Happy Easter

 This is a special day for Christians.  It is when our God beat death and rose from the dead.  Defeat, hitting the bottom with a crucifixion, was not to be the end.  While I celebrate this in my religion and my own personal life, I ask myself if I am aware in the calendar of the special days for other religions and spiritual paths?  I need to work on this.  Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, for instance, all have special days.  In Recovery there is the celebration each year of one’s first day of sobriety or last day of giving into their addiction.  Anyway, I hope to find or have a big dinner today somewhere with friends.  The monastery has an Easter morning mass, but then since it is Sunday, their custom each Sunday is to have no meal together.  I find this yucky, so I may be elsewhere celebrating my Easter, dinner with friends.  

Courage

 A quote from a wisdom book: “Courage is the ability to continue in the face of fear.”  I always thought that courageous people did not have fear.  I was fearful, and fear paralyzed me.  In time, I came upon this quote.  It is very sobering.  I don’t have to be rid of fear.  This is not my job.  I have to be rid of paralysis when it comes to action.  For this, I need help.  So I do not do any spiritual path by myself.  Isolation feeds the fear.  

Good Firday

 Seems like an inappropriate name for a day in which someone is innocently tortured and crucified.  But if someone suffers out of love for another is there not something good about it?  Great love has great suffering.  A parent knows that.  Someone being of service to another out of a sense of compassion does suffer some in the effort to be helpful, especially if the one you are trying to help does not appreciate or want it.  A recovering alcoholic trying to be helpful to a drunk knows this very well.  So whether you believe in Jesus or not, at least for today try to get beyond “what will I get out of this good deed,” and just be helpful to others even if they don’t thank you or appreciate you.  You will become a better person, if you don’t whine, and is it not a good day if you grow?

The Trainer

 To become a better person, or at least not worse than we have become, we often need a trainer.  You can read a book or guide, but it is not the same as a person who knows your unique self.  You may not even know what you need.  The trainer does.  The trainer has the tools from their own experience, and from getting to know you, can adjust to your situation from day to day.  They coach you.  In a spiritual training you have some guide in whom you confide.  Eventually, you become a guide for someone else.  You can call it sponsorship.  If you think you are an adept or advanced, ask yourself, “Who have I helped lately?Isolation is not going to help you or others.  Oh, and today is my birthday.  I hope this blog helped someone.  

Go-To

 What is a “character defect,” a shortcoming in our way of life?  It is what someone called their “go-to behavior.”  They encounter someone, experience some situation, and have an immediate behavioral reaction.  They judge, condemn, put-down, get angry, and maybe swear a lot.  It is the immediate reaction.  That is why it is called the go-to behavior.  What to do?  Well, start small.  Give the person or situation you just judged something it in fact may not deserve.  Give compassion, forgiveness, and maybe even acceptance, though that might be a stretch early on.  What you are doing is showing “mercy.”  Isn’t that what you want from your God or Higher Power?  Mercy is not deserved or earned.  Maybe a little mercy to yourself.  Ask for help.  Give someone else a chance to show mercy to you.  

The Other Side

 When faced with something new or different from our routines, we can become frightened.  Example: making a move geographically or internally.  If you are moving from what you know, “home,” be it your routines or physical space, you fear giving up your comfort zone.  The move seems overwhelming, until you get to the other side of it.  So break the move down into little pieces on a daily basis.  Sort out some of your possessions, what will move and what will be given away or tossed out.  Do a little each day.  One day, pick up some boxes for packing, or call a mover.  Pack something each day until everything is packed or gone.  Then the move is inevitable.  It is the same with an internal move.  It is why people going to a Recovery meeting or Church for the first time, walk in at the last minute, sit near the exit, in the back and hunker down.  They are getting to the other side of their fear, one step at a time.  

A Start

 Just because I walk into a Catholic Church does not make me a Catholic, walking into a Recovery meeting does not make me  someone recovering from my addiction.  But it is a start.  As a curious newcomer or searcher, being part of depends on why I walked in.  Maybe I am doing research for a school paper.  To watch is one thing.  To listen is something more.  But to listen, I have to shut up the critiquing mind.  Judgement gets in the way of incoming information.  If I come into something new, outside my comfort zone, I try to empty judgment before I even sit down.  Oh, and get there on time.  

