Divine Expansion

 Isaac Hecker, CSP, the founder of the Paulist Fathers, said that we are all meant for Divine Expansion.  The whole universe is expanding according to it nature, except for us.  We are part of the universe, but unlike all those stars and black holes out there, we have free will and the star does not.  So the universe obeys the laws of expansion from the time of the Big Bang or however it all got started. It is their way of exhibiting Divine Expansion, God revealing the Divine in the action of the universe.  But we earthling humans don't always act according to God's plan because we do have free will to ""do it my way," as Frank Sinatra sang.  He is one of the favorite singers of the current Superior General of the Paulist Fathers.  But I digress.  The only way that we earthlings will follow our purpose for divine expansion is if we have some interior prayer life that confronts our self-will.  This is more than following the rules of a religion, or asking the God of your belief to give you something.  The interior life puts aside your plans and programs for the day, to just be with whoever created you.  Let this Power, Presence act on you. It will be in your best interest, for who knows you better than the Maker?  Of course, you could eat a lot of sweets, but that would be a different expansion.  

Scolding

 If you don't do the right thing, mess up, in religion, work, or home, you often get scolded.  So you might change behavior for the moment out of guilt, shame or fear, but that does not change your insides at any depth.  This is merely dry spirituality.  It does not last.  What I like about recovery programs is that you don't get scolded.  If you mess up, you know it and suffer the consequences.  At some point the consequences energize you to do some inner work so that you have a deeper change, not from shame and guilt or even fear, but from an inner desire to become a better person.  I have benefitted greatly from people who have loved me until I could love myself.  Some of you blog readers have done this for me.  Thank you.  

Age

 When people ask me how old I am, I think to myself, do they want chronological or emotional age?  The chronology stays the same or goes upward day by day.  The emotional is all over the place depending on my spiritual condition.  When I am not in a fit spiritual condition, not exercising my spirit in prayer and service, I am emotionally still a teenager or adolescent.  I have even said to the age inquiry, that I am this age in years since birth, and then emotionally 12 years old.  I have gotten all kinds of looks and wry smiles from that response on my part.  Good health habits are an attempt to control my chronological age and good spiritual habits are used to control my emotional age.  One fellow said that he was emotionally minus one.  That is a really bad day!

Ear Buds

 I try not to judge people who I see walking on a trail or country road, with ear buds on.  Some would say, "Why are they doing that?  They are not in touch with nature.  They are isolating from the world around them."  That would be a judgment.  I have no idea of the why of ear buds.  And it is not my business.  Maybe they are listening to music that connects them even more to their surroundings.  We are all different.  Maybe they are listening to some recording that is expanding them, while at the same time getting some exercise for the body.  Maybe they are bored with walking but know it is good for them or doctor's orders.  Or whatever.  We simply do not know.  I try t simply observe people on my walk or run, and say a prayer for their happiness and well-being.  And wear a mask as well.  

Thanksgiving

 Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all those who are celebrating our USA Thanksgiving.  Though this Thanksgiving Day may be quite different for many of us in Coronavirus times, I hope for gratitude and being of service is part of my day.  Instead of getting together with my California Sister, Jane and her family, I am celebrating with the monks of the monastery where I am now staying.  Since it is my first Thanksgiving dinner with them I await their customs and food.  I will help, maybe in baking some bread which would be minor, given turkey and all the trimmings.  I hope that I don't compare and  contrast with my sister's cooking, but rather enjoy the newness of what is before me.  Expand my Thanksgiving horizons is my plan for the day.  I try to celebrate what I have and not what I do not have.  Be sober.  Be healthy.  

An Imperfect Day

 A person said to me that today is another imperfect day to enjoy.  Oh how true.  Why do things have to be perfect, go my way, for me to be happy.  Every day is imperfect if that is my criterion.  But I have the gift of the day and can just enjoy it.  This is the day before Thanksgiving in the USA.  Maybe you are making plans and feeling stressed that things won't all go as you want or hope.  Maybe you lack plans, shut down by Covid 19.  "Thanksgiving is going to be so lonely," or "So stressful," or "What is there to be thankful  for anyway."  Well, you can make your resentment list or get onto the pity-pot, and surely you will have a bad day today.  But I will try to do what my friend suggested.  I have the gift of still being around and I will not take this imperfect day for granted.  I shall enjoy it and not try to fix the universe...not today anyway.  

