End Of Year

 Where did 2021 go? Well, here is an end of year thought.  One time, Jesus was in the middle of a packed house.  Full capacity.  Some guys come along with a friend on a stretcher.  Can’t get in.  So they go up onto the roof, rip it open and lower the stretcher and man into center of room right under the nose of Jesus.  They never asked for anything.  Most people think they wanted Jesus to do something for their friend, like heal him.  Why?  Maybe their friend just wanted to listen, and did not really want anything else.  I find too often, that I pray because I want something.  Less frequently, I pray just to be in the presence of my God, Power, One, and listen.  So that is my parting 2021 thought.  God is with you.  Let it be enough.  Be still.  Listen.  Oh, and go to bed early and sober.  

Birthdays

 I think today is the birthday of Carol Ann Kennedy, who has another last name now.  I remember some birthdays besides my family.  I remember my college roommates birthday, and a friend I met in the seventh grade, and one of my Paulist associates when I was in Knoxville.   There are a few others too and they all had some significance in my life I guess, at a certain time.  I learned from them.  I am what I am today in part because of people in my life.  Now, hardly anyone remembers my birthday.  My insignificance will keep me humble.  Humility is a good thing.  So don’t get upset if no one remembers your birthday.  Spiders have to live someplace making their cobwebs.  Why not your mailbox?  

Walk Away

 Some people ask me why I left everything of my work in parishes and came to the monastery, this out of the way place.  Well, as I see it, Jesus, who I am supposed to be following, was rather busy making a living as a carpenter.  He made stuff for people and helped to build houses, repair houses, help in the fields at harvest time, and was an eldest son in the family.  Then he went to the desert.  Maybe he started out with short visits for some solitude and silence.  But eventually he went.  It is where John the Baptist found him.  And from there Jesus knew what to do next.  Back in Nazareth, his hometown, many thought he was crazy.  Follow your heart.  

A Plan

 We are coming up on "New Year's Resolutions."  I met a guy once, who said to me, "I have decided to stop drinking."  I said, "What is your plan?"  His plan was to stop going to bars and avoid the liquor store.  That is not a plan.  That is like someone who plants a seed in rocky soil, and does not water it.  It is magical intentions.  Gardening is daily work and not always easy.  If you don't stay on top of it, the weeds, critters in the ground will win out and you will have a mess.  If you intend to be a gardener, maybe get some advice on how to do it from someone who does it well.  So if you are going to make a resolution for 2022, "What is your Plan?"

Hiding

 I have a disconnect between interior behavior and exterior behavior and it shows up most embarrassingly when I am at worship services.  I look good on the outside, praying with the monks or presiding at mass, but my crazy mind is all over the place with judgments and resentments and what not.  I will be listening to the words in the ritual, and have a thought, that will trigger other thoughts, that trigger scenes in my imaginings, and then suddenly I will come back into the presence of the ritual and find I missed a lot.  My body never moved, but my mind whet hither and yon.  Ever have that happen to you, driving, at work, in a room of people, at a meeting?  Are we crazy or what?  Well, at least we are physically there.  That counts for something.  And we get to exercise humility.  

Rock Or Sand

There is a wisdom story about where one builds their house, on rock or sand.  It is easier and softer to build on sand than rock but when bad weather comes, storms, floods, wind, the house on sand blows away.  It only hold us in the good times.  So it is with faith, recovery, or commitment to anything of deep value.  I meet many a person who had religious faith early in life, child-like, but when tough times came in the growing up years, they abandoned faith.  God did not come through for them.  And there are people in the pink cloud of recovery when things are going their way.  Then the tough times come, real life troubles, and they go back to their first solution, addictive stuff.  I have to watch myself and make sure that my commitment is "for better or for worse, in good times and in bad."  This is the house built on rock.  

Merry Christmas!

It is very early in the morning now and I am just out of bed, getting ready for our Vigil prayers in the darkness of the chapel.  Like a good child, I went to sleep last night, trusting and hoping that Santa would not pass our monastery by in these remote mountains.  I hung my empty red stocking up downstairs before I went to bed.  I have hope that Santa left me something.  But no matter what, I intend to have a good day.  Why?  Because it is not up to others to make my day good for me.  It is not their job.  Like Santa, they might have other priorities, and thinking about me and my serenity is not in their purview.  Serenity, peace and joy is my job, and I no longer try to do it alone.  I have a Power that today shows its presence in a manger as a baby.  What a gift.  Never alone.  

A Row

 I like the phrase, “One day at a time.”  I am supposed to work at some spiritual growth for this 24 hours.  Unfortunately, I missed something here too often.  One day at a time also means, “in a row.”  I will do a good job of a spiritual practice one day, but then not so good or mostly ignore any interior attention, exercise, eating right and so on for a few days.  Talk about trudging.  So for today, I will try to keep the “in a row” part of this one day at a time saying in my practice.  What I did yesterday was good for yesterday but it won’t work very well for today.  I am a 24 hour guy.  

A Light

During this "Advent" season I have done a nightly examination of conscience, a review of the day and my actions.  The candle is a reminder that I want to be a light in the life of those around me who might be having a bit of a tough day.  I want to be a light in the darkness, especially this time of year when we have so little sunlight.   During the day, I am from time to time reminded of my goal to be a light.  Unfortunately, this reminder too often comes after I have been into bad thinking or worse, action.  Trudging along.  

Mis-Fit

 I like the joke and word play on fitness.  A mis-fit is someone who is not so fit.  They are missing fitness.  It is good to know when I am mis-fit, as opposed to being clueless about any fitness.  Some people care not at all for any kind of fitness, spiritual or physical.  So each day I try to check on my fitness, physical and spiritual.  I stretch, walk/jog/elliptical type stuff, and pray.  I try to avoid being a mis-fit on a daily basis.  Good balance.   

Gratitude

I sometimes fine myself fretting that my income from zoom teaching is not what it used to be.  Financially, things are not so great.  But then I have to remind myself that I am still working at my teaching.  This is what I did before Covid and the Monastery.  So I am still able to work.  This brings me to gratitude which is a nice thing to replace worry or fear.   

Insanity

 My normal way of thinking and feeling is insane.  I know this because I can spend a considerable amount of time and energy in a day being bothered and resentful of stuff around me that is not going to change.  But I am enjoying moments when I do change, and become sane.  I accept the way people are and the way things are that I cannot control. Thoughts that begin with, “If only” drop away from my brain.  I stop talking to myself.  Sometimes sanity just comes.  Other times I work at it when I become aware that I am insane.  I am having a sane moment now.  When it passes, I know the way back to sanity and that in itself is a grace.  

Awareness

 Our corridors, called Cloisters at the monastery, are very cold in the winter.  Winter is long here.  My first winter here I was quite aware of this whenever I walked through the corridors or hallways.  It took center place in my thoughts.  So I grumbled.  I was not ready, prepared to accept this is the way things are here.  Cold cloisters and hallways.  But then, over time, my second winter here, I am aware that it is cold, but I don’t really spend time thinking about it.  Cold corridors don’t take up space in my head.  It no longer seems to bother me, though it is still cold.  This is what I hear is called, “living life on life’s terms.”  No grumbling.  

Annual Plans

 This week will end with Christmas next Saturday.  With the Coronavirus lots of plans are changed.  Lots of stores are closed on Christmas, unlike Yom Kippur or Ramadan.  But we are used to that.  The ski slopes are open if you can get to them.  One of the big changes that is virus related is the movie plan.  Lots of people, especially single or without family on that day, go to a movie, on Christmas afternoon or evening.  Hollywood puts out new blockbuster movies on Christmas Eve just for this occasion.  Christmas is a reminder that things are no longer the same.  But that was the origins of the event called Christmas.  Things were no longer going to be the same.  A new, unexpected, and unplanned event had happened in the world.  It took a virus to bring us to this same feeling.  I try to keep the original in mind.  

Groundhog Day

 The idea of “Groundhog Day,” is that you keep doing the same things each day in the same order.  It is routine.  Prayer can be a form of ground hogging.  Do it every day and about the same time.  This can be a good routine.  But there can be motives for routine that are not so good.  Fear and a lack of self-worth.  You have to accomplish things, never taking time out for rest or relaxation, because you fear something bad will happen, or your self-worth is based completely on getting things done.  One routine that deals with fear and anxiety is drinking as an addiction.  Drugs and food too.  It is the routine of escape rather than relaxation.  If something relaxes us, like a good walk we don’t feel the need to do it again and again the same day.  Addictions are repetitive in the same day.  So ask yourself the purpose of your routines?

