All Alone

 Did you ever feel like you were or are all alone?  I have had that from tine to time since I was a boy in the Bronx.  I would go out to play or just go out and no one was around.  One time, or two, I went to the nearby Catholic Church which was always open during the day.  I would sit in a pew by myself in the silence.  You would think this a ramping up of being alone.  But it was not for me.  My mind or feelings might have told me I was alone when I walked into the church.  But I came out feeling connected somehow, to a Presence and to the world around me that had not changed a bit except for the shadows cast by the sun.  From time to time this has happened throughout my life.  Busyness, groups, lifestyle, stuff, all hide or obscure the loneliness.  For me, it is a spiritual solution found in silence and stillness within.  

Search For Self

 From as far back as I can remember, young people begin their search for identity with the thought that, “I am not going to be like my parents,” or “I am not going to try to be what you want me to be” whoever “you” is.  In the early 50s it was Rock and Roll music, and not swing band music.  And so on.  Ironically, eventually, a lot of children do become very much like their parents after their “rebellion.”  It is a search for identity.  ‘Who am I?” We ask, either directly or indirectly.  I think that a spiritual search is the only way we find out who we are.  We can join clubs, groups, churches, live in certain neighborhoods but none of those things will answer the question.  I live in a monastery but that does not define me.  “Are you a monk?” Someone might ask, as if title defines me.  Where I live, or what I do does not define me.  The spiritual search, the prayer of the heart, beyond our thoughts, or deeper than the mind can go, is where I find “ME” and maybe you find yourself.  And you won’t need a new wardrobe or car or house/condo.  

Original Unity

 It seems from science that we all evolved from some sense of unity as in Big Bang.  The Universe seems to be interconnected in its matter.  So, if there is a God who started it all, and I do believe this, then the spiritual journey is all about “RE-Connecting.”  Original sin would then be disconnecting or disunity.  The basis of a sense of separation is fear and damaged egos.  To feel safe and secure in our identity, we have to better than someone else.  My skin, language, religion, culture, and nation all would be ways in which I am better and someone else is worse and/or the enemy.  Prayer of the heart seems to help me to let go of such fears and ego-centeredness.  The mind separates.  The heart connects.  

Community

 I suspect that the only real religious community, a group that is truly One, is a community of persons all of whom have had religious experiences, that is, one on one encounters with God, no intermediary of dogma or ritual.  Once you have this experience you feel a sense of Oneness with everyone regardless of outside differences like language and skin color and economic status.  Otherwise you look for a group who seems most like you in all your prejudices and narrowness.  You look for some comfort zone of people who think like you in your flavor of dogma and rituals.  Such homogenous parishes feel like they are close to God, but not so close as to have to change beyond a certain comfort zone.  Even in a monastery we are not all so homogenous.  And that is good.  How can one grow if everyone around you agrees with your imperfect self?

Comfort

 Some may say that your awareness of God’s Presence is a bunch of silliness, or what one person referred to as magic.  Why should you care what they say or think?  This awareness meets my need.  It gives me comfort and a sense of peace.  It seems to touch me in my heart center.  I do not apologize for this awareness.  Does your critic have a sense of peace and comfort?  Many people chase after material things and relationships or group identity for this comfort and peace.  All this is so elusive.  And often expensive.  I like my God Presence Awareness.  

Birth

Giving birth is a universal experience and is thus a way to explain contemplation.  A woman does not have a Catholic birth or a Baptist birth, or Islamic, Hindu or Zen birth.  She gives birth.  She may be a follower or believer or part of a particular religion, but this does not enter into the actual physical birthing.  If it is Caesarian it does not need a religion to be so.  In contemplation, one can be from any particular path but once one enters into the contemplative dimension, it is the same for everyone.  Maybe that is why women tend to get along with other women better than men with men and why interfaith dialogue works best with contemplatives

