Happy New Year

 The Midnight Library, by Matt Haig.  A profound read for me.  "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."  I will take this perspective into the 2023 year.  I can only see what is my perspective rather than what is really there in front of me.  I observe a person, situation, place, and see only from my past.  I don't see all that is there.  I see a monk who does not do housework and say, "He is lazy."  I discount his worth.  I judge.  How much of my past is filled with men who did not do housework or cook for others?  I will include myself and my own past in this.  I was a terrible housekeeper in my bachelor pads, seminary room, and other places I lived.  I did not cook for me or others.  So I can only see this monk from my own prism past.  I see in him the me I did not like.  I see him, not as he is but through me and my life.  So I will try to see what matters, to see the "more" of someone or situation.  And then see the me that matters with all the potential still within.  I just cleaned my room!  My Mom would be proud!!!  And I did it for me.  

Inside Out

 If you are thinking about making changes in your life in 2023, that is, in the outsides of your life, as in lifestyle, appearances, work, geography, all to improve something, escape something, obtain something, you might consider starting with the insides.  I believe the outsides will change if you do the inside work first.  Some of us need a "revolution of the heart," a phrase I like.  I came to this monastery more than 2 1/2 years ago.  It was an outside change.  I did not change from this move.  I have been working ever so slowly, fits and starts, on the insides.  I find that ever so slightly, the outsides of my life change.  The monastery is the same.  It has not moved.  But I am shifting within it, in the way I relate to the outsides and what goes in within me, emotionally, psychologically.  I still fall back to old behavior and thinking, but there are moments when I see the light of a better me.  So in 2023 I will keep on keeping on.  

Ego

 I often talk about letting go of ego, as if something called "Ego" really exists.  The ego is all about wants.  And wants are all about dualism.  There is me, the ego, and that which I want to make me happy, so I think.  What if the wants disappeared?  If we, for a moment had no wants, or any sense of a separate self, over against all else?  This is what one might glimpse for a moment now and again in deep meditation, contemplation.  It is a simple awareness.  It is not an "Aha, now I got it!"  The "It" would be dualism.  Now and again it happens to me.  It is after this moment I realize that the ego is not real.  It is the invention of wants.  That is why a simple life, or "voluntary poverty" of stuff, is often recommended.  But even having stuff is OK as long as you don't believe it will make you happy, at peace, content.  Love works best when we don't try to possess, control the "other."  Then there can be the seemingly magical moments of being one with someone not you.  Or are they you?

Next Year

Soon it will be 2023.  It will be an anniversary year for me.  My first parish, St. Leo the Great, in Aldine, Houston, Texas, was founded with two Paulist priests and a deacon in 1973.  So this will be the 50th Anniversary.  Most of the Paulists who worked there for the 20 years we ministered at St. Leo's are dead.  But I am still here, surely forgotten by all the current parishioners who have made great changes and improvements on what was founded from a 12 acre lot in the middle of not much else.  The parish was founded by the people who lived in Aldine, young family and single people in their first homes, young families.  These are the people who need to be recognized and many of them are still around in the Houston area.  The Marys, Frans, Stellas, Mildreds, Cathys, Beverlys Toms, and so on, I hope they will find out when the 50th Anniversary celebration is and ask the pastor to include these people as the Founders, and maybe include me who spent my first four years of ordination there and learned how to be a priest.  Then lets us Founder Folks gather together and party as only we know how!  Its in your court now Fran Walsh!   

Endurance

Patient endurance serves me well.  I used to get upset or fearful when people ignored me, were indifferent toward me, or were just unpleasant in their manner around me.  I was in no bodily danger.  So why the fuss?  I am not in charge of their changing.  I am not God.  I am in charge of me becoming a better person.  The difficult people in my life can be a challenge for my own growth from fear to patient endurance.  This moves beyond acceptance.  In a marathon, for instance, I can accept that the distance is 26.2 miles.  But that does not run the marathon.  Patient endurance, step by step, is what brings me to complete the run.  Spiritual growth, freedom from addiction and a fear based life is a marathon.  There will be pain but also joy.  I have found it so.   