Available

 When I am cooking or baking, things don't always go as planned.  Even hopes get dashed.  So I take solace in at least being the one who is doing the cooking or baking.  When life does not go my way, I have to accept life on life's terms, but be available for others, to be of service, to fill a void and might be a way of being helpful.  It takes the sting out of things not going my way.  Why should my way be the way at all?  Stuff happens.   Service in Action negates resentment, self-pity or ego deflation.  I would rather have life on life's terms when I am trying to be available, helpful, rather than when I am being all about me.  

Committee

 I have committee meetings everyday.  I don't have to go anywhere, nor schedule these meetings.  They take place in my head.  Those attending the meeting, figments, but real in their energy to upset me, are very demanding and pointed.  Anger sits at the table.  So does judgment, resentment, self-pity, fear, and finally the chairperson, self-will run riot.  The committee meets regularly more or less, depending on my spiritual condition at the time.  Their purpose is to guarantee a strong bond to self.  That is life is all about me or us as the committee is included.  Is this insane?  Yes.  So daily I have to have a prayer life to free me from insanity.  That is the God job.  Otherwise, my life remains unmanageable left in my own hands.  

Choices

 How many times have we said, "I cannot be on time because...".  If you cannot be on time, as someone said, why not be early?  It means making choices.  Can I give up the so called "important" thing that makes me show up at something late?  Why if my being early would help another person?  True, you may be helping a person that causes you to be late, but does it have to be every time?  I find that I have to make choices and adjustments.  I have to evaluate how necessary I am that it would cause me to be late for some event, meeting, that I think is important for myself.  I need to take care of myself if I am going to be of use to others.  So I try to be early, for my benefit and that of someone who might benefit by my early presence.  

The Cost

 I hear some church-goers say that they are "persecuted" or ridiculed for believing in their antiquated faith.  Then they look down their noses at those who don't agree with their brand of religion.  This is especially noted in the more fundamentalist groups, the true believers. But I wonder if these same people would still be professing and worshipping at church if the cost was their very life itself?  The real persecuted martyrs did just that.  They said yes to their faith, publicly, and were executed, often brutally.  I have to ask myself, what price will I pay to stay a true witness to what I believe?  And you?

Guadalupe

Yesterday was a big day for many Mexican people.  It was the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  A native Indian of what is now Mexico saw a vision of a woman, who looked like him, native, brown skin.  Over time, many Mexicans came to pray to Mary.  For them, the one who wears the pants in heaven is a woman.  When it comes to someone who has compassion, patience, willingness to listen and help the downtrodden, women usually seem to have those qualities.  Men, not so much.  For many, Guadalupe is a bigger feast than Christmas.  So I try to remember this, since I am a guy.  Am I compassionate, patient, and willing to listen to someone who can do nothing for me that I want?  I try to keep Mary in mind as I go through my day.  

Useful

 From time to time I check on myself to see if my motive for doing something is more to be useful or to be praised.  It is OK to be praised, say for vacuuming the rugs, but it is better from a spiritual growth perspective to be doing the same work to be useful.  So I will ask myself, am I being useful?  What if no one praises me?  Will I still do the vacuuming?  I have found that I am better connected, more communal, with others if I am doing something primarily to be useful. This way, life is not all about me.  

Unseen Generosity

Have you ever tried to do something generous without being noticed or praised?  When I cook at the monastery or bake, especially desserts, I am generous, but also praised.  It is hard to do generous things for  those  around you, without it being noticed.  That is why I think praying for others not around you is a wonderful way to be generous without being praised.  It can keep us right-sized while doing good.  People somewhere else do not know we are praying for them, unless we make it a point to tell them.  So I try to pray for people I don't know or see, such as the homeless, the covid-sick, the refugee.  These are not useless prayers, if they help to change me from being an ego focused person.   

The Widow's Mite

The widow's mite refers to "giving one's all."  Should I ever have a chance for reflection on my death bed, that is, I don't have a sudden death experience, what will I wish I had given more of myself to?  I wish I had spent more time in the gym?  I wish I had spent more time on the internet?  Amassing an empire?  A hobby?  The golf course?  Jogging?  Writing blogs?  No, I probably would say, "I wish I had given myself more time at prayer," since it does seem that I might very well be on the way out of this life as I know it.  I would rather not have such regrets on my deathbed.  I'd rather be content, free from fear, knowing that I did give myself to that prayer time.  So I had better get off this computer.  I keep my blogs short so you can have more time for prayer, should you so choose.   

Moderate

 One place where "moderate" does not work out too well is things which are "important."  Nothing is moderately important.  Either it is important and we do  it or it is not important and we ignore it.  You might say, "Oh, that is not very important," so you ignore it.  How often do you clean your room?  Organize your cupboard?  So it is with the spiritual life and its practice.  A spiritual practice is never moderately important.  You either do it, or you don't.  To say, "Oh, I do pray, occasionally," is really not a spiritual practice.  It is more like rotating your car tires.  You do it when you really have to,  but rotating your tires is not a practice.  For me, to pray with earnest consistency, prayer must be very important.  Or else it is not important at all.  

Immaculate Conception

 In my tradition, today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.  What is that?  Well, it points to the idea that God has plans for us before we even know the plans.  We come into this world with a specific purpose.  Our job is to find that purpose and live it out.  This is the point of the spiritual life.  Mary was born quite free from the normal foibles that beset the rest of us.  So she was conceived without the usual shortcomings that seem to be seeded within all of us, just waiting to come out.  Anyhow, God had plans for her to later conceive God in the flesh, God become human, in my tradition.  A point, for those who believe or don't believe, is that The Plan for each life, in this case Mary's, is already happening, when we are conceived, but we don't know it at that time.  A spiritual life allows the plan to unfold until one day, we come to know why we are here.  Without a spiritual life, we just try to copy some other life, which is really a waste.  We cannot be anyone else, and be fulfilled.  

Two Bad

If your car won't start because your battery is dead, adding a second dead battery won't start the car.  Right?  Obvious?  Then why do so many people whose life is a mess, pair up with another person  whose life is also a mess, in the hopes of getting started on a better life?  People tend to pair up with like people.  Addicts go for addicts, for instance.  Not only does one's life not get better.  It gets worse.  Whenever I think my life is falling into chaos, I try to find people who don't have my chaos, and who have found out how to live a smoother running life.  

Bring It

 I hear people sometimes say that they did not get anything out of an event, a meeting, a worship service, a class.  I have learned that it is not so much what I get from something as to what I bring to something.  When I mediate, it is less to get something from it.  What do I bring to the meditation?  Gratitude?  Openness?  Truly listening?  When life is all about me, I don’t get much.  

Patient

Why do we call someone undergoing medical treatment a “patient?”  It comes from the same root word for the virtue of patience.  The patient is undergoing some experience that is anywhere from inconvenient to painful, but in the hopes that the treatment will lead to a happier conclusion or healing.  I find that things happen in my life that are irritating, or painful, and I know that I need patience to get through it all as best I can.  I cannot prevent the suffering, but a patient attitude can make me a better person, take stress off of the one treating me, and even help in the healing.  Attitude can have a healing effect.  Attitude participates in better or worse results, depending on our level of patience.   

Apple Pie

 Recently, I made my first apple pie from scratch.  The dough is really hard to get right and directions can help to a point.  Living at 8,000 altitude can have an effect.  Anyhow, I followed a couple of cook book recipes, compared and contrasted, and then went to work.  The crust did not look so good as in the pictures or bakery shops.  But wow, did it taste good.  The monks were so happy that they did an especially good job of cleaning up the kitchen, considering I baked bread, made french fries on the stovetop, Lima beans on stovetop, and rock fish baked in the oven.  So I guess with pies, it is not how it looks on the outside but how it tastes on the inside that counts.  So too with us.  Work on the insides.  

Separation Education

Helen Miller was the first girl I recall being around in the Bronx that was not my sisters.  Helen and I were BICs, Bronx Irish Catholics.  She had red hair and freckles and wore a cowgirl outfit when I wore my cowboy outfit.  So we were not strangers, but we were.  Catholic school kept us away from one another.  There were no mixed classes of boys/girls.  But of all I learned, no one taught me how to talk to girls like Helen when we were kids.  Education had missing parts.  I wish someone had said to Helen and I, here is what to do.  "Show interest."  Ask questions of the other person.  "Helen, do you go to the movies at all?  What is your favorite food?  What time do you go to bed at night?  What is your favorite color?  Favorite game?"  This would have been easy stuff, but no one taught me.  So I became a priest.  If I had it taught to me in class, I might have married Helen.  There are consequences to what you don't learn.  Children don't know what they don't know.  A good job for grandparents.  

