Pruning

 When a vine dresser prunes a branch, it is so that it will bear more fruit.  It has born fruit in the past but now it needs some cutting away so as to bear more fruit.  I think of this in terms of changes in one’s life.  I was bearing fruit at an active priest in the city.  The monastery, where I am away from previous work is the time for me to be pruned in order to continue to bear fruit in my work.  Something is being cut away.  Think of being a grandparent, a widow, loss of job, moving, divorce.  You are filled with a sense of loss, or change, such as the empty nest.  But maybe it is a time of pruning, so that some new fruit may be born in your life.  Change does not mean your life is over, but that the past is past.  I try not to live in the past.  I remember it, but I don’t want to live in it.  New life a ahead.  

Cataract

 Bad habits, character defects, sins, are all like cataracts.  They blur our vision, but they do not destroy the light.  God, Ultimate Reality, Higher Power, is the Light.  The light is always here with you, but when you mess up in attitude, action or thinking, then you cannot see, experience or enjoy the Light.  People tell me that they tried to find God or a Power, but could not with all their attempts at prayer or church or faith.  My suggestion is that one not spend energy on trying to find or experience a God or Power, but that one work on their faults and then they will see.  So if I aam being selfish, or whining, or fantasizing about my grandiosity, I might work on getting rid of those.  Does God then show up?  No.  I do.  

The Darkness

 In contemplative prayer, one usually closes their eyes.  Now they are in darkness, but they are thinking about something.  They are aware of thoughts and images, even with closed eyes.  This is how it usually starts out for me.  But then at times, the darkness becomes absent of these thoughts and images.  The book, The Cloud of Unknowing, says this is because the light of the divine has become so bright it blinds us to all those thoughts and imaginings.  I call it a deeper darkness.  But the dark is really full of light that the mind can not know.  I become even absent of awareness of body feelings.  My sitting posture, that might have had an ache or two, no longer aches.  I am in the same place but in a different space.  Somehow, I let go.  And let God.  It is all Grace.  

Feelings

 I hear someone say, “I am so happy being sober.  I feel the power in my life.”  OK.  Time goes by, and the same person says, “I feel miserable.  My Power has abandoned me.”  Oh?  When I asked them what changed, they simply say their mood or the feeling of Presence.  I would never equate my feelings with God’s Presence.  Presence stays.  It is Present.  Feelings come and go.  So does my spiritual practice.  I waver from day to day.  Misery is what reminds me that I have abandoned my daily practice, rather than God has abandoned me.  If you want to go from “sober” to “dry” then just stop practicing whatever got you sober.  If you are dry, and do nothing, you won’t be dry for long.  And your presence with us will become a rather permanent absence.  

Shadows

 In the dark I cannot see much of anything.  But when the sun is out, and bright, I can see all kinds of things in the shade, the shadows.  The light exposes what is in the shadows.  My faults, sins if you will, ongoing bad habits, are somedays so very apparent to me.  I think, “How can God love me?  I am such a mess.”  But then I remember that I can only see my faults clearly because of the light.  God is the light and is loving me in this light.  God sees my shadows always, but wants me to see them and then work on them.  I cannot work on a fault if I don’t even know I have the fault in the first place.  So the next time you see yourself wallowing in your shadows, condemning yourself or feeling full of self-pity, remember that God, or your Power, is with you to help you correct and improve yourself.  Without the Power, Love, we cannot improve simply on will power.  My will power is often weak and inconsistent, so I need help.  Love, The Light, The Power is the help.  