Storms

I try to not pray about the weather.  It is like praying that Nature not be itself.  Storms happen.  Blizzards happen.  I try to accept that this is so where I live.  I only pray to be kept safe in storms.  I know when they are coming given modern weather forecasting.  So I can prepare.  In the same way, I don't pray to be free of addiction or my bad habits.  They are what they are.  I pray rather to be kept safe from any harm they could do to me.  And to others as the case may be.  Some days, my dark side will be stormier.  But I have learned how to prepare for such soul weather.  Vigilance on the better days.  It is tough to go shopping for an umbrella when the storm is here.  Or to put up window shutters in the midst of a hurricane.   Interior storms will come, but I will be ready, with a little help.  

Christmas

For many people, Christmas Day is not a happy, warm fuzzy time.  It could be that they felt persecuted by Christianity and so this is a day to find something else to do.  But for many, there are bad memories or at least no happy ones.  I have seen persons sitting at a bar drinking by themself on Christmas afternoon.  Oblivion.  Some people go skiing just to get away from all the church stuff and hoopla.  I have discovered that a bad past does not neccessitate a likewise present.  Recovering alcoholics have turkey pot lucks in recovery rooms.  Acceptance.  My past was rather good, but it is still past.  I accept that and do not try to duplicate what cannot be repeated.  I look for what is now.  BE HERE NOW.  And I find so much in the present because I work on the present each day.  But maybe today can be the first day of a new present for someone.  They can stop wrestling their past, and look for, or ask for help from someone who knows how to transition.   

Christmas Eve

At the monastery in our Northern Hemisphere there is four hours less of Sunlight at this time of year than in late June.  So there is a lot more "eve" this short daylight.  Our sun sets here at 3:30 PM.  Plus, it is cold up here.  But I don't pray for warmer weather or more sunlight.  Cold and dark are givens.  What I do pray for is acceptance of what is given, and to look for its meaning and possibility in my life.  With acceptance I relax.  No energy wasted on complaints or whining.  So I rest inside in the warmth.  No running about outdoors.  Lots of quiet in the darkness if I stay in the dark.  The Christmas tree lights up beautifully the dark room.  Peace is around me and will enter into me if I wait, breathe it in.  Be still and  quiet.  Or I could run around to neighbors and friends with a bottle of champagne shouting, "Merry Christmas."  I think I will open to the quiet and the dark, the gift of this special Eve.  

Christmas Cards

 The longer one is out of sight, the fewer Christmas cards they will receive.  So it is said of monks in a monastery.  If you are not in the visual life of a person, they forget about you.  I think there is truth in this.  Recently dead people will receive more cards than a person holed  up "too" long in a remote monastery.  This will be my third Christmas here in the monastery.  Fewer people are actually sending out mailed Christmas cards.  So the mail is lighter.  Some do it electronically.  It is a season in which people are pressed for time.  The time is not so much used for meditating or reviewing their life in this season.  They are caught up in the frenzy of the culture.  But monks are not supposed to be bothered by the cobwebs in their mail box.  Why?  The monk is trying to be forgotten, more insignificant and ignored.  Like someone born in a stable who could not even get a room reservation in the cozy Inn of a small village.  Maybe shepherds will come visit me?

Being Small

 Earlier this morning I was into one of my fantasy trips where I rewrite my life to make me very important, significant and famous.  Then in the mass we sang out, "God of heaven and earth."  It occurred to me, a moment I grace, that the earth is a spec in the heavens, the universe, and that on this spec there are eight billion people.  And there are many other specs in this universe with billions of people too.  God is   in and over it all, yet comes to this spec of earth as a fragile human being, a real baby like all of us humans.  This is pretty humbling for such greatness to become so insignificant and unnoticed.  Hmmm.  Then in communion today, I receive a tiny wafer of bread, and it is God.  What a concept.  I am nothing and fantasize I am great.  God is great but comes to me as small.  No wonder that people who are striving for 'More" don't notice or believe that such a God exists.  Today I will work on being right-sized.  

Inside Out

 Drinking does not change the outsides, until it does.  But first it changes the insides.  A person may drink a lot because they don't like how people, places, situations are going on around them.  Nothing of that outside stuff changes, but the person drinking feels better, or oblivious, depending on how into their solution they are.  Then their insides begin to change, not just their physical health, but also character defects, ways of thinking and negativity.  Lots of bad moods, volatility.  Then the outsides do change.  Car wreaks, lost jobs, family, friends, income.  All gone.  So if I don't like the outsides, I try to work on my insides, my spiritual condition.  I like the Prayer of St. Francis.  

