The Switch

 Someone said that before you can have electricity you must wire the house.  But that allows the power to be available.  To actually get it to go on you must press the "on" switch.  In a spiritual practice, or recovery, we are wired with divine power.  It is not far away.  But it generally does not act if we don't do something.  Love is patient.  It waits. It is humble.  You have to act.  A drunk has divine power but until they turn on the switch, the recovery steps and so forth, the power does not act.  I am in a monastery.  Divine Power everywhere!  But I have to do something, the Benedictine Rule.  In the middle of your night, I get up and turn on the light switch.  Then I read scripture which is my turning on the switch of divine power that is within me.  Stop living in the darkness.  Spirituality is a program of action, the "on" switch.  

A Start

A good starting point for spiritual growth is "take ourselves as we are."  No one enters a program of their own free will without knowing that they need it.  A child might fool themself that they want to be a ballet dancer or that they are talented in that endeavor before they start, because their friends are doing it, or they are living in their imaginations.  In time, most find out that they are not ballet dancer talent.  I start each day from where I am, with my faults, and talents.  I have come to know them over time.  If you don't know either your faults or your talents then you begin by saying, "I am a beginner."  The beginner tries a spiritual path from their own ignorance of whether it is for them.  So, most paths have long introductions to make sure we know ourself better.  Good spiritual paths reveal our faults to us long before they reveal the riches of the path.  So, beginners, be ready to face yourself.   In Recovery Programs, this would be step #4.

This Day Before

 When I wake up in the morning I must remind myself that whatever good habits/practices I have been doing, I have not done one of them this day.  So I call it “this day before.”  Whatever I did yesterday that is a good habit, does not guarantee that I will do it today unless I commit myself to it and work at it.  Because you loved someone yesterday in one manner or another, does not guarantee what you will do today.  What if your grandchild said, “Grandma or Grandpa loved me yesterday, but I have not heard from them today.”  Love is a daily practice.  I just called a couple of friends to remind them that I love them.  They had not heard from me for some time.  They were glad I called.  I cannot assume people will know something, such as I love them.  I need to practice it more actively, with more energy.  Each morning is a “this day before,” until I fill it in.  

Visiting Home

 I made a brief visit last month to the parish rectory in San Francisco where I still have a room.  The Paulists call it my “visiting home.”  They know I spend most of my time living in a monastery.  I thought it would be a quiet visit.  Wrong.  Two of my six other classmates from ordination showed up.  Talking went on forever.  We reminisced.  We talked about the present/past/future.  I was exhausted as I don’t have all that much conversation in a monastery.  But what I realized is the “bonding” with these two men that has mysteriously taken place over the years.  I had very little to do with them even in the seminary and after ordination.  But over the years, with reunions, a common purpose, and whatever, we have bonded.  They are important in my life, even as they talk a lot.  We have shared common experiences since 1972.  This encounter is all part of God’s plan for this clueless me.  

What Changes?

 It is one thing to change religions but it is another thing to change your life.  I find that people tend to change religions but they remain pretty much the same person with all their character defects and faults.  You change religions and your immediate circle of people, family, some friends, might get upset.  You change your life and a whole lot of other people get upset.  I once thought that if I got serious about being a Christian, my life would change for whatever I thought was the “better.”  I was wrong.  Maybe I did not get serious enough about the religion.  But most of my bad habits lingered or gained strength even with my newfound spiritual practice.  I still have seek the destiny for change.  I have not given up.  It is a daily effort as I trudge the road.  But I have hope because I find a lot of people on this same road with me.  

Too Long

 The Pope said that 10 minutes was long enough for a homily.  My sense is that the bigger the ego, the sense of your importance in your message, the longer the homily.  Give an example, preferably from your own experience, make your point, and sit down.  Is this blog too short?

Proof

 What is the proof that you exist?  Funny question?  Well say, like me, you cook and clean. The food gets eaten and is gone.  The room gets dirty again.  In each case what you did disappears and so there is nothing of your effort that says you exist in this moment.  You type something into cyberspace and send it to someone.  They read it and then they delete it or send it to archive or junk, and later it is deleted.  You go jogging.  You finish and there is nothing of the run to point to.  We do many things that have no permanence.  We cannot point to things that say, “This is me.”  I like being a Librarian.  Once the book is purchased, and catalogued and then placed on the shelf, I can say, “There is the book. I put it there.”  I exist.  The book says so.  Totalitarian regimes destroy people by destroying the culture that made the people feel they exist.  Music, art, literature.  