To Be

 In Spanish the verb estar and the verb ser both mean to be.  But estar means to be as in passing, something not permanent, such as, “I am hungry.”  Ser on the other hand indicates something that is ongoing, more permanent, such as “I am.”  I stop being hungry after I have eaten but I don’t stop existing. If someone asks me if I am being good, I always say, estar, or yo estoy because I am not always good.  So, many people think I am a bad priest as in ser.  I am always bad.  That is yo soy.  If someone were in recovery from an addiction, it would be estar because recovery is passing, transient, unless we have a practice on a daily basis.  If someone were to tell me that they ser sober, and I were a good Spanish teacher, I would correct them and say they should use estar because their sobriety is only for today.  It is one day at a time and not very permanent for most addicted people.  It is the same with my spiritual life.  Without daily effort, without the sense that this could all be gone due to negligence in practice, I work it each day.  This is the extent of my Spanish.  Yo soy bruto!

The Ship

 A good analogy for prayer experience is to think of yourself on a ship going somewhere across an ocean.  The ocean is prayer.  Somedays, it is all tranquil, still and silent.  You sit in your boat and just be at rest.  Where you are going is no longer important.  You just be in the moment.  But other times, everything is stormy, windy, rocky and turbulent.  You feel that God has abandoned you.  Your life seems to be a mess, but you are still on the ocean.  The ocean is prayer and sometimes it is turbulent and sometimes it is peaceful and everything in between.  But you are always on the ocean.  When at peace you want to stay in the peace and when turbulent you want to land, and get away, which would be to abandon prayer.  Never equate your enthusiasm with God’s presence.  In difficult, stormy times, I think that God is testing my patience.  Patience is one of my weak points.  It seems that God knows this.  

Being Different

 We are not all the same in some important ways.  My Creator did not make all priests the same.  I used to complain, to only myself of course, that other priests were not more like me, the perfect one.  Then I learned a few things.  I am not perfect, but my being different from others can serve a purpose.  I connect to certain types of people that other priests cannot seem to do.  But they connect to some people who would find me very off-putting, if not weird or heretical.  There are all kinds of people, with their own differences, on a spiritual path.  No one person can help everyone.  We connect better with some than others.  This does not make us better or worse.  My ministry works best when those people who are compatible with me, find me.  How they find me is often a mystery.  We think we stumble upon the right person.  But then maybe it is a Power at work that I call Grace.  

Bondage

 I have heard people talk about being “happy, joyous, and free.”  I have come to realize that “free” does not mean that the things which bother me go away, but rather that I have a change of attitude.  Why am I letting something put me into bondage with discontent?  I used to live in a neighborhood that had nightly barking dogs.  Also, there were trains passing through town quite near to us and sounding their horn for car traffic to beware.  Another place I lived had a band garage practicing with a loud drummer.  At first, in each of these instances, my life was in ruins and there would be no sleep.  Why was I in an emotional uproar?  I did some introspection and realized that my goal was stark silence and I had no control over the noise.  Solution?  I dropped my goal.  Life is noisy. Dogs bark at stuff.  Trains are practicing safety as they freight things that might be useful to me.  Drummers practice to improve.  I let go of control.  Soon enough, I began to sleep through it all.  And the world did not change to meet my demands.  

The Many Names

 The Bible has many names for God.  The Koran has about 100 names for Allah.  What do I find as the best name for God? “IS.”  God is.  This name gets me out of my imagination, thoughts and words about God.  God just is when I am in deep prayer.  This title allows for more intimacy.  To go even deeper, I think the best title for me is the same, “IS.”  I am and God is and no thoughts, or words can get stuck to this intimate moment of prayer.  When you stop thinking about yourself, others, and situations past or future, you just “ARE.”  You are and God is.  Prayer is simple until we make it complicated.  

Health Foood

 I notice people who take a great deal of time and energy to find out about the healthiest foods, and then to buy, process and eat such foods so that they will have a very healthy body. I have learned from them and so I am grateful.  But some of these same people will not find out and make use of the healthiest food for their interior life, that lives within their healthy body.  They ignore deep prayer of silence and stillness, that lets go of focus on thoughts and words.  I have come to realize that a healthy body with a sick soul is not a good combination.  It leads to much dis-ease, with oneself and with others.  I must admit that I am better at feeding my soul with the good food of deep prayer, but then a bit of a backslider when it comes to feeding the body.  Does anyone know of Chocolate Anonymous meetings?  