Silence

 There are various ways to be silent that have nothing to do with prayer or meditation.  I can be silent on a bus or walking down the street, or driving my car, but in these activities I am usually engaged with things, events of the world.  That is, I am thinking about stuff, or talking to myself, or even following a mental story in my head.  The silence of prayer that will deepen me is when I disengage from things of the world.  I stop focusing on outside stuff or stuff inside my mind.  Prayer will come naturally if I disengage from external activity or my focus on such externals.  We have an innate capacity for prayer, but we let our busy or crazy minds control us, so we don’t know this.  You can be still by not moving physically.  But the mind might be racing.  

Be Me

 The Jewish Torah says in Genesis that we are made in the image of God.  This view means that we have a natural affinity for God, the spiritual, when we are most our true self as we were created.  So why do so many people feel alienated from God, spirituality, and a sense of inner peace?  Because they are not being or becoming themself.  They are trying to be someone else in order to gain something that they have come to value.  It is usually wanting as valuable “more” of something. What or who we truly are simply is not enough, even if we knew who that is.  We don’t value the real self, so we try to find some other self that fits our wants.  I am really a nobody, that is, I am no other body or person.  But being me is not only enough, it is a daily deepening discovery.  

Racing

 When I see someone race by me, I don't start racing to catch up.  I let them go.  I am aware of their passing by, but don't pay them much attention.  The same with my racing mind.  It can take off in some ersatz direction, some insane thinking.  I note it, even watch it, but otherwise don't pay it much attention.  I try not to participate in the racing of my mind.  I might listen and say, "Oh, now you are being crazy mind."  I become my mind's second opinion, and when it hears that it is acting crazy, it seems to take note and stop the insane racing thoughts.  What energized me to give that second opinion, to even have another opinion besides insane thinking?  Recovery in a spiritual practice.  Practice every day, because I never know when insanity will show up.  

Recovering

 I have heard people say that they are "Recovering Catholics."  When I check into their catholic story it often reveals that they were not much of a Caholic to begin with.  They pretty much ignored worship, bible, moral principles of the teachings.  What they are recovering from is that they disagreed with someone(s), they did not like some leader, some politics, or hypocrisy.  Some people recover from AA for the same reasons, and their life is the worse for it.  They did not like what someone said, or how a meeting was led, or the hypocrisy of some people in the meetings, or no one talked to them.  I have all of this happen to me in the Catholic Church and in meetings.  But I have left neither.  And I am better for having stayed for the best that both offered.  I have found my God and it made all the difference.  

Growth

A child eats and drinks nourishment, but does not turn into an adult in a single day.  So too is it with prayer, service, spiritual growth, recovery.  We do these growth-oriented activities lest we go backward on a daily basis. But we don’t change for the better in any single day, and there may even be some setbacks from whatever selfish, childish, fearful life we used to live.  We know that we are growing if each day we realize and practice the nourishment we need.  Any child knows that it will be hungry if it does not eat.  Without food tomorrow will be worse.  “Become like children” is a wisdom saying.  Be vigilant and feed the interior life.  

Change

Why do people have so much trouble changing their behavior or their attitude?  They have the desire.  So what is missing?  The inside work that must go before the outsides will change.  Will power to change is not enough, especially if we have developed a bad habit or addiction.  Wanting is a start, yes.  But we have to work on the insides, the heart, with some meditation practice that has a "letting go" element to it.  Detach from our focus on what bothers us, what distracts us, what consumes us, that is, from the incessant attachment to the self.  It is not all about you.  The anxiety, worry, resentment, fear, obsessions, that chain you to misery will begin to lose their power.  Into the space made by this detachment comes some peace, serenity, and then the power to make the outside changes, the attitude changes.  You will see with new eyes and feel with a new heart.  

Faith III

 People who say they have lost their faith may never have had much if any to begin with.  What they have lost is something that fed their imagination, or their thinking mind, as in doctrine, or their warm feelings religious.  So I suggest they think about meditation since it is a manner of being that does not rely on or seek to please the imagination, the mind or feelings.  They don’t have to spend time letting go of deity images, since they are bereft of them anyway.  When I say God is No Thing, they can agree that god is nothing.  No Thing and nothing are not the same, but it is a start.  It is easier to meditate if you don’t have to let go of something, or even seek something.  You feel empty?  Good.  Meditation works with that.  Many people have gotten into recovery or into a deep spiritual life who  started out with “I lost my faith.”  They were lost and then they were found.  