Deeper

 At some point prayer becomes painful and dry.  It won't happen immediately.  At first it will be a buoy to keep you afloat in your drowning world.  Prayer at this level appeals to the senses.  We feel good or better.  Many people in Recovery steps have this experience.  And they have faith in a Power or God or Ultimate Reality.  But if you stay with meditation, the invitation will be to let go of whatever pleases the senses, of feeling good, and just sit in silence and stillness.  Wait.  At this point prayer can become painful and dry because you have stopped directing it.  You lack energy and even lack interest.  This is the Dark Night of The Senses.  God, your Power, now goes to work with God-Agenda.  Stay with it.  It gets better, after it gets dryer.  

No Sense Prayer

 I know people in the Catholic Church who go to Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, as it is called, because it makes them feel good.  Well, that is a start.  But if you want to deepen your prayer life, so that you actually become a better person, then go and pray when it makes no sense.  Why?  Because prayer, to make a real difference in our life, needs to be done at the level beneath senses, feelings.  We need to pray when we don't want to.  This works on self-will.  Pray when we feel nothing.  This is surrender.  If you only meditate when it makes you feel good, meditation won't be done for long, or regularly, or become a difference maker.  If you love only when it makes you feel good, you won't love anyone for long.  

Where To?

 Did you ever get onto a bus, train, plane, and spend time/energy/fretfulness as to which seat you will take on the journey.  I think the more important thing for me is, “Am I going in the direction of my destination?”  So it is with the spiritual journey.  We waste time in trying to find some immediate comfort, but forget where we are going?  Being comfortable is not the goal.  Transformation is.  A lot of the path will be uncomfortable and maybe this is part of getting to our destination.  Patience.  Acceptance.  Letting go of bodily satisfactions. Tolerance of not getting our way along the “Way.”  I find people come on a retreat to the monastery and fret about getting to their favorite spot in the room of meditation or the chapel.  As if their comfort or getting the right spot is going to control their relationship to their God or their soul.  Are you on the right path?  What is your destination or call?  

Life’s Terms

 One month ago this date, I was prepared to fly nonstop from Aspen to San Francisco.  Denver airport had a blizzard.  My plane was coming from Denver to Aspen.  It was set to depart Aspen at 10:03.  My cell phone binged.  A delay and new time was set.  So I waited at the monastery.  Bing, and another delay.  I was not upset.  What can I do.  It is the weather and the airline was keeping me informed.  Finally, we decided that maybe the weather in Denver was getting better.  On the way to the airport another bing.  Now the departure was set at 1:11 PM.  A three hour delay.  I was dropped off at the airport and found a chair.  I set my wrist watch for meditation.  I close my eyes and let go of the noise around me and within me.  Bye and bye, a bing.  Cancelled!  I was not upset.  Miracle!  I have no control.  It is life on life’s terms.  Acceptance.  On a chat room call I got another flight for two day later.  My friend pulled into the parking area and took me back to the monastery.  Winter travel in the mountains can be a sobering experience.  Or misery.  

Journey

 Journey comes from the word, Journee, which means the distance you can cover in a day.  It comes from a time when roads were not much in France and other places after the demise of the old Roman Empire.  So when we speak about being on a spiritual journey, we are really referring to what we are doing for one one, this present day.  It is a One Day At A Time, but each day is connected.  To skip even one day, is to break the journey, and then we have to pick up again.  Sometimes, it can seem like starting over, especially if we have gotten out of the habit of the daily practice.  And if one is not journeying that day, what is one doing?  Wandering around?  Taking a break?  The problem with the break is that we don’t always get back on the path again.  Or we start in the opposite direction.  So I wake up each day and hopefully say, “Let the journey continue.”  

Half-Measures

It is not very useful to come live in a remote monastery in the mountains where there is limited wi-fi, no TV or Radio, and live a life of monastic half-measures.  That was my life before I got here on my spiritual path.  So a move here with little change to my comfort zone of spiritual practice would be a waste of time.  No change means no change.  So I have to pour myself into this life on a daily basis.  Read, meditate, work in service to others and live in acceptance of others.  I have to remind myself each day that I did not come here just for a change in geography or location.  I  came for a change in me.  So if you are living a goal, half-measure effort, then don't expect much change in you.  

A Few Letters

 Change a few letters of a problem and you come yup with a deeper problem, or the problem below the problem.  For instance, you think drinking is your problem.  You learn to stop drinking, and then you discover that a deeper problem still exits, “thinking.”  A dr to a th and you see more that needs work.  Your thinking about people, place and situations needs change.  The deeper problem is you.  Or. Why don’t people realize that I am an “exception.”  The problem may be that you are a “deception.”  No one gets praised or treated differently if they are hiding who they really are, or are living a lie.  And so it goes.  