Adult Wisdom

For a kid, Adult Wisdom is hard to fathom.  Our Bronx apartment building had apartments on three sides, six stories high.  The three walls all faced a courtyard in the middle that opened out onto the sidewalk and then the street.  On two sides of the courtyard there were low green bushes, a kid could jump over, and then green grass and finally against the walls, bigger bushes or small trees.  Lots of green.  Lots of families, and so lots of kids.  Adults wanted children, but they did not want them to act like children in the courtyard.  Kids make noise, and noise was forbidden in the courtyard, along with walking on the grass or jumping over bushes.  The courtyard was to be looked at as you walked back and forth to apartment entrances.  The courtyard was a good place to play, but we had to go onto the sidewalk and play our games, hopscotch, jump rope, and such.  Or we could play in the street which we would share with cars, traffic.  Adults did not want us run over by a car, but they would not let us play in the safer courtyard. For a kid, this meant that it was better to be run over by a car than to make noise in the courtyard.  The rules of adult thinking have consequences.  Kids are noisy.  That is what makes a kid in most cases.  

Change Direction

Meditation and booze have something in common.  Both can change my attitude.  If I walk into a room and feel like a no-fitting-in person, somewhat isolated and lonely, I can take a few shots and then I feel like I belong.  Everyone is my friend.  For a while.  Meditation changes my mind too.  I can feel restless, irritated, monkey-mind full of thoughts, but when I meditate, however I do that, my thinking seems to change much of the time.  I have more peace.  I readjust my sense of priorities.  I feel more connected.  And I don't get a hangover or sour tummy.   

Not Results

Do I write my blogs hoping for results?  I hope not.  I try to do the best I can in hope that what I am doing is worth the effort, that it is valuable, especially to me.  Is what I do truth?  If so, then it is valuable to me.  It ought not to matter how many people read it or say they like it.  I never know those numbers and it is just as well.  I believe that creation is valuable even if the results don't seem to be apparent.  When I teach on zoom, I don't worry about the number of people who tune in.  That is not under my control.  So I suggest that maybe you don't focus on results, of which you may have little control.  I think of it as "Life on Life's Terms."   

Forgot

 Well it seems I forgot to post a blog today.  My thought for today is that yesterdays can have an effect on their tomorrows.  If I have a bad day, some unusual mess that I self-create to some extent, I will repent, try and put it in the rear view mirror, but the next day, some of its emotional effects seems to linger, especially when I wake up.  So I try to work my good routines rigorously and stay vigilant.  It will pass in its own time, but is a reminder of my imperfections.  

Wishing Well

 Someone said, "I wish I never had drunk so much and become addicted."  Oh?  Examine that for a moment.  Maybe, in this case, drink was what led to a much better life.  How so?  Well, what if this regretful person has found a spiritual path, relationship, paying work, usefulness to others, healthy life style, none of which might have happened if they had remained alcohol free.  Maybe the addiction is the only way some people would get all these things in recovery.  I try to wake up with gratitude that I am given this gift of life for today.  Remembering the past can keep me on my toes.  But regrets for the past do no one any good.  

Encircling

 Some of us have issues with fear.  Where does fear come from?  Why does it seem to control our emotional life at times?  I think that lots of fears come from living in the past.  Coming into the world from the safety of the womb can be frightening enough, but then events happen in our lives that frighten us.  We relive them as adults, maybe in some other triggering adult event, but it is the same emotional history resurrecting itself from within our fear vault.  Burying fear does little good, and only short term.  Or we encircle fear with inadequate strategies, such as sex, drugs, drink, exercise, busy work or even violence.  I now try to slow down and admit that I am feeling fear, and see if it is coming from a past event relived in the moment.  I may even talk to someone about it.  But if it is past, it cannot hurt me now.  I can live only in the present if I want some sanity.  I will do this as often as needed until the fear becomes a memory, that I may use to help another suffering person.  

Grain Of Wheat

 A grain of wheat can teach me much about patience.  Grains have been found in places that prove they are thousands of years old, yet when planted they can still germinate.  That takes patience.  The grain must wait, trust that it has what it takes to germinate, and hope someone finds it and allows it to flourish.  So when you are wondering about your talents, don’t. Trust in yourself, that you have good within you.  Wait.  Hope.  Good things may yet happen.  Even at my age, I have not given up on myself to produce something new and nourishing for others.  There is a Good Power always at work, and it never gives up on you or me.  

Thanksgiving

 As the joke goes, “Who would listen to a drunk talking to themself?”  A few too many Thanksgiving Days, I would end up drinking too much and then say the next day, “I should give up drinking.”  I did not listen to myself, since I was a drunk talking to myself.  But now I am enjoying a sober Thanksgiving Day today.  I drink Martinelli’s Cider on this special day.  How did this happen?  I stopped listening to myself, and began to listen to others who were enjoying truly Happy Thanksgivings on a daily basis.  I never got anywhere in my resolutions simply by listening to myself.  Alone, I am delusional.  I look for others who are doing what I say I want to do, the winners.  I call it “Group Grace.”  Happy Thanksgiving.  

Why Wait?

 I hear people say, "I don't want to pray because I don't believe in God."  Now if their lives are a train wreck, completely out of their control, a mess, I suggest to them that they pray anyway.  "Why wait for faith?" I ask.  You really don't have to believe to pray.  Besides, what harm would it do you if your life has bottomed out to seeming helpless and hopeless?  So I don't wait until I feel like meditating, to meditate.  I don't wait until I am ready.  I have learned that if I wait till I am ready, or "feel like it," my life will begin to spiral into bad behavior and bad thinking.  Many times, I don't want to get up for 4:30 AM vigil prayer at this monastery.  But I don't wait for the urge.  I just get up.  Good habits become good habits by doing them regularly.  My body does not wait for my mind to catch up.  So pray.  Forget what you believe at the moment.  Prayer does not kill.  Bad behavior on the other hand can be lethal for many of us.  

New End

 I don’t make a new start with a spiritual journey.  I make a new end.  I had my start and my life decisions developed this start to where I needed to get some serious spiritual and emotional help to avoid a debilitating, looming end.  My end has not happened and I can have something to say about how it will be.  Exercise and diet goes hand in hand with the spiritual practice of prayer and reading.  Good body and good heart leads to selfless service in which I don’t try to control the outcome.  Be of use rather than disabuse.  I am working on my end for my end.  

Being Me

 I love the apple and orange metaphor for becoming yourself.  If I am an apple, then try and be the best apple I can be.  I will never be an orange.  Why waste time and energy trying to be an orange if I am an apple?  I can admire someone, note their good qualities and talents, and even wish to be like them.  But why waste energy and talent in trying to become what I am not meant to be?  Be me, the best me I can be.  

The Bottom

What is this thing I hear people talk about, "the bottom?"  Here is a way it might makes sense to you.  Say you are on a daily grind of activity and you cannot seem to get out of this spinning around in place.  One thing after another that you cannot seem to avoid, give up or let pass.  One day, in your stress, suicide seems to be a strong option.  It is your way out.  But then you decide that your life is more important than the grind.  That is a "bottom."  You seek help to stay alive, and the world goes on without your previous contributing, grinding behavior.  Alcoholics and Addicts know this quite well.  I have hit bottoms on various issues when I decided something else was more important and closer to my heart.  Each choice is another gear in the spiritual journey.  

Meltdown

So you have a meltdown.  Something happens that is not part of your plans or seems to be upsetting your plans and you get crazed.  You used crazed energy, fear, to make decisions that will be all bad ones.  It happens.  Don't beat yourself up.  One, make no decisions. Wait.  Two, be humble enough to learn from the meltdown.  Three, be fearless to learn more about yourself and where you are in your spiritual journey.  Not only will you lean about yourself, but the event, a seeming failure to mature, will give you ideas, tools, about what to do next time life surprises you with the unexpected and seemingly dreadful.  I learn from my mistakes.  I am not trudging this road alone.  I can learn from others with similar experiences, if I am willing to share.  The inward search takes fortitude, and courage.  Mistakes are the teachers.   

A Book

Another way of praying is with a book.  But be willing to put down the book the moment you feel inspired to rest with a phrase or idea that comes from your reading.  Spiritual paths have books.  There is the Bible, the Koran, the Sutras, the Tao, the Vedanta, the Upanishads, and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Plenty of good ideas for meditation in all that.  So why torture yourself trying to come up with good thoughts to feel better, or for meditation?  Let the book do it for you.   

Step 10

In my daily examination of conscience, done at times in the middle of the daily activities, I often come across some emotion that wants to control my next action.  In my spiritual practice, when I am working my spiritual practice, I might notice "fear."  It wants to control my response to something that has come up.  I recognize it.  "Oh, this is fear."  It then loses control of my response.   I become aware of fear but don't act on it.  My spiritual practice is not to be rid of emotions.  I am a human person.  Emotions happen.  My practice is so that I do not let them control my actions.  Much less stress!

