Now

I just finished reading a book by Elkhart Tolle, “The Power Of Now.”  I think it is my first Tolle book and it reminds me of Ram Dass and his book, “Be Here Now” which I did read back in the 70s, I believe, or at least a long time ago.  I picked up the Tolle book from my sister, Jane’s bookshelf where it was gathering dust, so I guess she was not into the Now.  Anyhow, that was back at Christmas vacation time and I finally read the book.  A Higher Power must be working in m life because this time of social distancing and being at home, is a wonderful time to get into the “NOW” and not live fretting about the past and the future or letting my emotions run riot In my mind and body.  He wrote the book in 1999 and it still hold much wisdom for today.  For you Christians, he has some scripture quotes examined in this Now idea that will give you some deeper sense of meaning.  So I am trying to live in the now and not fret about chocolate or the lack thereof.  Does chocolate transform you?

Self-Compassion

I often talk about selfishness and lack of compassion for others.  But when I look at myself, I need to keep a balance.  False pride says I should do better, not make mistakes, or be imperfect.  Becoming angry at myself for messing up, filling my emotional cup with guilt and shame, have never done much to change me over the long course.  These are short term emotional energy solutions at best.  What I need to practice is SELF-COMPASSION.   Look for progress and stop with this bar of perfection.  It is too high for any human.  I seem to have little problem recognizing my faults, and can admit them to myself and others at times, but then I need to be a little gentle with myself, not beat myself up or punish myself for being ME!  Just do the next right thing, and maybe have some chocolate to well, just have some chocolate.  Does one need a reason?

Pretend Holiness

I am not much for religion when it is merely outside show.  For instance, if someone wears a veil in church to show their “respect” for God, but then grumble to themselves about how unholy others are, then this is what I would call pretend holiness.  You pretend that you are something that you are not.  Outside stuff does not change the insides.  So I am unimpressed with public piety.  It does not tell me much about how someone is doing with the interior struggle of character defects.  Wearing of religious garb is fine, but it does not substitute for the hard work of interior change.  One does not become a kinder, less judgmental, less control focused because they wear something around their neck or on their head.  Wearing my priestly clerical clothes says little about how my inner life is going.

The Unselfish Side

When do you do the right thing?  Always? Or only when someone is looking, or grading you, or if you are going to get/lose something?  You push your grocery cart into the parking lot and unload groceries into the car.  No one is looking, so why bother to bring the cart back to the store for the next person.  Just leave it “ here” next to your car, though it obstructs the next person from parking there.  You are supposed to pick up after yourself at home, but no one is looking or will notice if you leave something somewhere.  Why bother now?  Just leave wreckage behind you as you move through your self-absorbed life.  You see a very popular item on a shelf in a store.  There are only two.  You really need only one now, but someday you will need another.  No one is looking at the item, so take both.  There are hardly any cars in the parking lot.  You are only going to be in the store for quick moment.  There is a handicap spot right at the front door.  No one is looking.  And so it goes.  But by doing the right thing when no one is looking keeps you on the unselfish side, and that can keep many a person on the sobering side of life.

Private Religion

The Catholic Church prides itself on going to mass each Sunday, the gathering of the community, around the Eucharist, as opposed to sitting at home and reading your bible.  But with the Covid 19 shutting down the churches, what I find is that many a Catholic say they miss Holy Communion.  What about that community gathering that is theologically important?  Not so much.  The reality is that many a church has more masses than it needs given the attendance outside the bible belt and Florida.  Multiple masses are for the convenience of Catholics.  If the time is inconvenient, they go elsewhere.  Some say they do miss their community which they see at coffee and donuts afterwards, but outside of that there is no special energy to see one another other than at church.  Holy Communion is supposed to be a communal celebration of God in our midst, loving us and asking us to see God in one another since we share a common food.  But American Catholicism is more individual focused than communal.  People want Jesus in the host much more than they want one another.  It has become a little like going to a museum.  You go for the art and don't care much who else is there.  The fewer the better is more convenient for getting a museum convenient parking space.  I hear people say that they love their parish.  Change the mass schedule.  Drop a mass that is lightly attended.  See who disappears.  Or stays and complains.