Naked Prayer

 Contemplative prayer can be called, “Naked Prayer.”  Why?  Because it is the prayer of deepest intimacy with God.  When you came into existence in a body, you were naked and most intimate with our Creator.  Then in the world we clothe ourselves with thoughts, words, emotions of all kinds and the intimacy gets a bit diminished, to say the least.  In my own tradition, I see people trying to get intimate with God through rituals, things, pageants and so on.  Remember the Adam and Eve story in Genesis?  They were naked and in intimacy with their Creator.  Then they got to thinking about how to get “more” and it all fell apart. They got clothed. Thoughts and words in prayer are “clothing” that we might need in coming to some relationship with The One.  But at some point, if we are to grow into deeper intimacy, we have to let go of this spiritual clothing and be naked before Ultimate Reality.  No focus on thoughts, words, rituals.  In my religion, Jesus gave himself completely to God, on the cross.  Jesus was naked.  Contemplative prayer does not always make you happy, joyous and free.  Until it does. 

In The Day

 When I am fully in the day, present to the moment, it is often because I am full of gratitude.  As someone said, I am aware of the wins in my life, and if there have been some “sins” and I have corrected them, then it is one more reason to be in gratitude.  So when is it that I am not fully present to the gift of this day, in the moment?  It is when I am living in resentment about a past situation or person, or when I am fearful and anxious about the future, as if all control and power is mine.  Whenever I write a blog I am usually grateful for a wisdom someone has given me, or I came up with, that I then pass on to my faithful readers. Even if you wake up dead drunk or strung out on drugs, you can be grateful for another day to try recovery.  It is never too late, until you run out of days.  

A Frenzy

 The intellect, the mind, will tell you that contemplation is a waste of time.  Why?  Because the mind needs something to gnaw on, some solid content, even if it is a resentment about something in the past.  Or it can be some self-reflection of your good and less good points, or those fo others.  So much food for the mind.  But in contemplation there is nothing to feed on.  The intellect is put into a fast by your neglect to pay it any attention.  You just sit, in darkness, as far as the mind is concerned.  Boring, it shouts out to you.  Pay it no heed.  Eventually, the mind gives up and maybe just pouts.  But you are deeper now than an awareness of its mood.  You wait. Unknowing.  Enlightenment may come.  You are awakened. But not to anything that the mind can feed on.  So few people travel this road.  In recovery it would be called the depth of the 11th Step.  And such people will live it out in their 12th Step.  If your thoughts, emotions, and imagination rule your day, 24/7, you will never become transformed.  

Blind Awareness

 Part of active contemplation is “blind awareness.”  Ultimate Reality, what I call God, cannot be seen or thought, but can be experienced at a depth of spirit.  As the Cloud of Unknowing says, don’t think about yourself, don’t self-analyze, just note that you are.  You are sitting with your eyes closed, neither trying to analyze you or Ultimate Reality.  You are not trying to know anything, but rather to sense or become aware that you are not alone.  You cannot identify this Other Presence that seems so close and yet so safe and soothing.  The hard part is to stop focusing or thinking about you and the world in elation to you.  All methods are to help us to get out of our own way.  That is why the road is called, Narrow.  There is not room for you and this divine at the same time.  You wait.  The Power, Love, comes to you.  

Oasis

 For me it seems that gratitude is an oasis of my life, surrounded by a desert of whining, self-pity, resentment and self-centeredness.  I need to wake up and get right into that oasis or else I will die in spirit, and maybe literally die.  The desert is vast and it is so easy to wander around in it, accomplishing nothing of value.  It is the place where love dies of thirst for fulfillment.  I usually drift into this desert without noticing it when things begin to go against my plans, my agenda.  It is most often a small item of my agenda, such as a food item that was not purchased because someone used up the last of it and neglected to put it down on the grocery list.  Or something big, where someone in authority limits my ability to do something that I like to do.  Whatever the reason, it is the same desert.  So I have to always look for where I am.  Am I in the oasis when stuff happens?  Or have I forgotten gratitude and drifted off so that when something does not go my way, I end up too deep in the desert to get back on my own?  All this has happened in the past, and I try to keep it in the past, one day at a time.  