Getting Started

I remember when I first decided to enter the Paulist Fathers and the seminary, my reason was "To save my soul."  My life needed a radical change at that time since I was skidding downhill and seemingly no control to stop the skid.  That was 1972 and I am still a Paulist Father, and today is the special Paulist Feast, The Conversion of St. Paul.  My conversion over the years has gone from saving my soul to wanting to become holy.  Isaac Hecker, the Founder of the Paulists, said that you don't become a priest to save your soul.  You are anointed, ordained, to become holy, to become a saint.  I think this could be a goal for everyone, married or single.  Initially, I had set a low bar, but it was the only one I could hope to get over.  Now, I think that Fr. Hecker is right.  Aim higher.  We don't have to be perfect to become holy.  Saints have faults and failings.  Strive on a daily basis and when you stumble, get up and keep striving.  Sainthood is the long journey with some stumbles along the way, but keep the focus on becoming a better person.  One day, all those people who bother you will become "your joy." They may not change, but you will.  One day at a time.  

Distractions

 A Desert Monk of the 4th century said, "A person in chains cannot run."  He was Evagrius, and he was referring to distractions.  If we are focused on our distractions, meditation at any lever, much less a deep level,  is impossible, like a person trying to run in chains.  Chains are signs of imprisonment.  Distractions, woolly thoughts, hinder us from any kind of enlightenment.  Distractions imprison us.  This is why various mediations methods show us how to let go of our focus on such distractions.  Then our chains fall, at least for a moment, and we are free to let Light, Power, Love fill us up.  

Ashes

 I remember a friend of mine once saying of himself, "My life is in ruins."  Things were not going the way he had planned.  He felt that he could not get control in his work and was, in summary, a failure.  As I reflected on this I realize that when people are in such a situation they see as ruinous, they are seeing only the ashes.  The fire is beneath it all.  When someone comes into an addiction recovery program all they see is the ashes of their life.  Not all is lost, but many of us need to see only the ashes if we are to take a serious turn for the better.  But hope is one of the things a new person gets in recovery.  With hope they begin to see "with a new pair of glasses" as someone wrote, and they see the fire beneath the ashes.  When you see a log fireplace of ashes the first thing you do is move the ashes around to see if there is a spark of fire beneath.  That is what the recovery path is.  That is what the contemplative life is.  We don't create a fire.  It is there, but hidden by a neglectful, or abandoned life that could have been fire.   

Stay Put

A saying, and it may be Irish, is "Birds do not hatch their eggs when they are on the wing."  That is, if you want the contemplative life to produce results you have to stay put, in one place, a bit more.  A person who is very busy getting a lot of things done, chores, bucket list, may have a short term sense of accomplishment, but it is not the "egg."  The egg is a product of the interior life which we all have, believer it or not.  If we are always busy, "on the wing" then we develop little of the interior life.  I could be very busy and helpful at the monastery, but that is not why I am here.  Yes, there is work to be done, but it is not all day, and we do get up early.  If I were to stay up and watch something on my computer at night I have pretty much decided what tomorrow will be...shallow interior attention.  I will be too tired, or I will sleep in, and miss the early opportunity for meditation.  Internet binging is really a form of being on the wing, and the results will be obvious///no egg.  

Idleness

Why do so many people judge the contemplative life as a matter of inaction?  Isaac Hecker says people think that this doing of the soul with God is a lot of idleness and folly.  But in fact contemplative prayer is work.  You are doing something.  Just because your eyes might be closed and your body is not moving does not mean you are inactive or doing nothing.  So much of Western culture values getting things done that one can see, and produces something such as "more." The fruit of a contemplative life is sanity, the fruit of which is often a sense of compassion, care, and love for others.  But even if one is more of a hermit, they may be unearthing a perennial wisdom that they embody for others.  This is a power of one who lives in solitude.  If any of us part-timer spiritual practitioners want to know more about what might be, it is good to have a hermit around.  