The First One

 Are you the first one at the door waiting for the gym to open?  I was that once, or more than once, really.  My goal was to be in fit physical condition with no one getting in my way on the exercise routines, machines, and weights, or the swimming pool.  The problem I eventually realized, (duh!) is the results of my fit physical condition could not carry serenity through the rest of the day.  As soon as life was not on my terms, or someone else’s plans interfered with my own, I got upset, whiny, resentful and admittedly now, self-pitying.  It happened most every day.  So now I try not to start out the day getting my own will.  I choose first to work at a fit “spiritual” condition.  I surrender to some other power to do the heavy lifting.  I call it meditation.  It can carry me through a later gym workout in which other people are ahead of me.  But it is ok.  Life on life’s terms.  Let go.  

The Barstool

 I remember going to a bar on a Friday evening after work. If I got there soon enough, I got a barstool seat and an early bird discount on a drink.  That was the extent of my plans for the rest of the evening.  The question I asked myself, since I was not talking to anyone else, was, “Is this who I am?”  The answer was, “Yes.”  Beyond this barstool there was no future plan or event.  And it was going to get fuzzier.  But then with no effort on my own, another question came up.  “Is this who you want to be?”  And I said, “No.” Where did that come from?  Well, I guess I was not so alone on that barstool.  It is called a spiritual moment or experience, not that I knew it as such at that time.  But I did get off the barstool and left.  Two things can happen from such a moment.  I save a lot of money, and can begin the search.  Spiritual paths can include barstools.  Never underestimate the power of the Power.  

Support

 Most people cannot make a permanent change in their life if they try and do it alone.  That is why many religious orders, and other groups get formed by someone.  They realize they cannot do what vision or change they have in mind, by themself.  Jesus picked 12 Apostles, not one.  As clueless as they were, these followers were a support to him.  Bill Wilson wanted to sober up.  He knew that he could not do it alone.  So he sought the help of another person, Bob Smith.  Together, they reached out to others for support to stay sober.  Thus was founded Alcoholics Anonymous.  So if you want to make a much needed change in your life, or live out a vision for a better world, you might need the humility to know you won’t do it alone.  

Bemused

 I am bemused about reading today’s blog.  It talks about the burden of having to move.  Well, after surgery yesterday, I am glad that I can get out of bed, and put on my clothes and walk up and down our corridor.  Now that is humility.  Your prayers must be helpful because I am feeling only mildly unpleasant.  But I can walk without the walker once I get moving around a bit in my room.  Now pray that I don’t lace up the running shoes and go outside on the ice to get fit for a Memorial Day race in Boulder, Colorado.  But I am on dope so who knows how my brain will work?  Never worked well on this stuff in the long past.  Let’s keep it the long past and not the current insanity.  

Surrender

 Usually, my lack of control over something is more apparent to everyone around me before it is apparent to me.  It takes a bit of humility, maybe preceded by humiliation, before I would admit I lack control.  I want one thing, but do another.  But there is a good side to humility.  Actually, there are no bad sides.  Humility leads to a better life because I am open to a better attitude about change, loss and letting go.  I think of this in terms of physically moving from where I live, to another place.  It would not be my choice to move.  But I won’t have control.   Someone else decides, and then I pack up.  But if I can be open to what is next, instead of whining, there might be a miracle I did not know before the move.  Surrender.  

Joseph

 Yesterday was the Feast of St. Joseph in my tradition.  Who was he?  Good question, since he was pretty much ignored for centuries, while the wife, Mary, and the son, Jesus, got top billing.  I relate to Joseph.  He was ignored, though he did some heavy lifting because he listened to his heart and not to popular opinion.  Seems his betrothed, Mary, got pregnant and not by Joseph.  His tradition, community, said to stone her to death, but he listened to his heart, his interior voice.  He became a fugitive, instead of living a nice life of being a carpenter in his home town.  He taught his son the carpentry trade.  Then he disappeared from the scene.  He had a big life, but a small ego.  So I like Joseph.  I do my best, listen in the still, quiet silence each day, and get on with being unnoticed.  I am important to someone, but I need not know who that is.  Some days I wish my blog readers were not so anonymous, but  one or two keep me going.  