Detachment

 One of the reasons that I get upset is when all my happiness is tied up in things of this world that are passing.  When I have no detachment to vagaries of life, I will soon become quite disturbed that my world is not working out as planned.  Everyone and everything around me is making plans too, and I am not consulted.  So I get disturbed, and then I get frightened.  I am trying to find permanent happiness in the things of this world.  There is another world and it is the world within myself which I believe is more enduring, but more neglected than attention to what is passing around me.  A time of silence and stillness helps to keep me focused on interior priorities.  Then the outside stuff can have some attention, but with less focus on results, often out of my control. 

Likeness

Why do I fantasize about being like movie stars or great athletes?  I am a bad Catholic, might be the reason.  I am supposed to want to be like Jesus Christ, and I have a leg up on doing this if I had any faith at all.  Christ is supposed to be within me.  So I just have to get out of my own way to let Christ energy take over and bring out the best in me.  This is my religion, but I practice fantasy more that religion.  I have zero talent within me to be an actor or an athlete of distinction.  So I have no chance in those areas.  So why not work on what I can become?  As my big sis said, "Terry, you will burn!" 

Choices

Following up on yesterday's blog, I realize that fear makes bad choices.  I make wrong decisions when I get frightened even if I don't identify fear as the guiding energy.  I think I am rational, but I am not. Fear fools me.  So I am trying to practice faith, me of Little Faith.  The world is not out to get me, nor do I have to hunker down to protect myself.  I don't want the monastery to become a place to run away to because I cannot handle my plans being trashed by powers out of my control.  I trust that I am going to be OK.  Lots of people have way more problems than I do.  I mask up and show up both in meditation in the next right thing to do, fear-free.   

Outside Plans

 In the monastery life is rather predictable, relative to the outside world.  I thought that I had gotten into acceptance and turning my life over to God, and that calmness was to be my guiding emotion.  Wrong!  I left for a trip and found that I am still a beginner.  I got all upset about how little people protect themselves, and therefore me, from Covid.  Then my airline went haywire and flights were getting cancelled everywhere.  I got upset and was ready to give up the the trip and return to the monastery.  But then God gave me a shot or two.  I recalled acceptance.  I then recalled that I was supposed to turn my life over to God.  Let go and let God.  Amnesia had taken away my spirituality and the old self reigned until I got the God shots.  I have no control over airline chaos.  I cannot make people wear masks or get vaccinated or tested.  I am not in charge of any of that in the non-monastery world.  So now chaos abounds but I am at peace.  For now.  

Cafeteria

 I have been accused of being a Cafeteria Catholic, because I appear to not follow all the rules and regulations.  But someone reminded me what is the purpose of a cafeteria.  It is a place where there is something for everyone.  These were the cafeterias in New York where I grew up and worked in the summers.  There were lots of choices so that all kinds of different people could find something to eat.  I think that my church is about reaching out to all kinds of people including the ones who think you are wrong if you don't agree with them.  Even the ones who criticize me, probably have something about what Jesus said with which they disagree.  I hear people say, "Oh he did not really mean that for our modern world."  Well, maybe he did.  

Jonah

Jonah, the one swallowed by the whale for three days, reminds me of myself at my worst, and maybe you too.  He is all about Jonah.  He does not give a hoot for God or for anyone else.  He thinks he knows how things should be and so he lives centered on himself.  Sound familiar?  He is supposed to be a believer but only acts according to his will and not his God's will.  He thinks a town of people, Nineveh, are beneath him and they should suffer for their lifestyle.  Why help them?  Mercy? Compassion? The common good?  Forget it.  Jonah Justice is what he wants, and he is the judge.  So he heads away from Nineveh and ignores his God's request to go tell them to repent.  He gets into a storm on a ship and just goes to sleep while everyone else is frightened and praying to their gods for help.  He just does not care.  And when he finally comes out of the whale, goes to Nineveh and tells them to repent, they do, and are spared.  He is angry that they did not get punished.  He is not getting his way and just wants to die in the desert.  Jonah reminds me of just what bad behavior and attitude is.   

A Great Place!

 Yesterday was the Feast of St. Leo the Great.  No big deal, right?  Even for Catholics.  But for me it is a big deal because it was the name of the most fun parish, and my first parish out of the seminary, a new priest.  I was not very holy, nor professional.  I cried at the gravesides of two children I buried.  But back to the fun.  We had a parish bowling league and a parish softball league and lots of parties.  Lots of young families and kids everywhere.  I partied too much and prayed too little, making good friends along the way.  The people taught me what was important to them even if I did not do it well.  I was terrible at church services, recreating my own liturgies.  Houston climate can be punishing but with friends and fun it became a magical place.  I cried when I left.  Not very professional.  Now I am at the monastery, years later, seeing if I can get holy.  But I still think I would prefer fun with friends.  I will burn.   

Pruning

A healthy flower bush needs to be trimmed back at times, so new growth can develop.  I think of my time here at the monastery as a  pruning.  A few people are wondering why I don't keep doing all the good work I used to do in active parish ministry.  I need to be pruned back from such work so that some new growth can develop.  I don't quite know what that will be.  Maybe it is the ministry I do up in the monastery and on computer?  In the aging process, instead of thinking about it as becoming more limited in doing what you did or do, think of aging as being pruned back from younger work, so that you can do something new.  Now, there are some people who think my past ministry, being so liberal, was in need of being pruned, and they are quite happy that they don't have to put up with me anymore.  So I make those people happy too by my being out their sight.  

To Your Knees

 As the saying goes, "If the problem does not bring you to your knees, the solution will."  What does that mean!  We think that our solution, that makes us feel better, the old problem gone away, means everything will be smooth sailing from thereon in.  False.  The solution, yes, rids us of PART of the old problem, but then the solution, in time, will reveal how much of the problem was in our deeper need to change.  The solution reveals that more work needs to be done on a daily basis on ourself.  The solution brings new problems that we did not see in our old messy way of life.  There is new mess, and it is not someone else's fault or due to some addiction or financial problem.  We stop saying, "if only," in the blame game, and get to work on traveling, or trudging, the road of happy destiny,  one step at a time.  

Cancellations

 The pandemic has cancelled a lot of activities.  People talk about all the things they cannot do.  Their focus is on activities.  But what about attitudes?  Did Covid cancel them too?  Someone said, “Covid did not cancel joy.”  For me, joy follows gratitude.  I wake up and ask myself what am I grateful for?  And I can always find something to be grateful for if I review what I do have and what is presented so freely to me.  Standard time has given me back earlier morning light.  I love the mornings.  The seasons of the year I did not create.  Fall has its own unique beauty.  With gratitude I can then become a gift to others.  Covid cannot take that away from me.  

Silence

 There is nothing like the silence of this monastery.  Why is that?  Perhaps it is because the whole environment is permeated over the years by a lot of silence.  It gets into the very walls and furnishings.  By no means are we always silent.  But we are sufficiently silent, and no tv or radio or vehicle traffic in our midst.  I have been to places where it can be very quiet for a time, but it is not the same depth of silence in this monastery.  This monastic silence makes me realize just how noisy I am.  Silence within helps the silence around me.  

A Delayed Joy

 Mother Nature, on God’s behalf, left me a tree still in Fall colors on the day I returned to the Monastery.  The trees are not all bare at this time.  One survived, so that I could have one more glimpse of Fall, in early November, up here in the mountains of Colorado.  And an Aspen to boot.  As I look through the golden leaves of the aspen branches while they sway in a gentle chill breeze, I see snow capped mountains and above and beyond them, a deep blue sky.  All of this I can see from my  room window.  It is as if God is saying, “Terry, see, it is a good idea for you to be here.”  So maybe get out of yourself, look around, and see that maybe it is a good thing for you to be where you are.  

The Good Times

It is easy to trust in the good times.  I know of people in early recovery from addiction, that as their out of control life begins to get better in sobriety, they often have a lot of trust in the group, another person who guides them along the early path of recovery, and even trust in a God of some sort.  But then real life shows up.  Why not?  The newly sober person now has work, relationship with another person that had been in tatters, maybe a family.  Real life has challenges.  It makes demands for emotional maturity, perseverance, discipline.  If the recovering person does not double down on their efforts in sobriety, trust goes out the window, and soon enough so might the person.  Trust is easy when things are going your way.  I have found it so.  

Crisis!

 Is your life a challenge or a continuing crisis?  When asked that question, I laughed out loud.  I must admit that too many times my life is lived emotionally as a continuing crisis.  Situations are unsolvable, unless I take drastic action.  I am victim of other people's failures.  My life is in ruins.  But I am working on it.  How?  Well, I say when I awake, that I turn my life over to my God.  And I throw in my self-will too.  Every time that I take back management of my life, solo, I enter criss mode.  I have to stay or return to a spiritual connection to keep life as a challenge.  We have no cell phone service in voice mail, nor many a text up here at the monastery, but the medical world contacts me more and more on cell phone and I don't get the message unless I go out in my car and drive to a cell connection.  If a crisis, I move to a big city.  If a challenge, I await advice from nearby mountain people.  And try to live a life of gratitude.  