Making It Your Own

Someone said that making your faith your own is like making a recovery program your own.  An example is the garage.  If you stand in the middle of a garage it does not make you a car.  Apply the simile to Church/Synagogue/Temple visits.  When young you might go because you have to. That does not necessarily make you a believer.  Your parents take you.  But it is really the adult’s faith that you have.  You think it is your own, but it is not really yours until you go when you want to rather than when you have to, or need to or think you ought to go.  It is the same with recovery meetings.  Just going does not make you recovered or sober.  You go because you at first “have to” go.  Your life is a wreck or some court makes you go.  Then you go because your realize you need to go, but it is still not yet your program.  Then you go because you want to go.  It becomes your program and you become of service to others.  Faith too is not about a “getting” but about a “giving.”

House Keeping

I am a bit into both house keeping my room and exercise training.  I have a wood floor in my bedroom.  I sweep and clean my floor once a week.  It looks great right after being cleaned.  But within two or three days it is all dusty and grimy again.  I do keep my windows open for some fresh air.  If I sweep the room three times a week then the floor almost always looks good.  It is the same with exercise training.  The day that I do it and the next day, I feel good.  But if I am only going to train once a week, I will physically be a mess most of those non-training days, and the training day will be quite difficult, just like cleaning a room.  It is so much easier to clean up my room if I do it three times a week and so much easier, with better results if I train three days a week.  Don’t worry, I do exercise stuff in between those training days.  So how are you doing with the project or task you have undertaken?  I do write a blog for everyday, as a discipline and it makes me feel better, just like a clean floor and a steady training regimen.

The Right Reason

If you do something so that others will like you better, or to get praise, or keep a spouse or job, you will not do the right thing for long.  Why?  Because your reason for doing it depended on things you cannot control such as will the world like, approve and reward you.  If you do the right thing because you know it is the right thing, for yourself, regardless of how world responds then you will probably continue to do the right thing.  Example: Drinking and Drugging.  If you do it for the world’s response then you may be disappointed.  You may still lose a lot of outside things and get no big approval.  So you will just say, in your self-pity and resentment, “The heck with them” and go back to bad behavior.  But if you do it for yourself, and not for others or outside reasons, then you will probably keep doing the right thing.  The big ego wants approval.  The humble person wants to do the right thing and get all the help they need to do it.

Th Wagon

When one is “On the Wagon” they have made a personal decision that can easily be changed.  For instance one says, I am not drinking, or I am not buying chocolate, or I am saving 5% of my income. It is all a “today” thing that has little responsibility to others in general.  I used to make “On the Wagon” decisions and they lasted for a so short time.  But when you are “In the Wagon,” that is when your decision affects others and is more of a decision to be of service.  You might say you are saving 5% of a groups income or you are doing things to help others to stay sober, or you are not buying things/buying things, for a group of people.  You take on a responsibility for others’ welfare.  It is called growing up, maturing.  In the Stay At Home Covid time I can say I will say mass for myself.  If I don’t so what?  I am the only one affected.  But if I say I will say mass for several people, then I have to show up somewhere, on time, ready to do what I say I will do.  I am better off being in the wagon than on the wagon.  The latter is a slippery slope.

Practice

What makes a great athlete?  Talent, yes, a vision yes, a desire for a goal yes.  All these hav some importance, but they don’t make an athlete great.  So what does?  They love practice.  Yes, there might be a day here and there that feels like drudgery, but they are exceptions.  The norm is that the athlete loves the practice.  And they know that when they are not practicing someone else is, and that someone could top them someday.  It is the same with a musician.  Those who drop out of working on an instrument do so because they got bored with the mechanics, the repeat exercises.  They decided there were better things to do with their time.  A lot of people I know, “used to do this or that.”  So if you want to accomplish something that takes work, you will have to love the work.  Most people give up a spiritual path because they don’t want to practice, but rather to dream the fiction of becoming a guru.  Well, gotta go and get out there and practice.

The More

I used to like to drink.  My favorite drink was "More."  I am not doing that today.  Now my favorite drink is a spiritual path that at times wants "more."  How so?  Well, there is a line in a poem that says, "I drink, and yet I am dry."  It refers to the spiritual path of prayer.  To me, there are times when I pray but feel blah, nothing much.  I sit quietly to meditate and am restless, or discontented.  Not getting a good spiritual buzz.  Though I judge it to be a waste of time when this happens, I have found it to be a vital experience of spiritual growth.  The experience of being dry, can make me want more of whatever feels absent.  How so?  I go into the day after this seemingly empty prayer, and lo and behold I do some good things that even surprise me.  This is how I know that the Power, the One, the Divine, is at work and the prayer was only my judgment of absence.  So I drop judgment and want to go back and pray again, without any expectations.  I want the "more" and am getting it even if I don't feel it at the moment.  It beats a hangover.