Valentine's Day

 Happy Valentine's Day!  Instead of worrying about being loved, I will try to be loving today, to remind me that it is good to be loving EVERYDAY.  The gift that I have received today when I woke up is that I am still alive.  I have the gift of this day.  I think it is better to be alive with some health and mental functioning, rather than to be dead but with a Valentine's Card in my mailbox, never to be opened by me.  Maybe we need a day on the calendar called, "Happy To Be Alive Day."  My friend Peter celebrates this day, every day.  Maybe you have someone who lives their life as a reminder of all you have, rather than of what you perceive you don't have.  

Tomorrow

OK, tomorrow is Valentine's Day and you are depressed or feeling lonely, or feeling like a loser.  Maybe you are a widower, or a widow.  Or you got recently dumped.  I got dumped on Valentine's Day once.  It happens.  Or you cannot seem to find someone to love and love you. Or you are dealing sexual identity.   These are all important issues, but they are everyday issues.  The problem here today is that we make too much about February 14.  We see Valentine's Day coming and we don't fit into this narrow category of having that special someone.  If you try to be a loving person, someone loves you, but they won't send you a card or flowers or a little something.  They are anonymous in many cases.  So I just try to be loving and forget that cobwebs are in my mailbox.  Blog readers don't do snail mail.  

No Relief

 If you are suffering, or if you see the world as a mess, would anything change because you say, "There is no God," or "I don't believe in God."  The only thing that would change is you would be relieved of a resentment against God for not fixing you or your world as you see it.  So I have not found much use in atheism when it comes to my imperfect body or world around me.  Non-belief is not a solution to much of anything.  Many people who say there is no God are really angry at the God they don't believe in.  "I'll punish you God.  I won't believe in you!"  Rather than worry about the depth or power of my faith or lack thereof, I try to sit with me and get quiet and still.  Quiet means not only outside noise, but inside noise of my porous imagination or mind.  Often, either I get to feel better or less miserable, or I come up with a solution of action for the outside world that is more potent than mere impotent disbelief.  

Saving A Little

 Some people are willing to give up a little control, but not too much.  They let go of some behavior, turn it over to God or whoever, but they don't change very much beyond dropping whatever they gave up.  An example would be an alcoholic.  They get the higher power idea, buy in, or have a God.  They allow this God to take away their obsession to drink.  They think that their problem is all about drinking behavior.  They do not realize that their problem is themself.  Each day, when I wake up, I ask myself. "OK.  Am I going to be the problem or the solution."  If I have given up enough stuff, such as power, control, ego domination, self-centeredness, bondage to self and self centered fear, on a daily basis, then I may well be part of the solution to whatever comes up today.  If you think drunk drinking is bad behavior, watch out for the dry drunk.  Fury that blames the world.  

Not Seeing

 I find that when I mess up, act selfishly, murmur about others or situations that bother my little world, I suddenly go blind and deaf as to the solution to this darkness in me.  Just yesterday or earlier today, I was fine.  I had the solution as to a balanced life of contentment, happy, joyous and free.  Now I seem to be in bondage to self.  I can remember nothing I read or advice I had received from someone else.  I have become spiritually blind and deaf.  This is the result of sin or whatever you want to call it, bad behavior of tongue, mind or body.  The solution?  Sometimes it is the cry, “I need a meeting!”  Calling Zoom.  

Too Parts

 Some of any Recovery Program is based upon Psalm 33.  It is not enough to turn away from evil.  We must also do good.  To cease ingesting an addiction is part one.  But it won’t last unless we do good.  In Recovery that means being of service to others, acting selflessly, thinking of others and how we can make the world a better place for them.  So you read to keep up on instructions, go to meetings to be with others who might need help and then be of service in the meeting and outside of it.  Those chairs don’t set themselves up, or the coffee pot make coffee by itself.  I often say to myself, “Today I will avoid this bad habit, or shortcoming.”  But then what will I put into its place?  I don’t live happy, joyous and free in a vacuum.  So I try to do good for others and wow, it turns out good for me too.  Who’d a thought!

Come And See

 I have friends who do not get the point of what I am doing in this monastery.  It makes no sense to them.  They say, "We want you here with us, to do this or that.  Maybe it is a fun visit, or a ministry they think is important, or just living in their neighborhood.  I accept that I make no sense for many of my acquaintances.  At best, I tell them how I think this life is helping me.  Usually, that does not go anywhere either.  But if I ask them, "Why don't you come up here and live with me in this life?" I will get a no.  Interesting.  People want me to be in their life but they have no interest in mine.  Life would be pretty narrow for me if I thought my life was the only one that made sense.    

