Leap Year!

 Today is an extra day in the year for us all to grow a little bit more, to do another act of kindness, so let’s not blow it.  It is the one day of the year where we can cherish the gift of life that we have with whatever makes it such a gift.  All other days we seem to take for granted.  This Leap Year day comes only once every four years.  If you were to have something only once every four years, would you not treat it as special?  So make this a special day for yourself and for someone else,  especially if they might be in a gloomy mood.  

Retirement

A spiritual practice has no retirement.  It is the one job that never ends.  Whatever you did or do in order to grow as you have, does not stop with today.  You do a spiritual practice one day at a time until you no longer can, like with death.  I hear people say, “I have been a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem for thus and so long.  Jews say they are Jews.  Recovering addicts give you their time of sobriety.  My question: “What are you doing today?”  The spiritual path can never be lived yesterday or tomorrow with its good intentions.  I try to do something of this path early in the day, lest I fool myself into thinking I will do it “later.”  Later often never comes.  

Likable You

 People sometimes overindulge in order to present a more likable self.  It is a form of fantasy.  Drinking and fantasy often go together.  We think we are fine, though we are drunk.  We think we are popular when people wish we would leave.  It can be the same in a spiritual sober practice.  Because you see yourself on some guru path, or the right religion, you fantasize that you are complete and attractive, when in fact, you might be a hypocrite and obnoxious.  None of this stops with sobriety or a change of spiritual path.  We cannot seem, on our own power, to shake the fantasy that we are wonderful now.  What to do?  Forget about yourself.  Don’t worry about popular or being on the one true path.  Do your path faithfully, be of some help to others, simply by accepting them in their own shortcomings and imperfections.  Give people some of your precious time.  Be real.  Fantasy is for Hollywood.  

The Seed

Look at a seed before you plant it.  The seed does not look like much.  But looks deceive the power that is within, the unseen power.  Now plant the seed in some soil.  Water it a bit or let the rain do it for you.  Without you seeing what is going on beneath the soil, the seed is at work.  It does not need to be noticed.  It works best unnoticed.  In its own time, the seed may sprout and grow.  You can work around it with weeding and maybe water, but the seed does the heavy lifting with the power it has.  On the spiritual path and recovery, the heart is like the seed.  Given proper care, it will sprout into our truest and best self.  Meetings, meditation, service, worship, reading, fellowship are all the weeding and watering.  But the power is within.  It only asks for a little cooperation.  We are born with a “Heart-Seed.”  Don’t drown it in booze or ego-centric false self.  

The Tiny

 I think God likes tiny and insignificant, at least if some Christians have it right.  Many believe that a tiny thin wafer of bread, with no taste, is the Presence of God.  If so, then God likes to reveal this Presence in the small, insignificant and fragile.  Whereas, in our culture, so many want to reveal themselves in the powerful, significant, and lovely to look at.  Ego is pretty obvious.  Mystery, not so much.  And maybe our desire to be significant in the eyes of others, hides our sense of insignificance.  But if God does not mind being small, why should we be beating ourselves up and exhausting ourselves in efforts to be noticed?  People shine out on the spiritual path, not from their own efforts, but from God’s light within.  Let it shine.  Let it shine.  

Who Are You?

 When you begin to get into some spiritual practice, recovery, meditation, life-style attempts, you might meet someone you really don’t like.  It is you!  When you were inside your bad behavior you could not get enough perspective on it.  Your way of living and responding to life was such a habit you accepted and even defended.  Until you got far enough away from its daily activities or caught yourself doing some behavior that suddenly seems so wrong, given the circumstances.  We see our pettiness.  We see ourselves trying to control life in a selfish, ME manner.  So change for the better is shocking at times.  But others will appreciate your efforts.  They may not have liked that old you either.  

Loneliness

 Why do Christians fear and avoid loneliness?  It is the cross.  Jesus felt it on the cross, but so-called believers shun loneliness.  They try and fill it in with trivia, internet browsing, social media, busyness, entertainment.  But the nothingness of the desert transformation is filled with loneliness.  It is part of letting go of “stuff” and entering “nothingness.”  But nothing is only apparent to the senses, the feelings.  Nothingness is the palace of God.  It helps that you like yourself enough to be alone with you.  Maybe this is one of the reasons people avoid being alone.  But “Alone” in itself could just be an avoidance of others.  The Alone is to allow us to enter into a prayer of no content, to contact this Mystery within us.  Jesus followed, “Why have you abandoned me,” with “Into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Crazy

 I have heard that Recovery groups are unique in that no one who joins came wanting to join, and no one in their right mind ever came into a recovery program.  They are all insane.  Fascinating.  A group of insane and disgruntled people end up helping one another selflessly, and becoming sane and useful members of their community and family.  To me, the only way this happens is with some spiritual power that was inactive in their lives before they came into the recovery group.  Once discovered, this power cannot seem to be abandoned by a member.  Otherwise, the member seems to leave the group, go back to their addictive behavior and die from it.  Know thyself!  