Freedom

In this stay in place and social distancing, people feel that their freedom has been taken away.  Hmm. Freedom for what?  People want to be free to go out and do what they want with whom they want.  But I think that now we get to take another look at this “freedom.”  A lot of the impetus for going out and doing stuff, is fear that we will miss something, or slavery to emotions, passions that kept us on the go when we had our so called “freedom.”  Without interior freedom, we are just slaves of our emotions.  Alcoholics are not just slaves to liquor, bu slaves to the feelings that they tried to limit with drinking.  Then the solution became the problem.  So maybe the solution to impulse, fear, being with oneself, is not getting out of the house, but getting into one’s interior life.  This is a great time for solitude for some of us.  In families, a time to learn to let Mom and Dad be, rather than be the solution to your unhappiness or boredom.  And I find limiting sugar helps stillness be still.

Holy Skin

So you don't believe in this god stuff, right?  Or you are a bit skeptical about it all?  OK.  So maybe the god thing might be disguised in some obvious fashion.  How?  Think of those friends you have made who keep you sane, and help you to grow into a useful and mature adult?  Think of those people around you who give you examples of being selfless and compassionate, even if they drive you a bit crazy and make you feel guilty about your own meager sharing.  Those might be this God if it had skin.  I have stopped focusing or spending energy on the "Where is God?" question.  I look around and see the people in my life who help me to stay out of my own way.  There are incarnations of the divine all around me, or within a phone call or text message, or a gathering of people on the spiritual journey.  Maybe I am the god-skin for someone else!  And you might be too.

Self-Seeking Spirituality

A lot of us have devotional pieties, prayer forms and prayer places we go to get more spiritual or holy.  For me, it seems that is about doing something to get something.  I say a novena to get some return or indulgence.  I go to a worship place to get something.  I think that this needs to be balanced if not diminished by a spirituality focused on an absence of self-seeking.  This would be a Spirituality that focuses on other people, especially other people who are hurting in one way or another.  I need to  do for others without any expectation of return.  This is where, I think, if I read my scriptures correctly, that I move from mediocrity to transformation.  I try to go to meetings, not so much focused on what I can get, but on what I can give to someone still suffering, without any expectation of a return.  I always get a return in my heart.  It is the language of the heart.

The Normal Place

Homily Notes...Fr. Terry Ryan, CSP...Matthew 28: 8-15...April 13, 2020
   
     Why does the Risen Jesus tell his disciples to go back to Galilee where they will see him?  Why not right there is Jerusalem, the center of their religion where the magnificent temple is?  Because he wants them to experience resurrection, a whole new way of seeing, in their home town, around the normal circumstances of everyday life.  So many people tell me that they went on some pilgrimage or travel to some place that had a beautiful church, synagogue, temple, or natural wonder of geography, and there they found the presence of God, The Holy, Peace, Comfort.  But ask them if they find that in their everyday lives and they look at you with a puzzled look.  Of course not, they might say and that is why they have to travel to some cathedral to find God, (Catholics, that is, do cathedrals). Christians make a big deal of Jesus being raised to support their faith, and want to rush off to the Holy Land, but are bored, troubled, see nothing special in their everyday surroundings of living quarters, acquaintances, family, office and so on.  The ordinary is just ordinary.  Jesus and Buddha did not see the ordinary as ordinary,  The ordinary is the extra-ordinary, so says the Buddha and Jesus was trying to say the same thing in this gospel.  Take another look at those around you and make that leap of faith!

Being “The Other”

Homily Note...Fr. Terry Ryan, CSP, Matthew 28: 8-10

     

     How would you like to be known as “The Other” Person when names are being named?  While there is the famous Mary Magdalene and with her is the “other” Mary.  Well, that is pretty anonymous.  Have you ever been with someone and everyone else seems to notice that person and remember that person and you are simply “what’s her name” as in forgettable?  Depending on how you feel or respond to this will tell a lot about your spiritual growth and balance.  If you get all upset that would be about ego.  You think you are more important than people say or think, or remember.  If you are all depressed, as in “I am a nobody” then that might be false pride, as in you are worse than other people, putting yourself down to justify being forgotten.  If you are comfortable in your own skin, need no affirmation from historians, then you don’t mind that people forget a part of your “unique” identity.  I try to be comfortable in my own skin, accept being forgotten or a non-central person.  Why?  Because this is often how it is in my life.  If I wear my priest collar, people seem to “recognize me” and remember my name and say hello.  But if I am just walking about in regular clothes, I seem to go unnoticed.  I tried this when greeting children coming into the school.  I am either a ghost, or “hello Father.”  Depends on what I wear.  I have come to prefer being anonymous.  If you have been an imperfect person in the past, you might like it that way too.  