Mountain Top

 Isaac Hecker compared meditation to contemplation with the idea of climbing a mountain.  Meditation is like climbing the mountain.  There are many things to see, some new insights not seen before as you climb.  But you don’t stop for long, because you know that at the top of the mountain you will see all in a single glance.  There is a point in my mediation where I don’t stop to ponder an insight, a new view.  I let it go because I want the top of the mountain type “seeing.”  Only God decides who gets to the top, but if you stay rooted to the climb, the interim seeing, God will leave you to your pleasure.  

Flying Prayer

 Isaac Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers, believed in Contemplative Prayer.  He compared it to other forms of prayer in a memorable way.  Vocal prayer, what I learned when I was a boy in school, is like walking, said Hecker.  Meditation, which I stumbled into and then learned more about later in life, is like running.  Contemplative prayer is like flying.  Most of us can walk.  Some of us can run for a reason, to catch a ride or maybe for exercise.  It is more difficult than walking.  But no one can choose to fly.  You can sit in silence and solitude, but only God decides who flys and when.  Hecker called such prayer, “Flying To God.”

Out Of Difficulty

I sometimes, too often I am afraid, have difficulty with life, with the daily living.  I want to turn it into the joy of living.  How do I go from difficulty to joy?  Not on my own power, I have reluctantly discovered over many efforts to do it on my own.  Left to my own devices, my own psychic ability, I fail to move from difficulty to joy.  I pretty much repeat the same ole stuff if not right away, soon enough.  This may be why I have become a believer in a Power that is greater than me, and why I resort to prayer on a daily basis.  Even on days when I don't feel any strong love for this Power, I make a prayerful effort to connect, at the very least, in pleading that I not fall into the attitudes and actions that make my life miserable for me and eventually others.  So I am a daily prayer and believer person.  Misery can be a blessing if it does not kill you first.  

Littleness

 I sometimes have this nagging desire to be adored.  Unfortunately, this connects me with some leaders of countries who let this desire run rampant in their actions and reactions.  So I have to be careful when I tend to judge and condemn them, ignoring that I have this tendency at times.  What to do?  I need to work on loving my littleness, as someone said.  If it was OK for God in the baby Jesus, as Christians are supposed to believe, then why is it not OK for me?  Littleness is not the same as unimportance.  Jesus was important to Mary and Joseph as a little baby.  He needed to rely on others.  My littleness says that I need to rely on others too.  So I work on community, that is others in relationship of mutual support, and I work on prayer, the surrender prayer that says, “I need help.”  I have better days this way.  

Spirit

I belong to a Catholic Religious Order called "The Paulist Fathers."  We were founded in the United States in 1858.  Being an American founded order, we value freedom.  Now we also belong to the Roman Catholic Church which is not American and values Authority.  The Paulist Vocation looks to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God Energy, to show us the way to live out our vocation in Evangelization, Reconciliation and Ecumenism/Interfaith ministry.  Authority helps to be a check on rampant individualism, but freedom always looks for new and different ways to do ministry that is outside of what is or has been.  Authority tends to like "same ole, same ole."  In line with all this, many people are saying, "After Covid, let's get back to the way things were."  Why?  I ask myself what have I learned from Covid times?  The past was good for the past.  But maybe there are new horizons to follow.  If I wanted to get back to the past, I would be doing the same things in the same places all my life.  For a Paulist, that would be a rut.  The Holy Spirit is a challenge to be open and free of fear.  

The Cushion

 A feature of friendship is that in contact with one another there is a “Cushion” to absorb limitations.  Think of walking into a place for a job interview with someone you barely know, or know not at all.  They look at you and you wonder if you look right, or is something missing in your dress or demeanor.  There is no cushion for imperfection in that situation.  But with a friend you do not need to be so perfect.  Friendship does not reject you because a button is missing or there is a spot from you last meal on your dress.  I think of my God as Friend.  