Unfinished

Rather than look at myself at "imperfect" I try to think of myself as "unfinished."  I am made right when I came into existence, but I don't yet know what that is.  Life is learning about who I am in my daily prayer, work and interactions.  God made me just fine.  Imperfect identifies me as somehow wrongly put together, or missing parts.  The spiritual path is not finding missing parts, or reinventing myself, but rather discovering who I am and then living that out the best that I can.  It is an inside job on a daily basis and then action.  Transformation is about coming upon our unfinished self and embracing it.  It is called growth.   Recovery is only partly about repair shops.  

Worthy

 I find a good way to treat someone is as if they are worth something.  A lot of people lack self-worth.  If I try and be helpful but with an attitude that they are beneath me, then I do not subscribe to their having any self-worth.  The action is all about me and my self-worth.  This is the problem with clericalism.  Clergy act as if they are above others, better than others and so on.  I try to act with the attitude that helping you actually helps me.  Then, if my efforts to help you fail, at least I am helping me to stay on a spiritual path.  Results are not up to me.  

The Fix

Are you meditating or doing anything to get some specific feeling?  Then you are trying to take control.  Meditating is not about control.  It is about surrender, to letting go, to allowing God, your HP to take over the journey since your ego does not really know where and how to go in a direction best for you.  If you are drinking, ask yourself why?  Are you thirsty?  Do you want to simply relax?   You probably did that with the first drink, but you did not stop.  You tried for control.  Who ever drinks to control their drinking probably should not be drinking at all.  I ask myself why I am doing something.  Often, I find the reasons somewhat akin to insanity or self-centeredness.  In such instances, the original purpose got lost somewhere in the action.  Or the action was not good in the first place for me.  

Waking Up

 If you wake up in the morning and you have feelings of despair, frustration and bewilderment, then whatever you did yesterday at some point was not a very good idea or decision.  Morning feelings or wake up feelings often tell us how some actions are not good for us.  Example: you thought you had the answer to a relationship that had gone sour or bad.  You tried your answer yesterday.  You woke up with the above feelings.  That says something about your answer.  Maybe better to just let the relationship be as it is.  These above feelings tell us that it is important to prioritize working on oneself, and not for perfection.  This is another bad idea as a goal.  I try to take time early in the morning to work on me.  It helps me later in the day when I think I have a plan to fix people, places and things.  I wake up at peace more often than not.  

Perfection

When I embrace the day, I am not trying for perfection in my actions and efforts.  I am trying for improvement.  Perfection is an ego trip.  I won't embrace the day if it is all about me.  The day will include encounters with others most of the time.  How can I improve their day with this encounter we have?  Sometimes, allowing the other person to do something first is a way to improve their day.  This works well for you if you are shy.  Give them the chance to open the door.  It might make them feel better.  And if you do make some effort of action and think later, "Well, I could have done that better," don't beat yourself up.  For one, you tried and two, you want improvement not perfection.   

Hen House

As someone said, " Sitting in a hen house does not make you a hen."  I think the same goes with sitting in a church at a worship service or just sitting there.  It does not make you a Christian.  Or synagogue make you a Jew and so on.  There has to be some action.  People sit in recovery meetings and do little else and wonder why they are not doing and feeling better.  There are instruction manuals, bibles, big books, sutras, upanishads and so on, but one must read and follow them to make some positive change in one's life.  Ordination gave me the title, "Paulist priest," but only ministry and daily prayer, makes me a Paulist.  Simply saying mass is not enough.     

Rain Or Shine

 Just because it is raining or snowing during the day does not mean that the sun is not shining.  It just means that you cannot see the sunlight.  Not seeing or experiencing something does not mean it is absent.  Rather circumstances make it impossible for you to see with your eyes.  People say there is no God or Higher Power because they cannot see or experience it.  This is why I meditate.  I cannot see all there is from my senses alone.  I have an inner eye, the eye of the heart.  Meditation helps me to get connected with my interior vision.  Then I can see with the inner eye of the heart.  A fuller world, and a better day.  