The Museum

An Art Museum can reveal a lot about the observer.  I have found it so in my own life.  I go to a museum and look at a series of paintings that have to do with nature, forests, trees.  I see all the colors and shapes and say how beautiful it all is in the painting.  I admire the painted scenes.  Then I go outside and look at my cell phone or get lost in thought about what and not.  That is, in the museum I admired how the scenes resemble things of which I do not admire in the original. I don't admire real trees, or forests or color in the sky.  I am self-absorbed, condemned by the artist of the painting.  Was that part of the artist's plan?  Is it part of the creator's plan, to bring me to the humility of self-absorption discovered?

Delightful Novel

I just finished reading “A Gentleman In Moscow,” by Amor Towles.  Though it is about a fellow who is confined to a hotel in Moscow after the Russian revolution began, I had heard good things about it. So finally I bought the book in Sea Ranch, California.  It is a delightful read for this time in Covid 19 house arrest!  The Count, an Aristocrat, is reduced to a “former person,” but no matter what, he finds a way to make the most of his situation.  All sorts of adventures take place in this high end hotel in Moscow.  So I ask myself, “What can I find in my own house that is adventurous and widens my horizons?”  In other words, how can I bring a positive and open attitude to what is going on right under my nose?  Enjoy the book and look around your surroundings.  Be open.  I am now.

Easter

Well Happy Easter everybody, under the circumstances.  Are you putting your Easter eggs 12 feet apart?  I usually go to someone’s home for a big Easter dinner and gathering of friends, but Covid 19 may have some say about all that.  It is a sacrifice to stay separate from others for the sake of our common health.  But I found out that the word sacrifice does not mean giving up, deprivation or discomfort.  It’s root meaning is to “Make holy.”  The nuns didn’t tell me that or if they did I was inattentive.  Make holy is to take away all those things that keep me from my God, the Divine, the Presence, the best me I can be. I used to think that giving up drink was a sacrifice of loss. No. It was one of gain, a new life better than the wreckage.  So I will keep that in mind this day.  And all the social isolation is my way of being of service to others, especially the elderly, so that we don’t all die from this virus.  I think we grew up eating ham on Easter.  What about you?

A Gentleman

If a Gentleman and a Lady enter a fine restaurant you will see two things, both of which seem to be rare in our society.  After the couple is seated, the first thing you see is that menus are not placed on the table yet.  Rather the waitperson asks about drinks.  While the drinks are being prepared, the second thing you see is that the gentleman engages the lady in conversation that complements and is about her.  The gentleman knows that the lady spent a lot more time on dressing than he did, so some complement of course is in order.  He does not talk about the restaurant or the food yet, nor about himself.  What too often happens in American eateries is that the menus are dropped on the table as soon as, if not sooner than the guests are seated.  Too many men are not gentleman but rather savage beasts who want to see what they might want to eat, order and get that food into their tummies.  And he talks about his ego-centered self.  I have unfortunately been this savage beast, ego-infested.  With Covid 19, and social distancing, by the time we are all able to go out to eat, people may have forgotten about me, the savage beast me, who should be forgotten about.  So let’s up our game guys.  Reform be in the air.  As for the restaurants, I have no control.

Easter Egg

I just read about the Easter Egg.  Why an egg at Easter?  Once upon a time in old Medieval Europe, Lenten fasting meant that no one ate animal products.  An egg is an animal product.  So no eggs were eaten during Lent even though plenty were produced, given the chicken was not baptized and knew no better.  Second, the egg served as a symbol of Resurrection, the chick breaking through the egg shell, as Jesus resurrected through the rocky tomb.  Third, Eastern Art showed Mary Magdalene coming to the tomb on Easter predawn not with oil to anoint but with an egg, a whole basket of eggs.  Why? Who knows? Maybe she was multitasking and had gathered some eggs for a later breakfast with those cowardly Apostles.  Miraculously, the eggs turned red, and thus you have the Ukrainian pysanka tradition of coloring eggs which I did with my Mom and my sister Maureen as a kid.  So, are you coloring some eggs for this Easter?  