Branding

 HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

MATTHEW 25: 31-46

Branding is very important and tricky in trying to sell a product.  Branding tries to connect you to a product that you will then want to buy.  Sometimes it is a song.  Remember the Alka Seltzer brand song, “Pop, pop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.”  This was a successful simple song you would remember  and with that buy Alka Seltzer rather than brand X.  The Marlboro Man, the rough, outdoor, manly man cowboy connected to smoking Marlboro cigarettes.  Tony the Tiger was a brand connection with Frosted Flakes.  The product identified with some image you would remember that would attract you to the product.  

A brand connection also defines ownership.  Cattle were branded.  Nowadays they get ear tags.  We see this on our monastery ranch with the cattle that graze.  The tags separate one animal from another in ownership identity.  A monk’s stability in a monastery is a form of brand belonging.  The monks here are part of St. Benedict’s Monastery here in Snowmass.  They belong here and not some other monastery.  The monastery is branded “Trappist” and not Dominican or Franciscan.  

I am feeling a sense of being a part of rather than separate from this monastery though I am more goat than sheep.  This Gospel challenges us here to make sure that we are not just looking for the “Second Coming” down the road in some future.  Jesus says quite plainly that he has come back in the hungry, thirsty, lonely, imprisoned, homeless and ill-clothed person.  We can find him there, and be identified or be branded as followers of Jesus by the way we connect with these people.  Will anyone look at you in your actions with the  suffering in this world and think “Oh, there is Christ in that person.” Are you a Christ brand? As I faithfully ate my Frosted Flakes because I identified with Tony the Tiger, I faithfully am branded a Christ follower by my actions.  Among the hungry and thirsty in our midst here are the Elk, Deer, and Cattle who all eat of our pastures that we work to maintain in spite of drought.  And the ditches with water to give to thirsty animals that we dredge each Spring.  

So you have to ask yourself, how will anyone know that you bear the Christ brand?  Being baptized is not on the Gospel list.  Nor is believing the correct creed, nor practicing any of a litany of devotions.  No, the list is pretty clear.  I do wish that Jesus had added caring for our home the Earth.  For if we fail to do this we will all be hungry and thirsty, and maybe worse.  So, are you branded “Christ-follower?"  Sheep or goat?

The Dead

November is the month that my religion celebrates the dead.  I don't know why we do this in November, but since November is supposed to inaugurate dark and gloomy in the Norther Hemisphere and Death kind of has a dark and gloomy thing about it, November would be a good fit.  St. Benedict, who wrote a rule for monks says that each day we should remember that we are going to die.  Well that will keep us real and rightsized.  But it is not just about physical death.  There is another dying to remember and it comes from our baptism.  Most of us in my religion got baby baptized.  That is when, to me, we began to die to being who someone else wants us to be, and forged the road to becoming who God made us to be.  That is not an easy road.  In this Thanksgiving week, there is a big hoopla about shopping, buying, spending.  The culture wants consumers.  I don't think I am my best self when I buy stuff neither I or anyone else needs or can fit into their lives.  Jobs try to make us conform to someone else's expectations  or wants.  Schools can do this.  No one is in charge, and few are really interested in us becoming who we truly are.  It is a tough thing to die to external powers trying to mold us.  Well how do we know we are becoming our best self?  We will become better lovers, with acceptance, patience, kindness, and compassion for other people, especially people who are not conforming to our desires for them, or are not part of our group, tribe or social club.  We are a work in progress.  

More Or Less

A situation occurs and I seem to accept it.  I don't get all upset and then I do the next right thing but without anxiety.  Another time, the same situation arises, and I go crazed!  What happened?  Well in the first instance, I was at peace with myself, or in a "fit spiritual condition" as some would say.  In the second case, I was out of spiritual balance, easily put on edge when the unexpected occurs or my plans get disturbed.  For me, most often, when I am bothered by something, or someone, I am not working on my prayer, meditation, spiritual reading and such.  I am not working on my insides, and so I go crazed when stuff happens.  It is not the stuff that is my problem, but in most cases it is me who is the problem.  There are times each day when I cannot afford to neglect myself.   