Reseeding

 Like many kids, I was brought up with a faith, a religion.  I was baptized Catholic.  I  was "seeded" with faith.  As a boy in the Bronx, my religion had certainty.  I was surrounded by authority figures who did the rituals and obeyed the rules.  Life was good in that cocoon.  But as I grew up and moved out on my own, my field of faith went fallow.  I did not work it.  I ignored my land of faith.  Weeds of life grew up in it.  Eventually, I decided that a spiritual path was better than the destructive weeds that were doing all too well and choking life out of me.  I needed to reseed my field, but now it had to become my faith, and not one given to me as a boy.  I think of adult faith and practice to be one of reseeding.  I have to work on the weeds of life everyday.  They don't go away, but they no longer choke me, nor do I feed on weeds as my only food.  Like the farmer, it is perseverance, trust in a spiritual power, and hope.  It works.  I work it.  

What?

Whenever someone says something to me, and I respond with, "What?" I know that I am not listening.  I hear the sounds, but I am not listening to the words or meaning.  If I don't learn to listen, then I will never get to listening to learn.  There is a lot to be learned by listening, but first I have to listen.  If the teacher in class were to ask me a question and I responded with, "What?" my score was going down the drain with that professor.  If the professor were to start out by saying, "Mr. Ryan, etc. etc." I would perk up when I heard my name and then listen to the question.  But some professors would trick me by saying the question first and then calling my name at the end.  I would try for an escape by saying, "I did not understand the question."  Usually made things worse.  Over the years a spiritual practice has helped.  I try to BE HERE NOW.  I have learned a lot by becoming a better listener.  But there is still the occasional, "What?" 

All Saints Day

 As I understand it, Christians believe in God becoming human, Jesus, and dying, innocently, on a cross, suffering for the sins of others.  If this be so, why do so many Christians whine about suffering due to the failures of others to do their job, or pull their weight, or neglect tasks, that the so-called innocent end up doing or paying the price.  Is this not what their God become human did?  Life often seems to be full of the guilty getting away with something, while the innocent pick up the pieces.  If even a God could not escape that, why should the whiner?  I keep this in mind when others make a mess and don't clean up after themselves.  Cleaning up for the neglectful, the clueless, seems to me to be bearing my cross.  Jesus said, "Come follow me."  I don't think he whined about the unfairness of his world.  

Halloween

 Happy Halloween!  Before I think about wearing a  mask today and trick or treating, I ask myself, "Terry, have you been wearing a mask lately?"  Why?  I need to check on my spiritual progress on a daily basis and Halloween gives me a reminder that hiding behind dishonesty about who I am, is wearing a mask that does me no good.  I might wear a mask because I don't know who I really am.  OK.  Then work on that.  Or I might wear a mask because I want to please someone, or get something or avoid something.  It is hard enough becoming myself, so why make it worse by trying to become someone else, who I cannot ever become.  Today, I will practice honesty with me.  Be who God made me to be, not who someone else wants me to be.  And don't be afraid to be me.  It is scarier to be someone else.  

Within

 I don’t have to run off to find a sacred place whee my God dwells.  I have an inner chapel where God dwells.  All I need to do is sit in silence and solitude.  Wait. Ignore thoughts.  Don’t talk.  Many people run to outside holy places, what they consider holy places and talk to their spiritual power.  Save gas and time.  “Be where you are,” is what someone told me.  So I sit here in front of a nice fire, in the early morning darkness, silent and still.  My inner chapel awaits me.  Call it whatever you will, soul, spiritual innards.  It goes where I go, too often ignored.  

WS

 I am watching, somewhat, the World Series.  If you don’t know what that is, let it be.  You probably have interests of which I am clueless.  I am not in the monastery now praying for my wretched soul, because of the Bronx.  It is the fault of the Bronx.  I grew up in the mid-20th century, the age of the New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers.  One or another of these teams was in the World Series, playing for the baseball Championship each October during my time in the Bronx.  I did pray a lot then, that my team would win.  The monastery has no TV our Radio.  This is good except in October.  I thought this year that the Giants or Yankees would be in the World Series.  But neither could win the one game they needed to win and were eliminated.  So now I watch teams from Houston and Atlanta, neither of which are my teams, but it is still the World Series and I am on the West Coast time zone, the best for sports watching.  So I am at Sea Ranch, California with the ocean waves crashing against the shores, jogging along the cliff path, the monastery 1200 miles away.  If I am losing my soul, I am reliving my youthful memories from the Bronx.  And wearing a Yankees baseball cap.  My sister has my Giants baseball cap.  The monks are praying for me.  

Clean Up

 I came to San Francisco for some Paulist meetings and to clean up my room.  The meetings were meant to simplify our Paulist lives by becoming re-focused on where and how we are going as a community with a plan.  The room cleanup was to simplify my life by having less “stuff,” and to give away things to people who could better use them than me.  Both the meetings and the clean-up went well.  My room looks a bit more tidy and less like a storage bin.  Clothes went to the poor.  Memorabilia went to relatives.  The attic got pretty emptied out. Lots of garbage cans filled or recycled.  I am not finished decluttering nor are the Paulists finished with meetings and planning.  Life is ongoing to de-clutter and get re-focused.  Otherwise, we are too busy tripping over the same stuff time and again.  

Sea Ranch

 Well, I arrived at Sea Ranch, CA this afternoon, driving through rain most of the way.  We do not complain about rain in California or Colorado for that matter.  We have had many inches of it out here in the last couple of days.  We never rejoiced when it rained when I was growing up in mid-20th century.  How times have changed, and I have to change with it.  I used to moan when it rained and ruined my plans based upon sunny skies.  I have seen far too many sunny skies of late, and now rejoice when it rains.  A lot of life seems to be lived successfully and happily if we can adjust to what is given and what is taken away.  Only the truly self-centered would moan over a rainy day in the Western part of this country.  I must remind myself to adjust to what each day gives me.  And take short showers.  

Behavior Change

If you ever sought or settled for a change in behavior, what were you motives?  An athlete in training or a scholar in study for a degree will change their behavior to help meet their goals.  On the other hand, an addict will change their goals to meet their behavior, so said an addict. I know I am addicted to something, if I keep changing my goals because I cannot give up my addiction.  If my addiction is perhaps fear, inescapable fear, I will change my goals because I cannot seem to shake the energy of fear.  I get into a rut, that which I know, because it gives me some comfort zone.  A monastery has routines which help in living together.  But if the routines become ruts, then we tend to live under the same roof but separately.  To become available to another person in the moment would take the rut person out of their rut.  So they would not be of service.  Each day I ask myself, "Is this a routine of discipline for growth, or is it a rut of isolation?"  Not always easy to know.  

My Opinion

Someone reminded me that no one wants to hear his opinion until they ask for it.  How true this has been in my own life.  Any number of times, I have given my opinion on something without anyone asking, and they simply changed the subject or made as if I had not said anything.  No response to my opinion.  So I try not to give my opinion until someone asks for it.  It is only my ego that believes people are interested in what I think.  Often, I say, “I suggest,” or “You might want to think about…” but if I sound like the law or rule, I get ignored either in their non-response or their non-action to what I say they need to do.  The way I live my life often speaks for itself, both for good and bad.   

Magnifying

Someone said that they have a magnifying mind.  I do too!  Without a spiritual practice, I will magnify the faults of everyone around me, plus all of the situations out of my control, which are most situations in my life.  I judge something or someone as bad and then I make it worse.  And if only they would shape up and do right by me, then I would be happy.  This is my insanity road.  It is not a safe place and really goes nowhere.  Now, when I do have a spiritual practice, I magnify the good I see in others.  I believe my God Power has a magnifying mind for seeing goodness in me and others.  I can see with the gaze of God Eyes, if I let go of control of the world, and of results in prayer.  God has my back.   I need consistency in a daily spiritual practice.  BB 416

Priority

Someone said that the most important thing he did each day is to not take a drink of alcohol.  But left to his own willpower he would fail to do this.  So he needed some other power and for him that power is God as he came to believe.  So his  weakness is really his strength, since it brought him onto a spiritual path of prayer and service to others.  The being of service energy comes because you stop judging others, whining about stuff, and building resentments or worries about stuff you cannot control and is none of your business anyway.  Not drinking has become a pretty good life, much better than what it was before.  BB 416 

Control

 I tend to try and control the outside environment so that my insides will be comfortable and at peace.  Wrong.  I have mice in my car, and have caught 13 as of this Blog.  I found myself worrying about the mice ruining my car while I hopelessly attempted to sit in quiet prayer.  I thought, "If I can get rid of the mice, then I can pray in peace. " Duh!  Yes, I can set traps and such, but what happened to turning it over to God, with some trust?  Faith in God power and trust go out the window when I cannot solve something according to my schedule.  I have come to realize that I need to work on my insides, my internal environment, in mediation and reading.  Then I will be able to let go of the outside environment and leave that to God Power.  BB 413 

Mix Up

 Some people equate religion and spirituality, such that they drop all spiritual practice.  Religions are different one from another.  But spirituality is the same no matter what path you take.  Spirituality is about becoming yourself, not someone else.  Each of us is a unique creation, a unique person given our gifts and talents.  Unique does not mean perfect.  A spiritual practice is to diminish the imperfect and strengthen, discover, put into practice the unique gift that is yourself.  I am a Catholic, but I don't try so hard to be a good Catholic fit.  I am not sure I know what that is, since there seems to be so many variations in the practice.  But I try to be a good Terry Ryan.  I have, through a spiritual practice, gotten to know who that is when at my best.  No one else can be a good Terry Ryan.  Daily meditation, being of service, reading from wise teachers, all keep me on that path.  