Ashes And Flowers

 Today is Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday.  So what to do if you are into both?  A dilemma!  You and your sweetheart getting all dress up for a dinner of bread and water while you have ashes on your foreheads?  For me, it is a good juxtaposition.  It brings together the giving and the getting of life.  Valentine’s Day for those who celebrate it is about getting something.  Sure, you give someone something, but it is because they give you something important to you, such as love. It does feed one’s ego for sure.  Lent is about giving.  You are to spend the next forty day or so in surrendering, giving up, being of service for the sake of those who may never give you a thank you.  It is about less and not more, the cross instead of the Easter Lilly.  So today, I will thank God for what I get, and then surrender some of my self for the sake of a better world.  A more selfless me benefits others.

Woe Is Me’d

 I can get into that “Wow is me’d” place in attitude.  If so, I am living in the problem as I see it.  I cannot change a problem by wallowing in it.  I need to live in the solution.  If I don’t know a solution, ask someone or pray.  Maybe I will be led to a YouTube video solution.  Who knows.  Well, at least I don’t know at the moment.  And living in the past won’t change that either.  I need to live in today or else I won’t have much of a tomorrow.  These are all things pointed out to me by others.  This is why I try to stay in touch with people who are living in solutions and not in problems.  

The Silence

 My team lost the Super Bowl.  Taylor Swift’s team won in sudden overtime fashion.  We turned off the TV.  Silence in the room.  Then I noticed that the streets of San Francisco, and I live in a busy downtown Chinatown, are dead silence.  It sounded like 3:00 AM.  No cars, no fireworks and no people walking around.  We are a stunned town.  My 49ers had the lead and then we did not.  It is a bit like death.  You live with it for a while.  Something has ended, unwanted.  In time, we will become thankful that we were in the Super Bowl.  Only two teams make it this far each year.  If you don’t care about the 49ers, but you live in San Francisco, I would keep a low or profile for a while.  Recovery will be slow.  “Wait till next year” is not on our agenda at the moment.  I still am wearing my “Purdy” shirt.  

Unnoticed

 If you do almost any good deed selflessly, unconcerned about being noticed, but out of love, compassion, or connection, then you probably won’t be noticed.  Serve people food in a soup kitchen, and you will generally be unnoticed.  You do kind deeds and are rarely thanked much less noticed.  It is not the action that gets you ignored.  It is the way you do it.  There are nasty bus drivers and they are noticed.  Nice bus drivers, not so much.  It is not that recipient people are so self-imploded, although sometimes this is the case.  It is more that in your kindness you have emptied yourself of “self.”  Jesus on the cross looks nothing like any God you could imagine.  It is because he emptied himself of his divinity, out of selfless and unconditional love.  

The Agenda

 I came back to the monastery after being away for about a month.  All my Christmas mail awaited me.  Plus other mail and items to attend to on the internet.  Appointments to make and such.  Foolishly, I tried to take it on all at once, and my body took a toll.  Instead of "easy does it," I ramped up a lot of written replies for the mail.  I was in the "grind" mentality.  After about two days of this, my body said, "Enough."  My mind may be a mess, but at least my body tells me when I am doing too much too soon.  "Life all at once" does not work for me.  "Do a little each day," I told myself, and sit for a longer time in meditation.  It began to work.  I don't have to pay a price for being away.  I am unavailable to respond and that is life on life's terms.  

Surgery

 Successful surgery often means that you are free of whatever was destroying or inhibiting your health.  You have a broken leg and it gets fixed.  Maybe it will now be stronger than ever.  You get a new knee.  Better than the one you had.  Fixed.  But there is no such surgery for addiction.  You are one step away from a relapse.  One drink, one fix will do it.  With humility one can accept this.  What such a person can have is a daily reprieve, not a surgical fix or a pill.  If you were told that surgery took away a cancer, but it could come back unless you did such and such on a daily basis, you would do such and such on a daily basis.  Addicts are often not wired that way.  They start to feel good from recovery, and stop doing the daily such and such.  They go back to their addiction and die.  Not from old age.  

The Wrong Path

 Being on the wrong path is trying to find something, but on a path that won't lead to what you think you want to find.  For instance, drinkers are trying to find peace, serenity, acceptance, worth, importance and so on.  The path of drinking won't work but they don't know that.  They are sometimes referred to as "lost souls" which implies some spiritual aspect of their search.  Recovery is where the lost soul gets found and put onto a path that drops some of their wants, instills others, and gives them a less self-centered way to serenity, acceptance and peace.  It can happen in careers.  You go into the wrong career, job, trying to get certain goals, but that career, job is not a good fit for you.  A career guide, trusted friend, wiser person, gets you onto the right career, job, to help you become you and not the job.  People say, "I am sober, I am a lawyer, doctor, truck driver," but how is any one of these things making you the best you?  Without some spiritual part of this search, I just don't know.  