Interior Highway

 I don’t think my vocation as a Paulist priest is to evangelize people to become Catholics or to come back to the Church.  I am more about interior evangelization.  What?  Well, I have had a religious experience, an interior one on one encounter with Love, and it has led me into the Contemplative Way.  This is what I try to pass on to others in my teaching and my life.  What God has given to me, I try to inspire others to seek. So my ministry has a communal dimension.  My teaching tries to make a highway for the Lord in the hearts of others.  It can include sacraments and scripture, but they are not ends in themselves.  Too many believers take means to be the ends and therefore never know the depth of a relationship they can have with the Divine.  And when a person encounters this in depth one on one experience, beyond words and thoughts, they come to know that they are not alone.  

Free Insides

 I have heard persons in prison, who are into recovery, say that they are “free on the insides.”  They mean they are free of their addictions and it lifts up their spirits.  Well, I know some people who are not in prison, and glad to be free on the outsides, but they are not free on the insides.  They may be feeling trapped by addictions, but there are other ways to feel bound up on the insides.  How?  You are uncomfortable in your own skin.  You are a prisoner of your moods and tendencies to bad behavior.  Something or nothing happens and you make a response that is destructive of a relationship to others and to yourself.  Sometimes I have felt imprisoned by a mood or urge.  I then get up and walk out the door.  I go outside and literally feel a sense of freedom.  I have gone outside and looked up at the stars.  Or call someone.  I get out of myself.  I don’t want to be my own prison.  

  

A Witness

 When you look up at the moon at night you can only see it because it is lit up.  But it has no light of its own.  It’s very presence is a witness to the sun which you cannot see.  The sun is hidden in the night while the moon witnesses to the sun’s existence.  This is how I see my blogs, my preaching, and teaching.  I am not God, the Light, but my life is supposed to give witness to the hidden God’s existence.  I have to stay right-sized each day in my ego, and attend to the Power that allows me to witness or be a light, a pointer to others who are experiencing a sense of darkness, a path hidden.  Whenever I think that I am the Power, the Light, humility flies out the window and confusion happens and we are all in darkness.  Humility and gratitude will always bear witness if we work at it.  

The Newcomer

 Why is AA flourishing while the Catholic Church and the Monastic life are dwindling in membership and attendance?  I think a key answer is the newcomer.  AA is nowhere near as sophisticated spiritual program or path as has the 2000 year old Catholic Church and the 1500 year old monastic life.  But AA is growing from its founding in mid-20th century.  The reason lies in the newcomer.  The church and the monastery do not pay much attention to the newcomer.  Everyone just wants to go on doing what they do and not be inconvenienced by having to change behavior or habits because of a new person.  In AA, the newcomer is key.  The focus is on that person as the most important person in the room.  A regular member will change their day to invite the newcomer to coffee or breakfast after the meeting.  That will never happen in a Catholic parish.  It is all private religion and seeing old faces, or getting out of the parking lot, to the next thing on the agenda.  In a monastery, the old timers just want to go on with the rut in which they live, their daily habits.  Someone is “assigned” to attend to the new person, and does it in scheduled meetings.  But no one is going out of their way for the new person.  A flourishing AA meeting is one that has newcomers and attends to them, immediately.  And they attend to the newcomer by sharing their story of spiritual growth.  You won’t get that at coffee and donuts after mass.  

Reconciliation

 I experienced a singular and extraordinary event during the Christmas season.  Just before Christmas the monastery decided to have a Reconciliation service.  It was to be at end of a day of looking at our life and faults privately.  I have been to parish reconciliation services before.  Sing, read scripture, preach, list some general faults so as to prepare us for private confessions, and then confession.  But we did something different.  I had not been here at the monastery when they did the service, so this was my first time.  After we got through the recited list of faults, there was silence.  Then the monk to the right of me, confessed, out loud mind you, to the group of us, a fault he had that was right on.  Honesty!  Wow.  So I said to myself, OK, this is the way we are going.  So I then confessed faults that are me and so true, out loud for all to hear. Then the monk to my left, confessed a fault that was him for sure.  The Abbot went next.  After all this, we stood and one monk absolved the Abbot and then the Abbot absolved us all together.  It was Public confession.  Then we all hugged!  Covid!  I had not hugged anyone for nine months.  There was so much joy among us.  It was a real bonding experience, the confessing publicly and the hugging.  Ok, so we now will all die from Covid, but we will die in the state of grace and go to heaven.  