What To Look For

 As someone pointed out, there is a difference between comparing and identifying.  I tend to compare.  I look for differences between myself and others.  That is, I look for how I am better than they are.  I look at all their faults, to make a good resentment list.  Not a happy way through the day.  It is better, as a saner person pointed out, to identify with people.  That is, how I am like others.  Identify with their faults that I also have.  I am not trying to look better than others in my thinking, but to change my thinking, attitude and response to situations so that I become a better person.  It is impossible to change others.  Sometimes, in my comparisons with others, it is impossible to change me for the better.  

Lost Mind

I always feel relief when I gather with people who have lost a lot more than I had in the past.  I say, "Thank God, I did not have it that bad!"  But lest I have a sense of superiority, I have been reminded that we all had one think in common that we lost...our minds.  Even today I must be vigilant that my mind, which I found shattered, and now pierced together, does not wander off in some direction maybe new, maybe familiar, but lost none the less.  If I can stay tethered to God, my Power connection, my mind will be on the right path.   

Geographic Thinking

I used to say about my long past, that my thinking was not very clear or sane then for that matter.  So then I began to say, in my "spiritual growth" that I no longer think that old way.  Oh?  I have found that though I no longer think like I used to, I am often thinking just as fuzzy, but with different thoughts.  I make geographic moves from one bad way of thinking to another.  So each day I say a prayer of gratitude that I do not think like I used to, but then ask for guidance so that I think sanely, rather than just differently.   

Stunned

 A friend of my father's came to my ordination in 1977.  He took camera pictures and some time later gave them to my parents.  They were slides and we had no slide projector.  The slides sat around in my parents' home and then they gave them to me and I buried them somewhere in my archives.  Recently, I told a friend about these slides and she said she would make them into photos.  I just received them from her in the mail.  My parents and grandmother are smiling.  The Cardinal is smiling.  My classmates are smiling.  Me?  No smile.  I think I must have been stunned or in shock at the whole event...me a priest?  I was so uncomfortable in my own skin.  And I thought I would now change the world as a priest?  I was delusional with an illusion but did not know it at the time.  I needed to change me first.  Still working on it.  

I Left My Heart

 I am in San Francisco at the moment, staying in "my" room here at our Paulist Rectory, next to Old St. Mary's Church.  I am not here much, so my status is "Attached to the house."  I have a place when I come here.  I am giving lots of things away such as clothes and electronics.  A fellow I know here takes my pile of things and distributes them to those who could use good clothes.  I have too much stuff that I don't seem to wear or use.  This fellow does not have much money either, but he knows which poor person could use what.  I came across an old transistor, portable radio.  It is worth $$$ to antiques dealers.  I gave it to this fellow who may never have seen such an electronic radio like this.  I hope he gets lots of $$$ for it.  San Francisco is warm and sunny now.  That will change soon of course.  But while it is like this, with few people and few cars out on the streets, due to Covid, it is quite a pleasant place to be.  Monastery?  What Monastery?  I am weak.  

Soul-Breathing

 I like this suggestion: prayer is the breath of the soul.  Even if you don't believe in soul stuff, prayer has something to do with our insides.  You might get enough sleep, exercise, proper diet, so your body is in good space, and yet you have resentments, unease, suicidal thoughts, feelings of alienation and so on.  The body is in good shape, so where is this coming from?  We have an insides, that exercise, diet and sleep do not sufficiently reach.  The lungs breathe, but an inner depth is suffocating from lack of meditation.  I practice the meditation to exercise the soul, let it breathe in the Spirit Power.  

A Joiner

Some people are simply not by nature, joiners.  They don't do groups.  They do a lot of stuff alone even if it makes them unhappy or non-productive.  An example would be people who drink alone.  They want to stop,  or cut back, but alone, they cannot.   Well, something seems to need to change.  They cannot control drinking so that stays.  But they can walk into a meeting, become a joiner, of other people who are doing what they cannot do alone, stop drinking.  There are times to be alone, but there are times to not be alone, otherwise, time runs out all too fast.  

Dependent

 If I am dependent on how other people act for my happiness, I will be a rather unhappy person.  People around me have their own agendas and my happiness is not their priority.  To break this dependency connection I need to concentrate on my side of the street.  Work on my stuff.  Why do I need their actions to make me happy?  Is it a control thing?  Ego?  Each day I examine my innards to make sure I am not harboring resentments about how others act.  My happiness is my job, not theirs.  

Interior

I know people who do exterior penances, called ascesis, and it can beat up the body.  I try to avoid that.  Rather, someone suggested that I do "Interior Humility" as a way for spiritual growth and becoming the best me I can be.  So I try to do things for others without complaining. I might do a task that someone else could do, but they don't.  I might cook for others who never bother to learn how to cook.  The important thing in being of service is not so much what or how I do it, as what attitude I bring to the task or effort.  Am I doing it with resentment or love?  Am I looking for compliments or is the work of service sufficient to fill me?  Sometimes I feel like Cinderella with the two step-sisters.  OK.  It can be a feeling.  I don't control my feelings.  They just pop up.  What do I do with them, if anything?  Recognize, accept, detach, and love.  Then even I enjoy the work I do for others.  

Busy

 I did not know that I was lonely in High School or College because I was busy.  Classes were followed by team running practice.  Summers I commuted to Manhattan to work, so the days had not a lot of "free" time.  Weekends usually had an event or if not much, it was summer.  But when I got out of school, with no team running, I began to have that dis-ease with time on my hands.  I did not so much identify it as loneliness.  Rather, I just found ways to escape it.  Eventually escape solutions became the problem.  I am thankful that I did not do marriage as a solution.  With help, I have been able to identify dis-ease and do something about it that is constructive, and works on my insides as well.  I may never become free of loneliness, but I can become free of its domination and escapes that destroy.  How about you?

Ticket

We all have a one way ticket to the graveyard, but for a while I was on the express train.  It was a fast life, sometimes thrilling, fast-paced and generally unhealthy in mind and body.  I found a spiritual practice that slowed me down.  Now my ticket is on a local with frequent stops for the inner journey that recognizes the beauty of what goes on in the quiet and seemingly stillness around me  within me.  I make stops to be of service, maybe as part of a solution.  I used to be the problem, but blamed people and places that went by so quickly.  When I say, "I have no time for me or you," I am back on the express to the graveyard.  

Letting Go

I am trying to declutter and downsize my life by cleaning out and getting rid of "stuff" in my rooms.  I am doing OK so far.  I still have to downsize my San Francisco room.  But someone said that it is a lot easier to abandon possessions (give thing away, or trash) than it is to abandon ourselves.  I have found this to be so.  I cannot seem to let go of the parts of me that no longer serve my well, if they ever did.  How about you? 

Vaccination

 I think of meditation as my daily vaccination.  Left to my own devices and power, my life is emotionally and mentally out of wack.  I easily drift into spiritual illnesses of all kinds, revealed in bad behavior and messy thinking.  So I get my daily vaccination filled with spiritual content.  I become compassionate, understanding, accepting, of service to others, loving and kind, for instance.  It is amazing what a daily dose can do.  And the vaccination is not experimental.  It has been proven for thousands of years to work successfully.  Less whining and more loving.  

The Saint

 I try to see the saint in another person, while they might see only the sinner, or failure, or inadequacy in themselves.  Example: someone cooks and things don't turn out as tasty as they thought it would be or hoped it would be.  They see themselves as hopeless in the kitchen.  But I see the saint because they are trying to serve others in cooking.  They are thinking about others besides themselves.  I see someone in recovery, their recent lives shattered, and they think themselves hopeless or horrible and a failure at life.  Then they go and help another suffering person.  I see the saint.  I try to keep this in mind when I end my meditation time.  My mind was all scattered with thoughts holding onto me.  I judge myself a mess.  But my God sees the saint.  I showed up, did I not?