Purifying Love

 Suzuki Roshi says that we practice Zen to purify our love.  What does he mean?  As we grow up to spiritual maturity we move from where love was once what we could get or gain out of it.  It becomes what we can give.  Or it goes from at worse, exploitation, to grow into nurturing love.  That is a lot of growth.  But it would fit me when I was young and what happened from a spiritual practice.  As a young guy I thought I was loving and giving, but in fact, as I look back, I was about getting my wants met by the girl.  If I was lonely, her job was to make it go away.  Her job was to look good so I would look like a winner.  And so on.  It took me a long time to become a true listener and to try and nurture someone else.  Compassion came late to me.  I think mediation has helped me because it is less about “give me this or that,” and more about self-emptying and waiting.  

A Miracle!

 Today, I am 44 years ordained. I was ordained with the Paulist Fathers, and eight other guys on this date in 1977.  I am the oldest one of the nine.  I had plans,  But so did God and God’s plans did not line up well with mine.  I thought I was hot stuff early on.  I needed humility.  I thought I was a great success.  I needed failure.  I thought I knew myself pretty well, and would tell you if you asked.  I was delusional.  I had the answers, but not the questions.  I knew what was wrong with you, but not with me.  I have had great ups and great downs.  The downs were the best of times for spiritual, emotional growth, but it took a few downs to realize this.  But the miracle is that I am still here, the priest.  It is a blessing that there are people who know my faults, mistakes, messes, and still love me.  The best part of my 44 years as a priest is that I mess up, but am still loved.  

New Language

 One of the reasons that I never learned a language in school is that I did not practice it on a daily basis.  I took French in High School.  By the time we got to Christmas break which was about a month back then, I was pretty good with French.  Then I did not use it for a month and when I came back I was rusty to say the least.  Then I did not use it all throughout the summer.  So I never really learned to speak French.  You have to use a language every day to learn it.  So it is with the spiritual path, recovery path, you have to work at it on a regular basis.  You don't fill up some reserve tank to call on when you have not practiced for a while.  You work a spiritual practice on a daily basis, sort of use it or lose it.  It is not like a physical sport where you need to rest the body, in some off season.  There is no off season in recovery.  There is no off season in prayer practice.  No vacations.  Right Bertha? (My Spanish teacher)

Being Of Service

When someone tells me to do something that is of service to others and I say, "Yes," I am not volunteering.  I am "Voluntolding," as was pointed out to me.  I look at this in terms of my teaching and work on contemplation.  I think it is a call or vocation.  For me, God is telling me to do something and if I respond yes, then I am saying yes to God's voluntolding.  I don't have to do it, but as I have learned ,it is better for me to say yes when I am voluntold because the one who is asking knows that this service work will make me a better person.  I have heard that it works like this in recovery programs too.  If someone volunteers without being told, that is very good.  I, unfortunately, don't take too much initiative in being of service, but I do seem to listen to voluntolding urges from others who love me.  To me they are not options or even suggestions.   These voluntoldings are for my own good.  I have been to the bottom of "no." 

Opposites

 Meditation and addictive behavior are opposites.  In meditation you like being with yourself, silent, in stillness, being present to the moment.  In addiction you cannot stand to be "Just" with you.  You feel kind of restless and wanting to escape.  Drugs and alcohol are ways to escape without going anywhere.  You are in the same place physically, but you don't feel so alone be it with others or on your couch.  This self-escape is of course temporary.  When you awaken, you still have the problem of you.  In meditation, you actually awaken to a sense that you are not so alone.  Plus you feel comfortable in your own skin.  Now this is a miracle if you picked up prayer and meditation instead of the drink/drug.  I know something of both and have found the meditation way to be quite better and cheaper.  Plus, I then seem to be more useful to others, such as friends that I gained instead of lost.  