Mopping Up

 One of my jobs here at the monastery is to sweep and wet mop the kitchen floor every four weeks.  When IT  comes to my week, I do this task each day.  IT reminds me of my prayer life. I have to repeat my prayer practice each day.  Just like the kitchen floor, it gets messy between cleanings. I wash the floor today and by tomorrow if not by that night there are muddy prints and crumb droppings on the floor.  I have no control over muddy boots.  My prayer life is not something to be controlled.  It is to be practiced.  It is action and not attitude.  My life can so easily get muddled up from outside stuff if not thoughts and shortcomings making for murky times.  So I practice my prayer rituals each day.  As with the kitchen floor I make time for prayer.  I think everyone benefits by my being sane and serene.  

The Right Space

 Have you ever noticed that there are times when disorder seems to reign all around you?  I have.  Things are a mess and people are making the mess.  Why won’t everyone shape up?  I find later, that the problem was me.  I was not in a good space.  I was not centered within.  How do I know this?  Because when I am more centered within, connected to a deep silence that can permeate my day, the world around me seems better or maybe I am just more tolerant and compassionate and forgiving.  I cannot seem to change those around me by any criticism or even exemplary behavior on my part.  So I work on me.  I generally have a better day of acceptance of “disorder.”  I am in order.  

The Deep Darkness

When you enter into more of a prayer of oneness instead of the usual twoness, you can get disoriented.  Our separate self is our ballast.  But with this depth of prayer can come a sense of meaninglessness.  We cannot fully answer the question of why we would pursue a more contemplative life, even to ourselves much less others.  It is therefore not easy to explain to anyone, the curious, why we do what we do.  I am not even sure of the why, but I do know that it is a winding road to oneness with The Other who becomes not an Other, but more or less, depending on your experience.  Most of us prefer straight roads and surety in the straight and wide road.  That is what I call "Interstate Highway Prayer."  Contemplative prayer is more about the backwoods.  Maybe that is why I like East Tennessee and the backroads to Dollywood.   After Covid, ya gotta do Dollywood, and take the backroads.  No less than the Superior General of The Paulist Fathers loves this way to Dollywood, and he drives it like a New Yorker.  Yikes!

Abraham

Abraham is the Father of the three "Religions of the Book," Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  God told Abe to move from his land.  Abe did not know where he was going or quite what the plan was, but he uprooted himself and moved.  Most of us would not do that.  We have to know what is coming.  We want security and assurances if we are going to give up the familiar.  Sometimes we might make a move because we are miserable in our present circumstances.  Some people marry for that reason.  But even marriage in the best of circumstances is a leap of faith.  Some of our best decisions come with that leap.  Lately, coming to the monastery is such a decision.  People ask me what is my plan, or why do this.  Were things not well enough where I was?  I think of the monastery now not as an escape, but as a leap.  I have no idea what is in he future, but I sense it is right for me now.  So I like Abe and his gumption.  For some people, the belief in the existence of God is an assurance, but it is not a leap into the unknown.  Change for the better does not come with assurances.  It comes with risk.  The best relationships are risk and trust. 

Wine O'Clock

Someone mentioned to me that there is such a time as "wine o'clock," as the time to escape the feelings, anxieties and pressures that one has leading up to wine o'clock.  It is the time with which one rewards oneself for getting through something such as a day parenting, working with others in a job, accomplishing some burdensome task.  This is normal life to some people but a burden to others.  When life is a burden with no reward in sight, one makes up a reward.  The wine is the reward.  No longer is wine something that one enjoys with a meal, to enhance flavor, but rather it requires no food, and at worse, food only gets in the way.  Too much reward for a burdensome life, can lead to oblivion.  Life has its difficulties and challenges.  There is suffering at times.  I try to bring the attitude of acceptance, and see how it can be a service to others and to a better world around me, even in my small world of a monastery.  To get angry or self-pitying does not change the outsides a fig.  It only brings me closer to wine o'clock.  That was a bad time for me in the past, so I try to look upon the clock, as a gift of time.  There are no guarantees.  