The Camera

 I have a friend who takes camera pictures of Central Park.  They are all quite well framed, and speak of one or another mood of the park.  But they also speak of the interior life of the photographer.  The camera is the way his soul looks at the world at that moment.  It speaks of his own emotional condition at that moment.  That is why he took that picture at that exact time.  The camera is a way of praying.  Each scene reveals something of nature and of the human condition that is part of it.  On the periphery of Central Park are some very tall buildings, beautifully designed from some years ago when the outside of a building, its appearance, was important.  When you take a photo you are being touched by the world you see and the picture is how the world touches you and those who see it.  

Discernment

 Don’t get all so anxious about trying to correctly discern God’s will for you.  It can make you crazy.  Better is to just make sure or pray for the willingness to do God’s will, whatever it might be at this time in your life.  You might have interests, but then find out such were the product of ego and not of the heart.  I pray for willingness here in the monastery.  I know I am in some transition, but not sure as to what.  I am not just waiting around, but simply or not so simply, trying to do the next right thing.  

Space

 Space, the stuff between the stars is not really empty.  It just looks empty to our eyes and consciousness.  In prayer, never think empty is empty.  Outer space, as we call the universe, is filled with the consciousness of God.  Even scientists are saying something about Consciousness.  That is why it looks like space, as if nothing is there.  God is No Thing.  Energy, power, presence, but not a thing, or an idea, a noun.  The full moon hides the stars around it, but not the darkness of the sky.  God is in full sight, but hidden.  The eye in my head, the seeing faculty, says there is nothing but dark space.  The heart sees differently.  I like to pray in the darkness.  

Nada

 If you want a desert experience in prayer because it is recommended as part of spiritual growth, or because you think it will make you an adept, a spiritual guru, or just feel good, it won’t be the desert.  If it is to happen and when it happens, it will be on a Power’s time and not your own.  In the desert you lose all interest in a God, Power, sense of relationship with such.  It is nada, nada.  It is Mu.  Nothing.  Most people run back to their place, book, space where they had good feelings or some interest.  Nada gets rid of all your previous sense of prayer and ideas.  From Nada, nothing, you grow if you have the humility and patience to sit it out over time.  When a person in recovery begins to go to meetings that they used to enjoy, and say, “I no longer get anything out of this,” they are growing but don’t know it.  To be present with no palpable return is part of Nada.  But it is not nothing.  It only appears that way.  

Habits

 We think we are who we are supposed to be, when in fact we are simply stuck in bad habits formed over time.  We don’t even know the bad habits are habits.  We call them routines, or simply our way of living.  If we are lucky, we will come across someone who sponsors good habits and can see our bad habits.  When the bad habits bring enough misery, we will listen to the good habit person.  But meditation can also be very helpful because then some spiritual power within us will begin to show us a better fit for our daily life.  There may be some habits or practices that might be good but not for us.  You could be practicing a religious path, but not in the way that best suits you.  A drunk cannot take a drink which might be good for some one not a drunk.  And so it goes.  

Candlemas

 Yesterday, February 2, was Candlemas Day in some Christian denominations.  It is the day that new candles are lit.  People bring their candles from home and they get blessed with holy water.  They are not yet lit, but are for the home at this time of year when we begin to see more light in the Northern Hemisphere.  It is a date and time that celebrates more light. We are about six weeks past the Winter Solstice.  Daylight is longer, and candles help to keep light into the night.  It is also the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, his first public presentation after his birth at Christmas.  For Christians he is the Light in the Darkness.  I hope my life can be like a candle, bringing light to those who only see the darkness.  

Desert God

 For many people, the desert God is pointless.  There is nothing to do and no rules in the desert.  It is empty.  And it is not very homey.  Until you get used to the desert simply by spending time in it, the emptiness, the silence, the stillness and the night-like darkness is yucky.  No light.  Meditation can feel good pre-desert, but then the invitation to go deeper is when most people give up and move on to something more “tangible.”  Mind, imagination, emotions all get fed outside of the desert prayer.  But that is not all there is.  There is some deep place, some “heart” place.  If the invitation comes, enter into it.  God knows timing better than our ego.  

Busy Believer

 Another type of believer is the busy one doing a long list of good works.  They are building up their resume for when they get to the gates of heaven.  Efficiency is important because there is not enough time, it seems, to do all that God seems to want this person to do.  For them, there is no rest on the Seventh Day.  Meditation gets nothing done.  Just to sit there, accomplishing nothing anyone can measure, is pointless.  It will not go onto the vitae for that heavenly interview.  Be busy doing good deeds and impress God, is the way to go for this person.  Meditators might make it to purgatory where they can reflect on how much time they wasted sitting there or taking a nature walk.