Overdone

 You know you are addicted if you do what normal people do, but you overdo it.  Drink or drugs would be an easy one to recognize if you are not into them or are in recovery.  But we can become addicted to other things we think are good, healthy, productive.  Running would be one of them.  A person starts jogging and then decides to become a marathoner and keeps at it in spite of numerous injuries, failure to be responsible in other tasks because they are busy training.  Then there is incessant reading because information is power for you.  You cannot get enough of it.  Being good or looking good can be addictive, as in trying to please others or fit in with whatever.  Work can become addictive especially if it is based upon trying to prove yourself, which is not the same as trying to keep your job.  I like the idea of doing nothing before doing something.  Prayer is like doing nothing, ironically.  

Feedburner

 For those of you who follow my blog by having it automatically go your email as soon as I post the blog to Facebook, there might be some changes coming in July.  The app that is used for this is called Feedburner.  They are making changes and so you might suddenly find that my blogs are no longer showing up on your email.  Since I cannot figure this all out, either one of you will find a new app or else just go to Feedburner and see what is what.  Since I don’t know which email get direct to their email sight, I cannot enter a list of emails to Feedburner.  My blogs will continue to post to Facebook and might yet still go to your email site direct.  I just don’t know.  And if your solution is “Fr. Terry why don’t you...” that will get you nowhere.  A friend set up Feedburner for me years ago.  I did not even know it was called Feedburner.  Good luck!

Reading

 Do you ever notice that when you are reading something, a book, paper, your mind drifts off, but you seem to keep reading, recalling nothing of what you read, until you catch yourself in your daydream or thoughts?  Something you were reading might have set your mind or memory off in another direction.  It is the same when we are trying to listen to another person.  They are narrating something, some story or information to us, so we are “reading” them, just like a book.  And the same thing happens.  They say something or they are not interesting and we drift off into some thoughts that engage us, even though we are in the stance or posture of seeming to listen.  I do this at times and get caught.  I guess my face, an honest face, gives me away.  I have to work at paying attention when I “judge” that another person has said too much or not enough.  My effort becomes an act of kindness.  Maybe they are lonely.  The hardest reading of another person is when they are spouting opinions, that nothing I might say will change them.  

The Garden

The spiritual life is like a garden.  Gardens need weeding.  Weeds can overtake the fruit, the food, the flowers and make for a mess.  Daily meditation is a way for me to allow my inner self, from whence so much good and not so good arises, to be weeded of the not so good.  Selfishness is like a weed.  I think I am going to do a good work, bear good fruit, but if I skip daily mediation, spiritual reading, and such, I might end up doing what I think is a good work but it will be for selfish motives and become a real mess.  My will can become weak and my judgments cloudy, and the right way so obscure if I am not into some daily maintenance of a fit spiritual condition.   

Who Cures

 When I have skin issues I go to my dermatologist.  He examines, cuts me up and stitches me up, bandages me, and says go do thus and so.  I go home and do thus and so. Now and again he might look at the wound, and say, “Looks good. Go do thus and so.”  I go home.  The wound ever so slowly heals.  Who does the healing?  Not the doctor.  Not me.  My body heals, but who made the body?  And so I am brought back to this Mystery I cannot see, but I can see results.  I get some human help and I do some things in following instructions.  It is the same in the spiritual path, in recovery, transformation.  Get human help from those who know.  Follow instructions.  And the miracle happens.  This is the Power I have discovered in my life.  I have lots of wounds like everyone else.  But they are healing.  Miracles of Grace.  