Faith II

 Lots of churches have things in alcoves, windows, walls, that sustain the imagination that props up faith.  But such faith will not be sustained in times of emptiness, and when your life simply is not working out at all.  Yet many an adult runs to church or to their shrines to pray to someone to fix things.  They want a faith that appeals again to their feelings and imagination.  They say that they are bearing their cross, but they want someone to take it from them.  Jesus bore his own cross until he could not, but never asked anyone to help him.  He died alone, abandoned in feelings and imagination.  But he did not lose faith.  The contemplative knows this faith.  So does the Saint.  You let go of solutions and be in the emptiness.  It might be like Mary, the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene, at the cross of Jesus.  They had faith in this darkest of times.  

Faith

 The faith of a child will not sustain many a person once they reach their mid-teens.  Yet this is all most of them and adults get from organized religion.  A child is protected from a lot of harshness in life, or else it has not reached them yet.  We give them holy card images, warm fuzzy bible stories, statues, pictures, first holy communion and it sustains them in their imaginations.  By the age of 16 life can become harsh and stressful for a person.  What to to with my life?  Do I have loyal friends, fit in, am I handsome or pretty enough?  Childhood faith won’t sustain them, but they have little else, so we begin to hear then say, “I don’t want to go to church,” or “I have lost my faith.”  Childhood faith was filled with assurances.  That is not faith for an adult, if it is faith at all.  Faith is when you feel empty, abandoned, alone with yourself, unsure, and yet believe, as in “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  

The Review

 Did you ever go into your boss for a performance review?  I think it is what I do each evening before going to bed.  God is my boss and I am in for a performance review.  How did I do today God?  Usually, there is something to work on as well as some good things.  It never occurred to me that in meditation, when I stop thinking about myself and how I am doing, God might be asking me how God can do better so that I will know that I am loved?  I was brought up to believe that God is perfect, unchanging.  But then I was also taught and believe that God became human.  Well, that sure is a  change.  God is always trying to find a way to let me know that I am loved, not for my good deeds, which are inconsistent, but just for being me in all my humanness.  My God is humble enough for performance reviews.  And so I hope am I.  

Forgiveness.

When I forgive someone, I have a sense of hope.  It is an act of hope.  I realize that God is working in them somehow, or else I would not have much hope for their change.  When I refuse to forgive it is when I see the person as bad, and guilty.  I have no hope that they can change.  But regardless, if I can forgive someone, I set myself free of judgments, revenge, hate.  I am working on my change for the better.  Why should we both be stuck.   

Sober

 Why get sober if you are an addict?  One good reason that I do not often hear, is sobriety allows you the chance to become yourself.  You get “saved” to become you.  Whoever you were as a active addict was not really you.  Insane people are hardly themselves.  They might have been the life of the party because they could not deal with the loneliness of avoiding the struggle to grow up into their true self.  As incomplete as I might be in this journey, I am still alive to stay on the path.  Loneliness does not mean you are a failure.  It means you are human.  Addicts don’t like being human, and add insanity to their avoidance of the struggle.  So they try and destroy even the fake self.  

Oscars

 Before I went into the monastery where there is no TV, I used to like to watch the Oscars, awards for movie acting.  I admired the actors in the movies I saw.  Sane actors know they are acting.  The actor is playing a role.  It is a craft.  Unfortunately, there are people who are acting in real life.  There is no Oscar award for playing a part in real life that is not you.  You might make a living for awhile, or have a relationship for a while, but ultimately you will be a mess.  I tried to act like the priest I thought everyone wanted me to be.  I was popular and successful in what others called success.  But I was not me.  The priest part is good.  It is a real part of me.  But I no longer try to play a role to fit into other people’s wants.  And I try to keep my wants separated from my needs.  No awards worth having for trying to fit into other peoples’ wants.  

Hats

 I remember the 1950s.  Every man who wore a suit and tie went to work in an office wearing the same kind of hat.  It was a sort of “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,” which was also a Gary Cooper movie.  Then no one wore hats because when JFK was inaugurated he did not wear a hat.  Then came the 60s and “rebellion.”  The immature person rebels by trying to be someone else, since they don’t know who they are yet or don’t want to be who they are.  Hats came back in.  You can easily try on different hats and “feel” like someone else.  Easier than trying on different dresses.  Rock star performers wore hats depending on who they wanted to be at that time.  Very commercial but outside of the money received, not very real.  Maybe that is why some of them did so much drugs.  It is depleting to try and be who you are not.  I am an average, blend in guy.  Hats won’t change that.  Be yourself.  It is a lifetime of growth to become who you always are.  