Da Vinci

 Tomorrow I have an appointment with a robot, Da Vinci.  The robot will be instructed to fix my hernia that I have had for some time.  The surgeon is there but does no cutting or chopping.  All is left to Da Vinci, who I hope follows the instructions of my human surgeon.  Da Vinci reminds me of a spider who hovers over me, waiting to get to me.  Do robots have personality or tend to think for themselves or go out on strike for whatever reason?  I just need to trust.  I actually did not report the long-standing hernia until my hip hurt so that I could not sleep.  In passing, I mentioned the hernia to my doctor and she sent me on for a sonogram.  After surgery  I won’t be able to do much for a few weeks.  I am hoping for treats to assuage any “woe is me” moods.  But I know it was a sore hip that got me to have this hernia surgery.  The hip will be OK in time, as I now have a physical therapist.  Aging is what it is.  Pray for me.  God is in charge.  

St. Patrick’s Day

 Did you wake up with a hangover this morning?  Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.  How did you start the day?  Did you make a resolution to not drink yesterday?  Or did you plan on where and with whom you would drink yesterday?  Either way, you have a hangover.  It’s a good time to assess the situation.  For one, people who can take or leave alcohol generally don’t have a problem with it.  They don’t make plans to drink or avoid drinking.  So, if you said you were not going to drink, but came up with no alternative, or just blew it off half-way through the day, then you may very well have a problem with alcohol.  The pain of a hangover can be a benefit if it pushes you towards trying a different solution, not based upon your inadequate will-power when it comes to alcohol.  If you can find your cell phone, look up Alcoholics Anonymous.  They have admitted defeat and found a way to avoid hangovers.  

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

 I remember the butter cookies with the green sprinkles on top.  I remember the muffins with green icing.  I remember the Parade up 5th Avenue in New York City, and how Fordham made a big deal of it.  Catholic schools had the day off so we could go and celebrate.  But since today is a Sunday, we don’t have the St. Patrick’s day mass because the 5th Sunday of Lent takes precedent.  I got to write the Pope about this.  As we Irish say, “Offer it up.”  Let’s celebrate anyway!.  Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you all.  

The Motive

 Do you want to be a better person or do you just want to look good?  In other words, what is the motive behind the motive, as someone suggested to me.  So I try to examine my actions more now.  Why am I doing this so-called good deed?  If I simply want to be noticed in a way that gets compliments, or that makes people like me, then the motive has nothing to do with becoming a better person.  If I meditate in silence or solitude, take a nature walk alone, clean up when no one is around to notice, then I am doing it to become a better person.  All these good actions are about anonymity.  No one notices or gives praise.  I am more consistent if I focus on becoming a better person rather than trying to impress you so that you will like me.  It used to be easier to be consistently phony, but now it is too much work and drags me down.  

Too Alone

 One of the ways that we isolate ourselves from the world around us is to focus exclusively on our problems.  We get obsessed.  We become all about ourself and people pick up on this while we are with them.  They tend to cut us off in some way or other.  Maybe they change the subject or just get as obsessed with themselves as we are with ourselves.  A room full of misery.  I have found that a way out of this self-isolation is to be of service.  What can I do to make the scene a better one for someone else.  Maybe a listening ear?  Maybe a little housekeeping, cleaning up?  Get out of oneself to enter the bigger world that always needs a bit of attention.  

Dulce Pontes

 Who is Dulce Pontes?  If you are from Brazil, you know.  She is the Frances Cabrini of Brazil.  Talk about a male dominated world of early 20th century USA, the Latino male with their machismo is the worst.  And Pontes would not let that stop her.  So, say you are a woman who was a drunk, beaten by alcohol, but now you are recovering on a spiritual path.  For what purpose?  To feel better, no hangovers, to have a job, family, health, are all good things.  But these are all under the umbrella of “fitting in.”  I suggest that God, my God anyway, made you a woman for a purpose.  Fitting in was not the ultimate purpose.  You have recovery tools to help move into a deeper life.  Recovery is the beginning, not the end.  If you have a family, with a daughter, or teach girls in some way, and all they want is to “fit in,” then I suggest, there is lots more work to be done.  Just sayin’

Who Do We Serve?