Being Rich

In the story of the Rich Man and the poor man, Lazarus, there is no condemnation for being rich.  In the after life of the story, the rich man is not suffering torment because he was rich, but because he did not pay any attention to Lazarus and the needs of the poor man.  Lazarus is both ignored and hungry.  I find that at times I come up with excuses, judgments, as to why I can ignore the person living on the street.  I say, "They are addicted and could get better if they go to Recovery Program." Or, "They are lazy and just don't want to work."  Whatever, I find ways to feel good about myself while ignoring others.  Lazarus lived on the street outside the rich man's home.  My job is not to judge or try to change people.  My job is to try and be changed myself by how I connect with others who are put in my path.  

Motives

If my plans for the day are based upon self-centered fear, self-pity, self-seeking and economic insecurity, the fear based life, and bondage to self, do I really want those plans to happen according to my designs?  No, that would be a mess for me and for others.  So I need to be working on some spiritual program of growth because I don't always know the weeds from the plants initially.  But God does.  So if my plans are nipped in the bud, it just might be that God is saving me from myself and I won't know it until later.   I won't be so resentful if I am working on my insides instead of using all my energy in trying to run the world, your world.  

Plans

I heard said that what is not in my plans might be in God's plans.  I think there is a lot of truth in that.  I don't mean car crashes and such, but rather plans I have for the day or the near future might not work out.  It is comforting to think that maybe my plans did not work but God was at work thinking about me and has a plan for me.  A pandemic was not in my plans for 2020, and  counting the months.  But other stuff happened or offered itself to me that were not in my 2020 plans a year ago.  I am living at a monastery now and I am teaching on something called "zoom."  My talks are going onto youtube.  I am back in regular touch with friends in Knoxville, Tennessee where I used to live.  None of these things were in my 2020 plans.  I don't have to go to airports and airplanes to teach here and there.  I have learned to be a pretty good baker of bread.  Yes, some things did not work out and I miss them, but maybe God is at work not punishing me, but opening a window when a door closes, to use another phrase.  How about you?  

Thirst

If God is supposed to be Love, the verb, then one of the best ways to know if I am lined up well with this Love, is that I want to be of service to others.  I will even have a "thirst" to bring them to know this Love as I have come to know Love.  In recovery terms, the way to know that you are truly into recovery and sobriety is that you want to help others to find a way out of your common addiction.  The way out is a Higher Power.  This thirst for service is not about telling people to believe in this or that, but rather to show them by your daily life, your manner, your serenity, your care, that something is going on in you that is attractive.   In whatever manner, it is all about sharing one's journey to a greater wholeness, shown in the way you love.  And just the effort to be of service will make you a better person, regardless of the response of others.  

The Enemy

I have heard it said, "Love your enemies."  How does one do that?  Well, I find an interesting way to approach it.  Why not try to treat them as friends?  Now that is a stretch, but at least it gives me a clearer picture of how to act.  To simply say love your enemies, does not tell me how to act in the concrete reality.  I do know how to treat friends, at least sometimes.  So while I am trying to treat friends better, why not at least try to treat my enemies as I would treat my friends.  Listen.  Be kind.  Expect no particular results. Be more selfless.  Reach out to them.  Come to think of it, I might have a full time job doing better with my friends.  Yikes!  See what you learn from the blogs, my friend.   

The Good And The Better

 When people ask me why I live here and not be more present someplace else, I need not say one is bad and the other good.  There can be two good things and one makes a choice.  The choice is personal between two good things.  When it is personal then one thing is good, but the other is better.  It is good to live in each of various places, to attend various meetings, school classes, social events, shopping places, but where one makes a personal choice then it is choosing the better over the good.  It is why I am in this monastery more than someplace else.  It is why I go to some meetings and not others, shop in one place and not another, and so on.  To tell someone you hate something that they love, does not do them much good unless they love something destructive to me.  Drinking, loud parties, climbing 14,000 foot mountains might be good for you, but better for me that I do not do those things.  I love to run.  When someone says, "I hate running," would it not be better for my feelings if they simply said, "It is better for me not to run."  So I try to do unto others as I prefer they do unto me.  But I hate marathons!