Faith

 Some people say about Faith, “Just believe.”  It is not so easy.  You cannot go from nothing to faith without some struggle.  No struggle, then no faith.  Faith is not certainty.  Nor is is magic.  It is relationship and all relationships take some struggle, sooner or later. Children might have instant faith, but as they grow physically and psychologically, emotionally, they will have doubt and struggle.  Otherwise they believe in infantile magic or else a surety about faith that cannot be effectively shared with other adults.  They can only convince children.  This is why pious parents(s) often have drop out children.  My faith grew from struggle and with people who struggled. 

First Things First

 You are an addict, addicted to something.  If you are to escape the addiction, you first have to stop it and get physical sobriety.  Your body stops the addictive intake.  That won’t last long if that is all you do.  Next, with the body healing, comes mental sobriety.  The fog clears up and you learn to listen to survivors, recovering people, and you begin to make some changes, such as being more helpful to others and not always thinking about yourself.  But there is more.  Next comes emotional sobriety and that goes on for a lifetime.  You have your ups and downs.  Your shortcomings, flaws in character have their moments.  This is normal life.  Normal is never constant bliss.  You want bliss?  If you have mental sobriety then you know constant bliss is not going to happen, short of death to which you were quickly hurrying when in full addiction.  Living normal is an everyday job.  It is called ongoing recovery.  

Whose Terms?

 There are people who choose to live life on their own terms.  They are self-focused.  They do not consult life for a vote or opinion.  And they suffer, because life prefers us to live life on life’s terms. You can have preferences, and pursue them, knowing that they are preferences but not guarantees.  You prefer to live somewhere.  You move and buy a place to live.  Life is going your way, right?  Then a tornado, a hurricane, a flood.  Ruination.  Life on life’s terms.  You are in great health, exercise and eat right.  You are disciplined.  Then you have a heart attack or find you have cancer.  Not your plan.  I have learned to have a lot of acceptance about how my life is working out.  I think I am where I am supposed to be, but not by my plans.  Such is life.  

Fear

 Many people are devoured by activities and strangled by attachments, as someone said.  What is behind this?  Fear, I believe.  Fear of being alone with oneself.  Such people tend to draw others into their activities, their promotions for good works and usefulness.  Such compulsions fail to develop us into our truer self, which does need some solitude and silence.  But also, there are others who flee the world out of fear or disgust.  They seek solitude as an escape, not as a place to be found and find their deeper self and Source.  Some think they “escape” to encounter God, but in fact, God is Love, and one who escapes life is not interested in Love.  They are not into love of others who they judge as “bad” or “wrong.”  The reason for solitude is to encounter oneself in all our foibles, to encounter a God of Love and Acceptance, and then to go forth and love others.  

Compare Or Contrast

 I have found that if I go to a meeting where I think about how I am better than so and so, or different from, then the purpose of the meeting loses its power, or I lose power.  When I leave, I will be no better off than when I entered. My problem or purpose of going to the meeting will continue to rule, haunt and control me.  When it comes to my problems or shortcomings, bad habits, I have to be tribal.  Zoom can help here if I cannot get out in person to go to a meeting.  I seem to lose my demons when I connect with others in our sameness, our similarities, our likeness as regards the reason I went to the meeting in the first place.  I am here because of my flaws, imperfections and at times my loneliness feelings.  The tribe mentality works wonders in this focus.  My demons are the losers.  I am the imperfect winner, and a more humble one.  

Small Town

So much of what I read from holy people of history is how they loved going to church or other places of worship.  Yet many nowadays feel a bit guilty about not going “out” but staying in and watching services or meetings on zoom.  But remember that most of history was of small towns and no automobiles.  People walked to their local meeting or worship place.  In the Bronx, in a blizzard, I could walk to church and did.  It took all of ten minutes in the worst of weather.  Nowadays, one might have to drive many miles and pay $5.00 for a gallon of gas, to get to their destination.  And in bad weather it might be quite unsafe.  Or you don’t drive anymore anyway.  So drop the guilt and shame.  Someday, people will write about how they grew in holiness and sobriety by zoom attendance.  And maybe listening to a great talk by ME!  Or maybe not.