 “We can serve our weakness, or we can serve our purpose.”  Which will it be?  And probably we need to decide it anew each day.  This is a quote from the movie, “Cabrini,” at which you will cry by the end.  The doctor said that Cabrini would be bedridden for the rest of her life because she almost drowned before being rescued by a hand reaching out and her reaching back to grab it.  She would have lung issues the rest of her life.  She had her bad moments, but “it will pass.”  What would not pass was her indomitable will to serve her purpose.  Which was what?  Well, go see the movie!  And then ask, “What is my purpose,” and how will it make this a better world, and you the best person you were meant  to be?  

The Don’t Fit Ins

 What I like about the Paulist Fathers, of which I am still one, is that we do a ministry to people who don’t fit into the rules and regulations.  Many a priest give such people the “short shift.”  “I cannot help you,” they might say in a nice way, or simply say no.  They are trained to follow the rules in a more narrow fashion.  That is, if you don’t go to church, or are not even affiliated with the parish, you don’t get much help.  This is especially the case with people wanting to get married.  We Paulists run marriage prep programs that respond to a lot of these “outsiders.”  A notorious drunk, rebellious against God issues, religion and lots of other things, sobers up, falls in love, dimly recalls being baptized Catholic, and comes to ask for a wedding ceremony.  They have no idea of the rules or protocol.  We specialize in such cases as well as any dropouts.  Old St. Mary’s here in San Francisco does a good job of this.  

Consistent

 One of the ways that we show love is by being open to the needs of others.  I have found that as a priest I do this ‘Professionally” but in a review of my life, some would call this a “Tenth Step” I have found that I have not always been consistent.  When I am less noticed, less in my professional clerical role, I can be quite unconcerned about the needs of others.  “Not my problem,” or “They got what they deserved.”  Whether or not both of these statements are true, love responds positively because love makes me a better person.  Being helpful keeps me out of “self” which is a sobering way of living.  So, when I feel that non-caring attitude that no one will notice, I am on the way to my own misery.  The good and the bad often starts with little things.  

Cabrini

 This is one the best movies I have ever seen.  It just came out this weekend.  It was directed by an amours Italian director and he knows his stuff.  Acting, scenery, dialogue, and history are all so well done, so it is not so much a movie about religion as it is about the indomitable spirit of a woman in a man’s world filled with prejudice against the role of women in a world ruled by men in both church and secular New York City politics.  Cabrini refused to give in to any physical or political limitations.  This year’s Oscars were just announced.  This movie will be up for next year in several categories. At the end the mayor says to Cabrini, “You would have made a good man.”  She answers, “No. You could not do what we did.”  And the voice over ends with the NYT obit, “What kind of world do you want it to be and what are you willing to do to make it so?” 

Depression

 If you have something like clinical depression, what can be learned from this?  Acceptance is one thing.  Don't beat yourself up for failing to be better, whatever you think better is.  And you can learn humility.  You are not perfect but that only makes you a human being.  Others have issues you do not have, so gratitude can be something learned.  And maybe there will be a time when your knowledge about clinical depression might help someone else who is just coming to grips with it, or is suicidal about what seems like a dead end to them.  You may be the bearer of hope.  We can all work with what we have and what we don't have.  

Give And Get

 For many people it seems so much easier to give help than to ask for it.  We seem to be able to respond to someone who genuinely needs help which is to our credit.  But why do we find it so hard at times to ask for help?  Think of asking for help not as a put down to your ego or weakness, or lack of knowledge, but as an opportunity to allow someone else to respond and be of service.  By asking for help when you need it, you give someone an opportunity to get out of selfishness and even their own isolation.  In this way, you asking might be helping another person.  

Double Whammy

 Two things get in the way of becoming who we are supposed to be.  One is illusion and the other is conceit.  The illusion comes from pretending to be someone we are not.  The conceit comes from pursuing this illusion with all our energy.  We dress, act, talk as the illusion.  We are not fulfilled, yet the ego does not give up simply because we are a bit out of sorts or unaligned with who we really are.  A spiritual path of meditation will eventually bring us around to the path we are supposed to be on.  Alone, letting go of our false self for a bit each day, in the silence and stillness, allows space for someone else to begin to peak at us.  That someone else has been hidden by the double whammy of illusion and conceit.  A spiritual power will show you how to be your truer self.  Acceptance will come in time.  