Sameness

 It seems that people prefer to live in neighborhoods where everyone else is like them.  Their idea of safety might be a factor.  But I liked the neighborhood where I grew up because we had all kinds of people with very different types of work.  We had blue collar, and white collar, stay at home and go to office moms.  We had the mailman and the fireman and the TV producer.  So I did not look down my nose at anyone as being less than me because of their work or lifestyle.  This can be the downside of suburban sameness, or city sameness for that matter.  The tendency can arise to judge people because they are different than your lifestyle.  

Trellis

 HOMILY NOTES

FR. TERRY RYAN, CSP

MARK 10: 2-16

OCTOBER 3, 2021

I have lived in a community of men since 1972.  I have never lived alone since that time.  The Rule of St. Benedict is helping me to make some shifts in my life, as I live it here in this monastery.  For many years I thought that I would be happier if the people with whom I lived would shape up and act the way they should in the house we shared.  My contentment was based upon their behavior at home.  I have come to realize that they are exactly the way they are supposed to be for me.  Why?  Because I am the one who is supposed to change.  Like what?  Like tolerance, compassion, acceptance, kindness,  non-judgment, being of service to them and maybe even love.  

I am supposed to live with people not so we all become the same, but that so we each become our best selves living in community.  Think of a trellis, an image given to me by someone.  The trellis is like the Rule of Benedict.  It holds us together.  But each vine works its way up the trellis as it grows.  Each vine is different but all connected to the trellis with a common root in Jesus Christ.  

Eve is equal to Adam but not the same as Adam.  They are supposed to become their best selves in the relationship of union.  They are not supposed to become the same as one another.  In Jesus’ time, men could be rid of their wives if the wife did not act the way the man wanted for his own happiness.  Jesus says no.  And he takes a child to himself to say that everyone is important and no one is inconsequential, or less than others.  Everyone gets a say.  No one is ignored.  No hierarchy.  

Let us be of service to one another’s growth and not our own ego, or program for happiness. 

Finding God

 If I think I cannot find God, someone said that I should slow down and get off my beaten track, my routines and ruts, and busyness.  Think of this image given to me: you walk, not ride, down a road you rarely travel because it seems inconsequential for yours plans.  It seems like a lonely road, lightly traveled by anyone.  You come upon a shack or old house with a table out front and a sign that you note because you are not in a hurry and open to whatever appears.  The sign says, “God here.”  You go and sit at the table and wait, in quiet silence with no agenda, no hurry.  God shows up.  So if you say you are having trouble finding God in your routines, in your holy buildings, and usual prayers, busy getting things done, then maybe you need to be open to adventure.  God is not bound by our programs for certainty and happiness.  

The Mirror

 When I look in the mirror do I see the face of God?  No.  I see a mess, which is why I do no more than a quick glance when necessary, except when I shave.  So I guess I really don’t believe my Jewish Bible that says I am made in the image and likeness of God.  My Church says this too.  Ok, I believe in my head like I would believe an article of a Creed.  It does not affect my behavior.  To look at my face and see only problems, and not God, is to be self-absorbed.  It is all about me, isolated from anyone else.  But if I could just see with the heart that behind this face is the image of God trying to shine through, then it might affect behavior, which is what faith is suppose to do.  How Behavior?  Well, if I saw God in me, then it means God is in the face of everyone else who I see.  This would stymie my tendency to judgment of others.  It would affect my tendency to indifference about other people who are “different.”  So I will try to take a deeper and slower look into that mirror, and maybe into the mirror of my heart, in stillness and quiet.  

Caged

 For Catholics, the holy communion wafer is God.  We put God into the tabernacle after mass, until we need it again.  Unfortunately, for many of us, it is our way of "storing" God.  When you store some food, you are putting it into a safe place until you need it.  You have the control.  The food sits and does nothing until needed.  Catholics go and visit church and chapel because there is a tabernacle there where God is "stored."  We find God where we put the host when we last needed it.  I try not to get too caught up in this because God cannot be stored.  God is free to be everywhere, and is mystery, beyond concepts.  I still sit in the monastery chapel and visit with God in the tabernacle, but this is more of a comfort that helps me to focus on sitting in quiet and stillness, waiting upon the mystery that is within and around me.  I let go of a need for certainty, and fall into trust, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly.  

Upbringing

 I had a wonderful upbringing in the Catholic Church of my boyhood in the Bronx.  I did not know at that time that our church building was only supposed to be the basement of the main church that would be built atop of it.  As a child, my church was big enough for me.  I loved being an altar boy and knew all the priests.  I did funerals, weddings, incense and knew the Latin by heart.  But we moved to the suburbs and I drifted away from being an altar boy, and did not connect much with the priests.  Daily mass became only Sunday obligations.  Now and again I would go and sit in an empty church by myself in College.  After college I just drifted off.  No faith crisis.  Just a lack of faith practice or prayer or God anything.  In Chicago, the nearby Cathedral was undergoing constructive repairs, so mass was in a funeral home.  I rarely went.  I had memories, but they were but fumes of spirituality.  I partied harder and worshipped less.  But my Power, God, never let me go.  So I have to frequently now ask, “What do you want of me?”  The answer seems to be “Everything.”  I have never been good at a split life, Party/Pray.  I am best being all in.  The partying was taking me all out.  

  

The Fruit

 Someone said, “Go out on a limb.  That is where the fruit is.”  Well, maybe being at this monastery, living this quite different life of a spiritual journey, is going out on a limb.  But when one goes out on a limb, one hopes that the branch does not break or that they do not fall.  In fact, we hope that someone or something has our back. I think of God as being the power supply when I go out onto this limb of a life I am leading. Thinking of trying to live a new life, not sure where it is going, but believing it will lead to the fruit you seek, we need trust and hope that we are not alone.  There were times when I did feel quite alone, hugging the truck or keeping my feet firmly on the ground.  I wasn’t going anywhere for sure.  But it was familiar.  Safety and security efforts can be that way.  But the fruit is when I seem more to abandon myself in trust and hope, and then action.  Climb out onto the limb.  

Listening?

 Someone told me the meaning of “Are you listening?” It means, are you going to do the right action.  This is what the questioner is asking.  For instance, a parent might say to a child, “Did you take out the garbage?”  The child says yes, but in fact did not take out the garbage and is not about to take out the garbage.  Yes, the words were heard, but the response revealed that the hearer was not going to take any action.  We can hear but not listen.  I think of this in terms of God speaking to me in my scriptures.  I hear it but I do nothing.  I say I believe but no action.  A person in recovery may hear or read their recovery literature and take no action.  They are not listening.  A group’s members are those who listen and take action.  Are you a member of a family if you never help out, are only a taker and not a giver?  Maybe the reason there is so much alienation, a feeling of not belonging, is that people hear but do not listen and we let them have a pass.  We cannot make members.  It has to come from the heart, a loving and self-sacrificing heart.  I need to hear better.  My heart needs to be more auditory. 

Surrender

 There are two kinds of “surrender” when it comes to change. The first is the one with which I am most personally familiar.  “I am going to surrender my old ways and change my life.”  Here I am the active changer.  The energy for such change is shame and guilt, with maybe some embarrassment, remorse added in.  It has never worked.  It is short term as is my memory.  The second change is powered by love.  I surrender to someone I love.  Then I allow them to change me through our relationship of love. Think long term spousal or partner marriage relationship.  Here in the monastery, and in my daily prayer efforts and living with imperfect people,  I surrender to my understanding of God, and let the change come from the God power.  Of myself, not much power.  

Perspective

I hear people say that Covid curtails their freedom.  They talk about all the things they cannot do now because of restrictions, or safety issues.  Well, I try to keep things in perspective.  I am not incarcerated, in prison, where all my freedoms are curtailed.  And when I hear about people in prison who have found recovery from addictions that may very well have contributed to their being in prison, they sound full of gratitude. They are grateful for an inner freedom.  Where is my gratitude for the life I do have in the outside world?  Gratitude or whining?   

Still There

 A compass points in one direction, North.  It does not tell that North is, but rather where North is.  But what if the compass is broken?  Just because it can no longer point to the North does not mean there is no longer a “North.”  The same with a map.  The map shows where Libya is located.  Here is Libya.  It exists and the map drawing shows it.  But what if the map is incorrectly drawn or is full of mistakes and fails to show “Libya.”  Does that mean Libya no longer exists?  It is the same with religion.  It is supposed to be a bridge, a connector for us pointing to God.  But if religion is broken, full of mistakes, does that mean God does not exist?  I cannot deny that which I seek, simply because the guides have lost functionality.  