Answer

 Hey God, I want an answer.  I hear no answer.  What gives?  And so it goes.  But as someone said, God does not always come with an answer, but does always come with a presence.  Besides, I might filter the answer to suit me and say it was from divine inspiration.  I have seen that many a time.  But a Presence is either discerned or not, depending on my openness.  Looking for answers distracts me from presence.  Presence, when experienced, makes for union.  Answers are just more dual thinking.  So for answers, I try to be open to God's will, and be.  God will do the rest.  

Promises

 Promises make the present feel better.  It takes the edge off of difficult moments.  A drunk says, "I will never drink again."  A lot of people feel better, in the moment.  As one person said, "God is suspicious of promises."  What is hidden in a promise is the inability or unwillingness to change.  So a "No" is very clear.  It is what it is.  "No" is without deception and is even  willing to put one into a bad place in a community.  I am forever making promises to God and at times to others, and then not coming through.  "I will write you a letter."  "I will call more often."  "I will clean my room, take out the garbage" and so on.  Is it not better to be honest and confront who you are and let people see the true you?  "No, I am not going to call,  write or visit."  I think it is easier to change from a "no" than from a "yes."  A no reveals me to myself eventually, and then maybe I will change.  I have to get real honest with myself before I can change.  Yes, it is embarrassing, but I have found it to work.  Back to the drunk.  Promises to stop, and then a no, I will keep drinking and leave me alone, to finally honesty.  I cannot stop.  If you are a promiser who never changes, get honest with yourself.  

Epiphany

 Yesterday was a Christian Feast Day, called "The Epiphany."  It is about three guys who were not white skinned, nor Jewish, who were open to a God moment, or "Epiphany" such that they would travel many difficult miles across desert, to find out what was what.  And they even bought gifts, should they get lucky and find a "Christ" God manifestation.  So yesterday was a big interfaith day for me.  It is the remembrance of a barrier-breaking event.  The baby's Mom was pretty open and fear-less, since she let these guys into the house with no complaints or resistance from her.  Plus, she got a bunch of gold.  I mean if God is going to become human, God has gotta eat, right?  This feast says for me that the baby in the manger, the Christ, was for everyone, but got co-opted by institutional religion that did not hold very strongly to that message.  Black non-christians come into a lot of white churches and people get uncomfortable, even if the black guys bring a bag of gold.  Most people will think they stole it.  Such is religion today.  We need that Mom who welcomed everybody.  

History

History for a lot of people is very important even if they never lived at the time of the history they so admire.  They want to go back to live and worship as did people in some previous era.  They are not happy with the present post-modern and very secular world.  But I would be careful of that desire to go back.  Do you want to go back to ice boxes?  Outdoor privies?  Horse and buggy?  Now the Amish never went back. They just kept living to a certain life-style.  The rest of us bought into the modern and then said we did not like it.  I am not interested in worshipping in some nostalgic fashion.  History is helpful to me to teach me from mistakes made in the past so we don't repeat them.  Or mistakes made in some other cultures past, so we don't pick up on their mistakes and live them in our present.  Keep what works but let go of what cannot speak to the modern world.  Alcoholics Anonymous would be an example of holding to a base but being open to change as times demand.  What does not change is your purpose.  What does change is your way of manifesting your purpose for others, newcomers.  Concerts are the place to hear beautiful old classical church music.  You sit there and listen, but that is not communal worship.  Private religion is part of the past, a past filled with racism and bigotry and prejudice.  Even in a monastery that has lots of silence, solitude and stillness, when we gather, we sing, and we sing chants that are possible for us to sing.  Why?  Because singing in common is one of the things that make us communal, and the God we believe in is a community-forming God.  Singing together challenges us to love one another when we are not in choir.  Modern worship is to get us out of ourselves in a world that lacks community and fosters individualism and separation.  