Coffee And Donuts Pracrice

Why do many Catholics, who go to coffee and donuts after their mass, rarely talk to newcomers, while agnostic-atheist Alcoholics seek out newcomers in their meetings?  One of the reasons might be that many Catholics seek safety in being part of the right religion.  They go to the coffee after mass to see their friends, who don't really challenge them to think beyond their comfort zone.  Strangers don't fit in here.  In AA the members are taught from early on that they have to reach out to the newcomer.  As a Catholic, I was never brought up that way.  Religion is private.  You do what you do and I do what I do. It is between me and God.  No outsiders fit this equation.  Newcomers, whether in a church or AA meeting, feel like outsiders when they go into a group setting.  The newcomer did not go to the coffee and donuts to talk to God or just have a donut.  They are waiting to see if this "community" is open or closed.  The AA meeting that does not welcome newcomers is a failure.  

Guide For Living

I am not sure I know what a "guide for living" is in its internal workings, but I do know it when I see it.  The results are what I can see.  I see a person go from fearful to relaxed, from feeling like an outsider, to feeling a part of something, some group.   I see a person who is always critical, judgmental, resentful, and whining about the state of the world, who then become accepting, helpful, understanding, compassionate and into solutions.  I know they have found a "guide for living."   I have to be diligent about my guide for living.  When I wake up, I have to have gratitude and then ask for some help in specific issues.  I don't even get out of bed until I have prayed a bit and brought my guide for living into focus.  Though the body may rest in needed sleep, the mind can become forgetful.  Assume nothing of yesterday's practice flowing into today.  But then, I am a difficult case.  

Nineteen Steps

 Bill Waters is the hero in this book.  To say more would be to give the plot away.  A new author, Millie Bobby Brown, born in 2004, quite young, her first novel, and it is very good.  She writes about what she knows, young women coming of age.  It is set in WWII, centered on an event in London during the German bombings of the city.  I discovered the book in the local library, sitting on a rack of new books.  Kate Quinn, an author I like, recommended her on the front cover.  It is only 303 pages, so I still did my prayers, mostly.  Tough to put down once you get going.  For me, Billy Waters stepped up and did the right thing.  The right thing is not always easy.  

Gossip

 Gossip and talking about people behind their backs can so often give the ego a good buzz.  But this can be seen as stumbling off the spiritual path.  A good image of this was given to me.  It is called “Stumbling over your own tongue.”  Whenever I find myself drifting into “innocent” gossip, I recall this phrase of stumbling over my tongue.  To stumble is to fall off the path, to cease to move forward in a healthy fashion.  Maybe this image of tongue stumbling will help you too, should you find yourself ensnared in gossip.  

Outsides

 Addicts and some others tend to look outside themselves to feel better.  A drink solves the issue for an alcoholic for instance.  Looking for a community or a gym or relationship are other ways to search outside oneself for the solution to feeling badly.  I find that the solution is to look on the insides first.  This would be the long term ongoing solution.  It is a spiritual solution because the bad feelings are most often spiritual issues.  They are about our insides not getting proper attention.  It really is mystical and no outside solution can touch the mystical.  

Hope

 People who are suicidal have no hope.  Suicide seems like the last option, the final solution to a life off the rails.  But for whatever reason, if the same person seeks outside help, such as a spiritual practice, therapy, steps, recovery program, something seemingly outside themselves, they discover hope.  Hope says there is a way out of my misery.  I may be clueless as to how the way works, but I grab desperately for it, and that is hope in action.  Sometimes hope just shows up.  You think you have lost everything and your life is over, not worth going on, and suddenly you have an inspiration that seemed to come out of the blue or from some past trifling experience, and you grasp for it.  If your addiction seems fulfilling, you don’t jump into a recovery program, but if someone along the way drops a hint, by word or action, you might put that into your memory bank.  Later, desperate, you recall that past seemingly trifling encounter.  That recovering person was driven by hope in you.  

Reprieve

 I like the phrase, “Daily Reprieve.”  Whenever I think I have arrived at some spiritual depth, I must remind myself, first, that this is an ego trip and second, keep doing the daily practice.  My ego says, “I have arrived.”  I no longer have to do whatever I did to get here.  I have come to find this is a disastrous way of thinking.  Actually, in this case all thinking is the wrong road.  The mind plays tricks, but the heart knows.  Listen to the heart.  It tells me that I am on shaky ground and must continue to do my daily practice whatever that might be.  Insanity is to think I am better than I am.  I have but a daily reprieve from insanity.  I am having a good day.  Continue to practice the spiritual path.