Belonging

 My Mom died on this day in 2003.  As her caregiver, I felt very connected.  I was in the right place, fulfilling her needs and being of service with love.  But years before that I was quite a different person.  In the turbulent 60s, I was quite turbulent.  I had left home for work in Chicago.  With or without people I had a sense of loneliness, of not being OK.  I could not have identified those feelings back then.  I was not into feelings.  I was more into forgetting such discomfort.  From time to time, for brief times I could forget.  But someone had my back, and I was able to move from harming myself to helping others.  So I was able to be a caregiver to my parents.  That someone who had my back would periodically show up in my consciousness, inside me, or maybe around me, and I would know in those moments that things did not have to be the way they were in Chicago at that time.  That someone is a Presence.  Today, I try to keep in conscious contact with this Presence.  And such contact makes me feel OK about being me.  Beats oblivion!

Those Moments

 Sometimes I have moments of insanity.  I would think that if I did something for you, or did not do something, avoid some perceived bad behavior, you would like me.  Then I would do this “behavior” this action to gain love, or acceptance, but I would do it with resentment.  The reason that I was not getting love or acceptance was that you had so many faults. You were selfish, or whatever, so why do this good behavior on my part?  Beneath it all, I am feeling NOT OK in those moments and trying to feel OK with some behavior.  The job of making me feel OK was someone else’s and my good behavior, kindness, sacrifice, was to awaken you to do your job.  Ouch!  This blog is way honest.  And you thought I was a guru?  But for some reason honesty makes me feel better.  

The Reasons

 I used to drink at people.  Most of you drank with people in social occasions.  Yes, I remember that too.  But there were occasions when I drank “at people.”  Maybe I was unhappy with people or life was not going my way.  I might have a feeling of not being OK, but those around me did not help me to feel better, or they got blamed for my not feeling OK.  So I drank at them.  I would look around a room of people, no one of whom is making me happy.  And I would have a drink, alone with others.  I was lonely, but instead of having enough sanity to realize that loneliness is simply a part of life from time to time, I would try to get “feelings” to go away or change.  It was all a matter of running away in place.  Today, I have moments of sanity and the freedom to feel but not react in dead end ways.  I think maybe this blog is too honest, so I will stop before you take me off your pedestal.  

Charity

Jesus tells a story about a landowner who hires people all day to work in his fields.  Some work only an hour and some work the whole day depending on when they got hired.  The workers are all day laborers.  At the end of the day, the owner pays everyone the same.  His generosity is in treating them as all equals to one another.  But the first hired complain.  They are of the economic mindset that justice is served when those who do the most should be paid the most and those who do the least should be paid the least.  For them, there is no sense of being equal to one another when it comes to money or material things.  Today, this might play out in the mindset of the charitable giver who has way more than the need, for whatever reason and decides to share some in charity for the poor.  The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich in most of these cases.  So it should be, you say?  Well, if you also say you are a follower of Jesus, he saw justice differently than you do.  Be glad that your God's generosity does not depend on your efforts.  

Behavior Change

 When someone first enters the doors of an AA meeting, they generally don't say they are alcoholic.  They really don't know what that is yet.  What they do know is that they drink too much and want to stop.  They want to change a behavior and don't know how to do that on their own.  Later, if they keep with AA they will find out what an alcoholic is.  I find the same in my religion and in convert work.  People who come and say they "want to become Catholic" don't yet know what a Catholic is.  But they do know what they are now and what their spiritual behavior, if any, is.  They want to change that and think that "Catholic" will be the way.  Why?  Because of people they have met or witnessed being Catholic in behavior.  Just like in AA, newcomers tend to stay and "get it" because of the behavior of those they meet when they enter the AA meeting.  It is all about attraction.  People who try to promote religion, advertise and so forth, don't get as far as those who walk the walk of whatever is their spiritual practice.  My blogs are talking the talk.  I could use some better behavior myself as I trudge along.  I work to limit the number of days and times that I am a de-traction.  

expert

 I am not an expert on spirituality or the interior life.  I think of myself as always a beginner.  Why?  It keeps me open to new ideas, ways of seeing the same thing in a different perspective, and reminding me of things that I had been neglecting.  It is also a relief to be non-professional, a practitioner and not a complete expert.  I don't have to worry so much about doing a perfect blog whatever that my look like.  Sometimes there is a typo that I miss.  So be it.  Since the pressure is off, I can keep doing this, and from time to time even contradict myself when something new strikes me.  And it can keep the ego in check.  So you don't have to be prefect in what you do or even like to do.  If you were perfect you would stop learning.  I know people who are not interested in anything new.  They just keep reading and talking to people who agree with them. 

Remorse

 Remorse is not a plan for change.  It is a feeling, maybe fueled by guilt or shame, but it is not a plan for change.  When I tell someone I am sorry for what I did, I have hopefully begun a process.  Now what is my plan to change me, so that I don’t continue to do the same old bad behavior?  I need a plan of action for change, and I need to know that a bad habit is not mine to change alone.  I need my God.  I have found that people are not so much interested in my apologies as in my change of life.  Action and more action is the courage to change.  

Freedom

 The spiritual journey is really a path to freedom.  It releases us from the captivity to self-centeredness.  I  hear people who are not on a spiritual path say that this is a free country and they can do what they want.  They are slaves to self.  With a spiritual path we discover what is called the "common good."  We are part of one another and our freedom is to be able to fulfill obligations, not to have rights to do what we please.  This is so obvious in addictive people.  Their addictive behavior prevents them from fulfilling a lot of obligations.  They are not trustworthy.  And they generally are all about self.  I try to  keep on the spiritual path practice, for it is so easy to fall back onto self, me and mine.  When I fall back I become lonely, isolated, disconnected.  How does my action affect those around me? is a question I have to ask frequently.  It keeps me honest.  

Feelings And Actions

When I am feeling abandoned, lonely, fearful, and troubled by life, I think to myself that I cannot be helpful to anyone or anything at that moment.  My life of messy feelings paralyze me.  But someone said that feeling do not lie within our power.  They just arise.  What does lie within our power is action, virtuous conduct.  Why wait for feelings to catch up or change before I act?  Why be controlled by undisciplined feelings?  What is suggested is to be content with discontent.  I like that.  It helps me to do some good things even though I am feeling some discontent when I begin the virtuous action.  I try to be of some service even when I don't want to be and I find an amazing thing so often happens.  I begin to feel better.  I don't act to feel better.  I try to act in a loving and helpful, compassionate manner because it is the right thing to do, the virtuous action.  If all my energy to do good came from good feelings I would be unreliable and inconsistent, and a messier person than I am now.  Sometimes I write my blogs when I am having a messy patch.  I have a lot of imperfect followers on the blog.  They get it.   

Haloclines

Where the freshwater of a river and the salt water in the ocean meet, it is called a halocline.   Certain forms of life can flourish in this setting that don't seem to flourish anywhere else, so I hear.  I think about cooking and baking.  On the one hand there is me who was afraid of cooking, because I would fail, or it was too hard, or it just was not me.  On the other hand, there is the recipe that I look at, that pushes up against all my negativity and fear.  Bring them together and something unique takes place.  What? The fear went away and now I produce some really good meals, that would not happen if I had not put my fears, and negative attitudes up against the recipe.  I made my first Vietnamese dinner recently.  Spring Rolls and then a pasta with a sauce of ingredients from the Vietnamese recipe.  It was uniquely me.  No one else in the monastery would attempt it.  But I have to figure out how to roll those rice cakes better!  So, when you come up against something that your past says, "is simply not you, or for you," don't walk away so fast, especially if curiosity grabs you.  It could be your salt and clear water unique self coming to the fore.

The Key First

 Someone said, "Sometimes a key arrives before the lock,"  For me, it means that past experiences can open me to future opportunities.  The experience is the key and the opportunity is the lock.  Some years ago I gave up drinking.  It was interfering with my paying attention to possibilities, and opening myself to growth, new experiences.  I learned a lot about paying attention, learning to listen, overcoming fears at the new and untried, becoming comfortable with just being and being with someone without having to do anything to prove myself.  And so on.  These were all keys, but the lock was yet to show up.  It showed up years later when my parents were both dying, and still living, helplessly, in their Florida home.  I had no experience with caregiving of this sort, but I went to live with them and gave myself over to caregiving.  I asked for advice from professionals, did what they said in nursing care, sat with my parents, listened to them and took it one day at a time, abandoning myself to God to lead the way.  Had I been drinking none of this would have happened.  Fear, self-centeredness, fragile ego not wanting to fail, would have won out and I would have been rather useless.  So pay attention to what is going on in your life and around you.  They could be keys.  The lock will show up when it is time.