Good Friday

A lot of people like their religion because it makes them feel good.  I know a lot of people in recovery who like certain meetings because it makes them feel good.  But I have found that a spiritual path is not about feelings.  It is beyond feelings.  If you are only being good and loving when you feel good, or feel like it you would be a forever adolescent.  This is a day to remind me that love has to go beyond feelings.  I have to be willing to forgive someone when I don’t feel like forgiving or to be caring when I feel exhausted, resentful, or just whining.  I need to maintain a steady good behavior in spite of the ups and downs of emotions.  To try to  change feelings can sometimes just wreck your life.  Been there.  So in these Covid times I may have all kinds of feelings on any given day and time, but must try and practice a spiritual path that, well, keeps me on the path.

Jail

Think of waking up in jail.  It sounds horrible and something you hope never to do, or never do again.  But are not some prisons of our own making?  What about waking up imprisoned in fear, judgments, anger, resentments and self-pity?  You get into one of these cells and you cannot find your way out.  You don’t have the key.  You need help, right?  This is why I need a spiritual program of some sort that gets me out of self-implosion, and into loving kindness.  I cannot do it alone, but a spiritual program to include meditation, friends on the journey from prison to freedom, good reading, and action seem to keep me from spending much time in my prison cell.  The cell is always there and I can easily slip in and lock the door.  Sounds insane, right?  Freedom is a return to the sanity of loving kindness.

St. Patrick’s

Did you know, or care, that St. Patrick’s Cathedral, in Manhattan, is on land first owned by the Jesuits.  They paid 11K for it to build a boy’s school.  The school failed and next tenants were French Trappists running from Napoleon.  I guess it was quiet in that part of New York at the time for the Trappists to think they could have their quiet.  When Napoleon fell, the Trappists returned to France.  That was 1814.  The New York Diocese owned the land.  Pius XI made New York an Archdiocese in 1950, Archbishop Dagger John, an Irish immigrant, decided to build a big time church for a big time city, New York City being the center of the universe, right!  Cornerstone in 1858 and completion in 1879.  The Irish can do it right but it takes time, and lots of pennies, and thus the name “St. Patrick’s.”  It is still my favorite church since I used to run around Manhattan as a messenger boy in the early 60s and stop in there.  It was only two blocks from where I worked for an advertising company.  Ya gotta go there even if you believe nothing.  It seats 2400.  So it is big with vaulted ceiling and flying buttresses,  with lots of art.  As churches go, it was my first love and one never forgets their first love.

Mid-LIfe

Actually I had two mid-life crises.  How so?  Well, my first one was when I turned 30 and thought that my life was going nowhere and I had accomplished nothing.  I was full of self-pity, self-centeredness, and partying a lot.  Had that continued I would have been dead by 60, and 30 would truly have been my mid-life.  But I got my act cleaned up, as I awoke to a life less about me and more about what I could do for others without thinking how it would benefit me.  So my second mid-life came when I was 50.  I had not been partying for 10 years but I realized I needed to step up my game, and really turn it all over to God.  That being a mid-life crisis, I should live to be 100. Just do the math.  And keep your social distance.

Grace Is Everywhere!

Generally what we hear is that addicted people die from their addictions, destroying their life.  We would not think of them as capable of courage, sacrifice, or much self-giving.  But don’t be too quick to judge.  Take Mark, his real name, a fellow from China around 1900.  He died for his belief in Catholicism in the Boxer revolt.  He was an opium addict right up to the end.  For 30 years he could not go to communion, an important thing for a pious Catholic.  His priest would not give him absolution because Mark kept confessing over and over his opium usage.  No 12 step program back then, so the priest thought that Mark was not very repentant.  In 1900 when the Boxers entered his village Mark readily admitted, no torture, that he was a Christian.  They killed him for his faith.  So he is a martyr, and now an official saint.  Pray to Mark Ji Tianxiang the patron of drug addicts.  The Catholic Church seems to have all kinds of Saints.  Maybe there will be room for me.

