So I keep working on my insides of acceptance so I can be of service as needed, or wanted.  But this is nice while it lasts.

The Teacher

Sometimes you must decrease as someone else increases.  That is, your influence or importance in their life goes into the background while the person you influenced grows and moves on.  I think of the teacher, parent, sponsor, guide.  A second grade teacher, a parent of a small child, a sponsor of someone just getting sober, a guide to the lost, all have an important and influential place in the life of whoever they are mentoring or guiding.  The second grade teacher is central to this small child.  The teacher models, challenges and encourages the student one on one.  Then the student moves on, grows up, while the second grade teacher goes into the background or compartment of the grown adult’s past.  The teacher may never know of the importance of anything they did for that student.  They don’t stay in contact.  But the adult is living a better life because of the second grade teacher.  It is the same for a parent, sponsor, guide, and even a friend.  So I try to do and be my best for someone with whom I have a relationship or encounter in the present.  We may move on, and my importance will decrease while they might increase as living out their potential.  Hopefully, I had some good effect though I may never know it.  I was once a pastor somewhere.  I was central, important, influential.  Now I go back and I am “Father Who?”  So it goes.