Fear

Fear is when you are thinking all about you.  It is therefore called self-centered fear.  I can be fearful for someone else, but it is not quite the same as the terror about my own demise.  I might worry that loved ones are out in grizzly country.  But I am really scared witless when confronted with a grizzly myself.  You don't ask yourself at that moment why you are frightened.  It is not a time for self-reflection.  Self-centered fear is identified often by the ability to ask myself why I am frightened.  I have some energy to reflect.  That is when I see it is usually about me, what I am getting that I don't want or what I am not getting that I do want, or some other happiness program that might think you will benefit if I get what I want.  So each day I work on the things that tend to bring up self-centered fear into my life.  Dropping control is usually a good thing to ward off fear.   

The Bell

Someone imaged the soul as having a bell.  I like that.  In the Buddhist tradition which Westerners borrowed or appropriated for meditation, they use a gong or a bowl.  The gong or bowl plays one long note, rather than a tune as do some church bells.  A tune might make you think about, well, the tune.  The gong or bowl is to simply call you to attention, rather than to thinking.  So it is one long note.  Now this note strikes the bell of your soul, to play that same one note.  Do you respond instantly?  Maybe.  What gets in the way of attention, is all the clutter of thoughts and feelings and anxieties, life's clutter.  So you may not respond to the gong or bowl at that moment.  The Power or Energy of the Universe, God for me, is that one note sound.  It plays each day.  If you don't respond right away, you might respond later to the one note that came earlier in the day.  So not to worry.  If you don't respond so well early, you may do better later in the day.  Just know that someone is always paying attention to the bell of your soul, and watching over you.  The one note plays each day for you.  

Perfect

Someone said, "Perfect is a concept."  Concepts exist in the mind.  But they are not reality in the sense of the possible in everyday life.  Imperfect is reality.  If you want someone to be perfect then you are living a delusional life and disappointment will follow.  People and situations are imperfect.  We might have a goal of perfection, but I prefer to have one more realistic, which is "improvement."  When I am spiritually, and emotionally unbalanced, I get upset when people are not perfect, which is to do the right thing.  The right thing by definition is what I judge to be the right action.  I decide.  When I am out of sorts, unbalanced, I am always two things, disappointed and resentful.  No happy, joyous and free here.  I am a prisoner of the concept of perfection.  When I am living the 'Real" then I am on the spiritual path, centered on it.  Acceptance is a good response to imperfection in my world.  

A Bell

 Do you want to be like a school bell, at whose sound, all attention is sucked toward you? Or silent shyness, like a monk walking down a corridor, eyes down?  Whatever you are as a child, is your child ness.  What then is growing up?  Is it not to expand or contract from being a child?  To always be the same, what spiritual path is that?  Sameness means only that you are growing into a bigger child.  Sometimes growth is becoming smaller in an area of childhood, and sometimes becoming larger, but not the same smaller or the same larger. It is to change, to add something that was there in childhood, but not known or manifested or had yet the strength to be at all.  A spiritual path will reveal where you are stunted and where you have become fuller, the you, the best you.  

Who Am I?

 Your face can tell you who you are.  A perpetual innocent would have no creases, no eye edgeD wrinkles from many smiles and laughter. History will line us if we are involved, risk love, concern, in a word, connect with the human condition .  Because you love, worries will crease your brow.  And as you age your future is shortened.  As you age, you can look upon each day more as something unexpected, gift, a blessing one would hope.  To take time for granted is to miss out on the energy of each day, the possibilities.  Enjoy, but do not tarry with limitations.  

Basics

From time to time I hear someone say, "Let's get back to basics."  Humm.  Why did you leave the basics in the first place, so that now you have to get back to them?  Are you so advanced that you forgot how you got "advanced" in the first place?  The ego is always looking for a way to get center stage, the spotlight.  I try to keep "the basics" in the spot light, center stage, on a daily basis.  Whenever my thinking says I am advanced, I am usually on the way out of practice, rather than on the way up.   So I leave advanced to others.  I try to start each day the same way that I did when I first was climbing out of the hole I had dug in bad behavior or bad thinking, or emotional turmoil.  We do certain basics when we exercise, shop, cook, work if we want things to go well.  I have found it so.  Stay with your basics.  