Doctor Women Religious

Did you know that the Catholic Church Canon Law forbade women religious, sisters and nuns, from practicing surgery or obstetrics?  So a woman named Anna Dengel, Austrian, became a doctor.  At first she attended to poor Muslim women in India.  There the law forbade male doctors from treating women.  Who makes these laws?  Yeah, I know, men.  Anyhow, Anna decides to become a religious order sister, and now a doctor.  No such religious order for a woman doctor like her, so she starts her own and calls it a “pious society,” because it cannot be a religious order.  Women are ingenious.  Eventually, a Pope catches up and in 1936 drops the ban and Anna’s group becomes a regular religious order, “The Medical Mission Sisters.”  What women have to do to get ahead in this church of mine.

Myopia

In the book, “Talking To Strangers,” there is a section on heavy drinking, binge drinking, over consumption.  The author, Malcolm Gladwell, says it is an issue of myopia.  I will translate that for alcoholics as I see it.  Myopia means that you miss the larger picture and focus on what is right in front of you, “that first drink.”  You don’t think about the ramifications of that drink.  It will lead to “more,” and lots more and then that larger picture, your life, will come undone. And so?  The alcoholic must not think of their alcoholism as part of their overall larger life or family, job, home, relationships, but rather think of alcohol as the larger issue and everything fits into that.  You will always be alcoholic.  You will have this job, career, home, kids for now, but all moves on, except alcoholism.  When the alcoholic get myopic, they think of all the little things that call for their now attention, and say, “I have no time for meetings, reading BB, calling a member, because I have this project, task, issue to deal with.  So you skip the larger issue, your alcoholism and attend to myopic stuff that seems so important at the moment.  Soon, you mess up all your life with bad behavior and eventually the small stuff disappears and you are left with what? Alcoholism, untreated.  Go to a meeting so that the rest of your life does not leave you.

A New Plateau

While you are social distancing and trying to practice some more or deeper prayer time you might find that you feel a bit depressed or discouraged.  Stuff is just not working on this spiritual journey, so say your feelings.  But I offer some possible good news in this mess.  Many a spiritual master says that when we are moving from one level of spirituality to a deeper or higher level, we can feel depressed in the transition.  This is because the level we knew and in which we felt comfortable is being taken away from us.  Example: recovery people.  At one level their spiritual program is meetings, service and some prayer, not too much of the latter.  Now, socially distant with less or no opportunity for meetings as they knew them, in person, and less chance for service as they knew it, they begin to actually focus more on that 11th step of meditation.  Depression or discouragement at first, followed by a whole new light of a deeper dimension.  This deeper dimension will incorporate/include the earlier level of meetings and service,  but on a much deeper level when social distancing is no longer needed.  Be patient.

The Giving

It has been said that a big reason for the struggle with depression is that we have a too strong dependency on other people and outside circumstances.  Like what?  Like the need for approval, affirmation from others, or the need for prestige from outside situations.  Our focus in all this is to "get."  We have this need to get things from people, or situations such as work or a group or an event. With Covid, there is not much of that.  We are somewhat by ourselves or with a family that sometimes wants to get from us while not giving much in return.  What to do?  A suggestion for a solution is to give love in some way, or try to be of service even in social distancing.  How?  You might share what you are reading, or project you are working on that might appeal to someone else.  You might write a letter and put a stamp on it.  You might call someone out of the blue that could use a pick me up.  In other words get out of yourself and try to be of service.  I hear people in Zoom meetings talk about how glad they are to "get" this chance to connect or be with others on the internet and how tough things have been.  But then they don't share any solution or offer anything that might help another.  Dwell less on what you are missing or not getting, and think more about what you can share to help another struggling person.  We are all in this thing together.

The End

I am thinking of dropping my blog and doing no more after today.  I have run out of things to say.  So my next career will be to focus on being useless and lazy.  I mean if I drop out of contact with others I will avoid getting the Covid19, right?  I will stop teaching because I keep saying the same stuff over and over.  I think people might just be coming for the homemade treats which are a lot better than my talks as far as I can be the judge.  To rest my brain I will drop my subscriptions to all my intellectual religious journals and just get a subscription to Sports Illustrated.  I will start jogging again more regularly as long as it does not interfere with my laziness goal.  I have done a lot of good works but I don't think they will overcome the bad ones of the past.  So I am going to burn.  I will do one good thing though.  I will start saying nice things about my big Sis Maureen.  April Fools!