Let Go

I meet people who say that they believe in God, but they simply won't let go of their agenda, plans, programs for happiness, and let God take the wheel, or the reins in this season of reindeer.  The phrase I sometimes hear is "Let go and let God."  If your faith is only in the existence of a God, or faith in a dogma, so you can feel good about belonging the the correct church/ synagogue/temple/ashram/mosque or whatever, I don't think it is much of a faith that would change you for the better.  It would not be for me anyway.  For me, God is Love.  I trust Love has my back and knows what I need.  I don't always know what I need.  My ego and fears get in the way.  So with a splash or at times an ocean of humility, my will might surge up and I will surrender to Love.  Each day at this monastery I have to once again dive into this ocean of humility and let go.  "Let God" is kinda nice when you get the hang of it.   

Silent Music

I generally think of the language of music as "Sound."  Music makes sounds of notes on a scale.  Without sound there is no music.  Well, that is not all.  Music requires "Quiet."  Between some notes there is to to silence.  Music without silence is just noise.  So it is with my prayer.  If I am all words in prayer, then I am so much noise.  If I am all words in conversation then I am just noise and boring.  To connect with another person needs time for silence.  In prayer I have to make time for silence to connect with the Light.  In an encounter with another person, I need to be able to shut up and listen.  The monastery is a great place for the silent music of my prayer.   

The Glass Cup

 We have two vigil candles that we light near the Chapel entrance in the monastery.  Each candle is cradled in a glass cup through which the lit candle shines out.  I think of myself as the glass cup holder.  I am not the light.  Nor am I the candle.  I am the cup through which the light can shine to lead the way.  If the cup breaks then the candle will blow out in the breeze or the wax will drip all over and be a mess.  The candle and cup belong together.  The light is the Power, Energy, Force, God, Presence showing the way, revealing its presence as Light.  But the Light wants me as the way to shine through to others.  When I mess up, let my shortcomings take over my attitude and behavior, it is like the candle cup breaking.  The light cannot shine for others to see.  So I need to stay with my spiritual work so that the Light can shine through me to be of help to others who seek the path.  

Prayer Scarf

There are serendipitous times when God reminds me that my blogs are helping people. Way back when, in Pre-Covid Times,  I walked into a meeting in Boulder and took an empty seat in the room.  A young lady sat next to me.  I did not think I knew her, nor her me.  But then she told me that she reads my blogs and benefits very much by their content.  Wow!  That picked up my drooping spirts.  I had not been thinking about being useful moments before that.  Now fast forward many months into Covid, I am living at a monastery, and Christmas is near.  I received a package in the mail.  Christmas wrapped inside the package was a very big knit scarf, very big.  With it came a card from this same young lady reminding me of how much she benefitted from my blogs.  I decided to use the scarf as prayer shawl so that when I go to meditate, I will say a prayer for her and for me that we are continue to be a light in the world.  I will keep blogging. 

Post Christmas

 On this day, the first of the new 2021 year, I am thinking not of resolutions, but of the task of taking down our Christmas tree that I helped put up several weeks ago.  It is fun, though a lot of work, to put up the tree.  You see an empty space become full with tree, lights, garland and decorations.  But to take down the tree at the monastery is to take something beautiful apart, branch by branch and string of lights by string of lights, pack it all away in an orderly fashion and then see the empty space where earlier there was a tree.  I wonder who will help me with this task which adds no beauty to a room and says that the Season is at an end?  No wonder my church calls the Season after Christmas, "Ordinary Time."  If Volunteers are scarce, I guess I will have to say, "Live and let live."  Or else have a long resentment list.