Injustice

Sometimes, we do a great injustice to ourself.  Like what?  Like trying to be someone or something we are not.  Why do we do this?  Are we unhappy with who we are?  Do we judge ourselves as inadequate when in fact it is simply something that is not who we are?  I might want to be a great singer, but I am not.  It is not me in my vocal cords and voice.  I am adequate.  Adequate is me in the singing area.  I might want to be a holy priest, but I am not and time is running out.  I am OK, and do try, but it may not be me, so why beat myself up over it.  There will always be someone, legions for that matter, holier than I.  I am not going to be the physical person that I was when I was younger, so stop killing myself in exercise or on gym machines.  Do something for fitness and let it be.  So what injustice do you do to yourself?  Who are you trying to be that is simply not you.  You have gifts.  Use yours and be not envious of the gifts of others.   

Stars

 Now that it stays dark for so long into the early morning, I can go out and look at the stars at 5:30 AM after Vigils and meditation.  Two things come to mind when I look up.  I am small and insignificant.  That is one thing in two parts.  The second thing is that I am loved by the One who made all this.  So I am not so insignificant.  It becomes even more amazing to think that this Wow in the heavens would ever become a human being on this tiny rock spinning around in space. This all keeps my ego in check.  I don’t have to try to prove myself.  I am too small in this vastness to be so much, but I am loved. Would you not rather be loved than be a big deal, with lots of control and power?  Living in the country, away from lights and pollution has its benefits.  

In Sequence

In AA's Twelve Steps, I don't think the eleventh step on prayer and meditation is going to happen until Step Ten has been done first.  You won't meditate until you have ceased to fight anything and anyone.  That is Step Ten goal.  I find this axiom works for all of us, not just recovering addicts.  We need a certain peace of mind, resentment-free, if we are going to be in the now moment of meditation.  If I am just rehashing yesterday or yesteryear for that matter, I lack the energy and focus for the now moment in which meditation takes place.  The number 10 comes right before the number 11in an ordered universe.  So if I am trying something and it is simply not working, I ask myself what did I leave out leading up to the present task?  The number 11 is a numeral in something larger than itself.  I am a person in a universe larger than me, and I am not its center.   

Appearance

With Covid restrictions, I realize that I do not have to shave before presenting myself to a doctor or other one one one outside encounter.  I can look like Gabby Haz for that matter.  But it made me think.  Was I only concerned with how I looked on the outside?  What about how I present my insides in a personal encounter?  Each day, I need to work on grooming my insides at least as much as I worry about “appearances.”  There have been times when I said, “I have no time for meditation, because I got to fix my face.”  I might then present a pleasant outsides, but not be so pleasant insides, with which I burden another.  Now the quiz.  Gabby Haz was in a movie, “Red River,” starring Montgomery Cliff and another famous actor.  What is the actor’s name?  Hint. He also starred in a famous movie, “The Searcher,” in which a famous actress made her debut as a white girl brought up by Indians.  What was her name?  

Charity

 When I give some money to something that actually benefits me directly, I call it a contribution.  I contribute to things that I am a part of.  So I would contribute to my church, to a group that helps me to stay sane and balanced.  I hear people say they "donate" to their church or group.  To me, donations go to causes that help others but I do not directly benefit, such as a program that feeds the hungry or house the homeless,  for instance.  If you are in a meeting that helps you and they pass the hat, you contribute.  You don't donate.  Museums could be a grey area, but I call it a contribution if I am a member.  I benefit by going to the museum.  Members contribute.  If someone is looking for money over and above my membership, as museums and the arts do, I call it a donation.  When people send me money for my teaching or preaching, I hope it is a contribution, that they are benefitting directly from what I do.  I am not a charity, at least not yet.  

A Presence

 In my brand of belief, God is innocuous, small, quiet, but present in a little round wafer, in a box, in the chapel.  Wherever there are little boxes, called tabernacles in church-speak, in churches, there is this presence.  So sometimes, never often enough, I go in and sit down.  My churches are open all day long in most places.  It is comforting to know that it does not matter what I believe, or how skeptical I am, the presence is still there.  It does not depend on me.  I get the comfort of someone loving me, always being there for me, even if I don’t love them or give them much time.  The presence is not meant to overcome disbelief, but rather overcomes a sense of being alone and abandoned.  Covid times are tough, but as I sit there alone, I generally feel better.  If I am feeling crazed, in emotional turmoil, scattered, a quiet seems to come over me.  It is comforting to feel a bit of love, of not being alone, without my having to do anything or make anything happen.  I hope that Moms/Dads of my belief will take their little children into these quiet, and massive buildings and introduce them to the Presence in the little box.  It could be a lifesaver someday.  The world is not getting to be an easier place for sanity and serenity.  Anyhow, it is what little ole me does from time to time.  