Not The Same

Are we not all the same on our various spiritual paths, trying to be good people?  No, we are not.  A Cristian follows a spiritual path in union with Jesus Christ.  For a Christian, God is not far away to be worshipped, so much as God is within us inviting us to share God's life.  Be One with God.  For me, the path to becoming my true self is neither one I do alone, nor is it one without a Faith in God.  My practice of prayer, meditation, reading, acting, is all with a sense of Christ presence within me, guiding and energizing me.  And I follow this path with others.  My Big Book is the Bible.  There are a lot of wisdom sayings and wisdom outside of my tradition that are very meaningful and profound.  I have found a Way, and have stopped picking and choosing this and that.  One does not need to buy all the clothes in a department store to be dressed.  

Becoming

 People who are trying to grow into a deeper life often ask, "What am I supposed to do?"  People in Recovery Programs ask this.  And while there are things that one must do in many life endeavors, including the monastery, a further question is,"What am I to become?"  An addict gets sober in doing certain things, following certain steps, but sobriety is not their final identity.  It is not who they are created to be.  A person converts or joins or takes up a certain religion.  They follow certain prescribed rules and accept certain beliefs and practices.  But that is only part of the path.  It is "being on the way."  Yet I don't think it is a good idea to try to become ourself by ourself.  In a monastery where I do have lots of time for solitude, I am not living alone nor praying alone all the time.  I have a community each of whom is on their path. Few people are called to be hermits.  We trudge together, while not trying to imitate one another.  

Speech

 When I speak do I speak with the tongue of Babel or the tongue of the Holy Spirit?  In Genesis there is the Tower of Babel.  Up to that point everyone spoke the same language, and were together trying to build a tower to heaven, to become equal to God.  It was a reach for power, control, ego focus.  God said this will not work for making us whole.  So God made everyone begin to speak languages that divided them.  And the tower toppled.  So instead of trying to compete with God, people began to compete with one another, and thus war, conflict and division.  So I don't want that tongue of Babel.  I want the tongue of the Holy Spirit which on Pentecost, united a group of fearful people, so that when they spoke everyone understood them.  This was a speech of bringing people together to live a life of unifying love, acceptance and forgiveness.  So when I am about to speak which is it?  Babel or Holy Spirit.  

Rules

I think that rules work best when in the context of wisdom rather than of law.  Most rules come in the context of law.  The best spiritual paths are the ones that come out of wisdom.  Wisdom comes out of experience.  A law, "don't steal" is made by people who don't steal but have a lot of stuff to be stolen.  Poor people don't make that kind of law.  The law of wisdom comes from experience.  For instance, "obedience is better than autonomy."  I used to say, "The heck with that!"  I had no experience of the wisdom of obedience at that time.  I have come to realize that my self-will run riot does not do me much good if I practice autonomy.  Find a wisdom teacher.  I would audition but I am still work in progress.  

Sin

What is sin?  Many people say it is breaking rules, doing bad things against the ten commandments, such as lying or stealing or gossiping.  This attitude is all about doing things that you think are wrong.  People in my religion will confess the wrong things they did.  But most of us don't do many wrong things especially if we are sober.  And if on drugs your decision making is compromised.  I would suggest that most of the wrong we do is from neglect or indifference.  We don't care enough to do the good that is within our power.  When I care enough and act on it, then I am living a spiritual way.   

Salvation

 The root of the word "Salvation" is to "come home."  Salvation is a returning home, not so much to place as to the home of who you truly are.  So what is a going away from home? It is when you try to fit into someone else's plan of lifestyle, or a cultural fad, or a seemingly popular way of being so as to get acceptance from the group.  You become a "misfit" trying to fit into someone or something not you.  Coming home is finding yourself and living it out.  The truth will set you free.  Jesus did not fit in.  That was his problem with the political and religious institutions which had the power to be rid of him.  He saved us, as Christians believe, by showing us the way.  He even said, "I am the Way."  Many a Christian prefers the salvation from hell, fitting into the comfortable good people.  No cross there.  The cross is not a rebellion against the status quo or the popular.  Rebellion has a lot of anger and judgment to it.  It is rather the slow agonizing struggle often in desert silence and solitude to discover and live out the life you are made for.  You are the only one made to be you.  

Finding The Power

 Most children are introduced to God, religion, through going to buildings of worship gatherings, such as a church or synagogue, ashram, temple.  In Catholic school this is where the nuns marched us for weekday mass.  We go to church to find and be with God.  But as we grew up we did not get any other venue options.  Church for God-finding.  In the Gospels Jesus started out the same way.  He was brought to the temple as baby and an offering of two doves was made. At 12 he was found in the temple.  He is a kid and goes to temple, synagogue to find God.  Then something happens.  We pick up his life again, but now in the desert where he finds John the Baptist and gets baptized.  My point?  Between boyhood and adulthood, Jesus began to find God in the silence and solitude of the desert.  Where did he find his off-putting way of teaching the scriptures, the life values?  I don't think it was in institutional settings.  The desert is anything but the status quo.