My Guitar

I used to play the guitar in the seminary.  I would play and sing at mass.  I found that depending on the weather, temperature, and neglect I gave the guitar, it would go out of tune.  So I would have to retune it.  Life is like the weather.  It happens.  My spiritual life is like my guitar.  It needs to be kept in tune if I am to be functional and optimal.  Prayer each day keeps me in tune.  A guitar out of tune and me out of tune, grate on the world around me.  If people say to you, "You need help," or "Why don't you get your act together,"  then there is a good chance you are out of tune.  Meditation gets me back in tune.  Then I am easy listening for others.  Just like my blogs!   

The Now

I am sitting here in my monastery room, at 8,000 Feet altitude.  It is early November and I have my window open letting in the pleasant warm fresh air.  I know that in one week it will be 0 degrees here and snowing, but I don't have to live in one week from now today.  Some  people get all upset when they focus on what will be and fail to enjoy what is in the moment.  I baked bread this morning and the monks did not seem to jump into eating it.  It was OK but not more than that.  It was a Rye and I did not follow the directions exactly.  But that was this morning.  My bread is for the birds, but I don't have to live in this morning.  It is past anyway.  It will not come back.  So I can live in this moment, this pleasant walk on our ranch road, not a person in sight, no wind and no jacket or gloves.  Sun screen yes.  Always sun screen.  So if you had a bit of a failed morning, and nuclear winter is coming, why not just see what is in the moment to enjoy.  It is all we have, the moment.  Enjoy this blog, perhaps? 

Can Do

Instead of focusing on what I cannot do, which is considerable, I try to focus on what I can do.  If I am limited in my exercise for one reason or another, I do what I can do, and not judge it as "too little."  I try not to set goals for myself that are ego driven and probably impossible for me.  I do what prayer I can each day and try not to beat myself up for what I did not do.  The same with cleaning house or room.  Do something rather than bemoan how it is all so impossible and thus do nothing.  I see no good purpose in ending my day with a daily inventory filled with regrets.   Progress is in the little things done that keep me on the path to fullness.  

All Saints

 Two generations after we die, we are pretty much forgotten by this world.  But for me, I am always remembered by my God.  This gives me some comfort and direction on this Feast of All Saints Day in my church.  And the saints remember one another and we them, always.  My Mom, Dad, Big Sis Maureen, are all among the Saints for me.  So why spend so much energy on this earth doing things for which I would be famous?  It is all ego, and fear of oblivion.  Why not work rather for this God who never forgets me, and asks humility and daily faithfulness in love of those around me.  Love does not carry fame with it for most of us.  Fame is fleeting, but love somehow endures and is a lot more selfless.  Energy spent trying to be important, significant in they eyes of those who will soon pass on themselves, seems like such a s waste of time and energy.  Better to love them and let life pass.  And I hope while life is moving along, you enjoy that extra hour you get as you turned back your clocks.  You did turn back your clock, did you not?  Except in Arizona and lots of other places outside the USA.  I am enjoying a good early morning sunrise.  

Be You

 Don't strive to be someone else.  It is a waste of energy.   I am most likely to fall into this trap when I read about someone I admire who is doing admirable things, at least as I see it.  I might feel a draw, or even a guilt about doing "more" than what I am doing.  I want to do what they are doing or did.  But is it me?  I live in a monastery.  In terms of fixing the world, helping others to have a better life out there, in terms of justice, freedom and safety, I do nothing.  The world starves, is homeless, unhappy, lonely and so on.  I do nothing.  And so it goes.  But if I do something out of guilt, that will not last long.  If I do something because someone says, "I should," it won't last long.  All that lasts is being ME, the best me I can be.  I do not have to ask what is the purpose of this me.  But I do trust that the best me, the striving to be the best me, will make some contribution to the world and be attractive to someone who is trying to be their best self.  If I cannot love, forgive, care about, accept and be helpful to the person in the next room, what is the point of trying to save the world?  The ego wants to save the world.  The true self loves the neighbor they can see each day.  Happy Birthday to my sister Jane.