Don’t Forget

 It is important to keep in mind the experience that got you going onto your spiritual path.  I mean what got you really going away from some dysfunction or mediocrity, or one foot in and one foot out. and onto something that began to change your life for the better.  I believe that all of us have a call or a purpose, or reason for our particular life.  It just takes some of us longer to get going.  Often there is this one moment, this one event, circumstance that changes our perspective.  From that moment we move ever so slowly or more quickly toward who we are meant to be.  So don’t forget that moment or event or circumstance.  And Happy Halloween!

Sea Ranch

 Today I am preparing for my annual vacation at Sea Ranch, California. I won’t tell you where it is because it is not crowded and my sister and Jane like it that way. It is the one real vacation I take each year. We usually go late in October into November for eight days which includes my sister’s birthday. We shop groceries locally and cook at home each evening, early before the World Series or football.  We both enjoy cooking, reading, outdoor exercise and one another.  We have done this almost every year since 1988 when I discovered the place.  It is better than a retreat for me.  The right place, the right person, and God joins us.  Or we join God.  

Good Morning

 I recently found out that the Paulist Fathers, the religious order group to which I belong, retired me, that is, put me on retirement status.  I did not ask for it.  It was just done the beginning of July.  I don’t know that it changes much of my life. If I tell people I am retired they think I do nothing.  Or do something else since that is how they understand retirement.  A priest in a sense never retires.  It is like someone in recovery.  They can retire from a lot of things, but never from recovery.  I seem to be pretty busy wherever I am, so retirement does not seem to have settled into my experience of life becoming different.  One day at a time.  

A One Timer

 A drunk who creates a big scene or drama at an event with family or associates, friends, can become a “One Timer.”  I call it the kind of event after which you leave and everyone else says, “Let’s not do that again,” as in never invite that person.  Well, I was afraid that I would be a one timer recently when I was invited to teach bread making to a group of teens.  I feared that I would not make very good bread, or their oven would not work or the Dutch oven would be defective and so on.  They would all say, “Thank you, Father, for coming,” and after I walked out the door, they would all agree, “Let’s not do that again!”  But I think I passed the test or else the bread did.  It was not great Rye Bread, but good enough so I would not end up in that dreaded club, “A One Timer.”  

Disturbance

 People tend to get upset when their life is “disturbed.”  They prefer sameness, no suffering, change or upheaval.  But think of soil into which you want to plant some seed or water to make it more fertile.  The earth needs to be disturbed, loosened, softened up and maybe even chopped at if it is too hard and crusty.  Poor suffering earth!  But then all this is so that the soil can begin to grow something new, something helpful to others.  The soil surrenders its tranquility to serve the needs of others.  So how about you who seek silence and stillness?  I rather would like to stay open to whatever this Great Power has in store for my growth and service to others.  

The Door

 If you feel that your love is not sufficient to convery the love of a Higher Power that you want to convey to someone else, not to worry.  Think of your love as the doorway to a more Ultimate Love, or Power or God.  OK.  You don’t yet love unconditionally and unselfishly.  But in trying to do this, in your humanness, you are pointing to a deeper and more complete love.  Love as best as you can and that is like opening your door to the love of your spiritual center, that is within you.  Prayer keeps you on your path, and points you in the direction you long to live.  A little humility helps here.  My love may be very incomplete but I keep trudging along.  Patience.  And practice.  

Conversion

 Conversion is moving to becoming your best self.  The best self is a feeling of being at home, at home within yourself.  No matter where you are or live, if you are living your best self, then you feel at home.  Geographic moves don’t do this.  It is the false self that moves to somewhere else physically, but it never feels like home because one is not comfortable in their own skin.  So they live a false self, trying to fit into the new environment.  The true self lets the environment fit into the true self.  One does not have to fake anything, or try to become popular of do drinking, drugging to fit in.  This is why the interior journey must be done before the exterior journey.  I moved to San Francisco.  It will be a good fit if I am a good fit within my own skin.  

Somebody Else

 People often believe or feel that they belong to some group because they show up at group meetings.  Some people believe they belong to a group because they live with them.  Nothing more is required.  These are the somebody else people.  When something needs to be done they think somebody else will do it.  Or they might say, “who is going to do that.”  But they never volunteer to be the “who” they just mentioned.  They become mere bystanders in any setting.  It can happen in families, or any group, club, organization setting.  In business you can at least fire them.  The bystander generally does not get paid.  

Belief Optional

 Lots of people who have addictions avoid recovery programs because they don’t believe in a god.  They think belief is required.  Belief is not required.  Desperation, and emptiness that no longer can be filled, suicidal leanings are more what is required.  The gift of desperation is just that, a gift.  It gives the addict the willingness to ask for help.  The belief that you cannot stop your addiction on your own is all the belief that is needed.  

Conversions

 The first conversion is to your realization that you are human, that is, you are flawed, imperfect, in process.  You realize your faults and shortcomings.  You begin to stop blaming others and other situations as the primary problem.  You begin to take your own honest inventory.  You then begin to move to the second conversion which is compassion for others.  They do not live up to any standard you set.  They have shortcomings and character defects too.  Why?  They are human.  Now you start to sense the oneness you have with all people.  You become less judgmental, prejudicial and resentful of the world that is suffering, like you,  all around you.  Compassion means to “suffer with.”  You might then begin to apologize to some people for your bad behavior toward them, rather than focus on their behavior.  Conversion is not about changing others, but changing oneself.  In recovery there are steps for all this.  

Understanding

 The god of one’s understanding is often the problem with a relationship to Ultimate Reality, Oneness, Presence, Power.  I find that people who reject belief, and usually with some emotional attachment to that rejection is because their understanding did not hold up.  They prayed to their god that their friend would live.  Well, the friend died.  So that god did not exist or else their friend would have lived.  Often the rejector had a god that was supposed to fix outside stuff according to the plans of the rejector.  Another reason people reject a god of their understanding is because of the person(s) or institutions that pushed belief.  They focused on the messenger and probably have a good resentment against the messenger, but rejected the message.  Rejecting a Higher Power, the person goes on trying to find happiness and fulfillment in outside stuff, and this might include booze, drugs, and all kinds of outside things and people.  When one gives up this rejection and begins to listen to believers who they admire and trust, the Higher Power will find them.  

Outside Stuff

 I will never find happiness and peace in outside stuff.  The idea that the right partner, the right job, car, house, neighborhood or whatever out there will give me the peace I seek is false.  Peace and lasting happiness is on the inside.  This is one reason, the big reason, that I pursue some spiritual practice.  I need to exercise my insides through reading and meditation.  Except for the first cup of coffee in the morning.  This is an outside thing, but it seems to work every time.  It gives me early in the day happiness.  With half and half or course.  

Intention

 Prayer does not have to feel good.  Our intention is important and somewhat under our control.  I can begin to pray with an intention, such as praise or thank you, or a request.  That I pay attention when I pray is not so much under my control.  Often I lose attention to the prayer.  But I still do the prayer and still have my intention.  Attention is not within my power.  Does your mind never drift off as you pray or meditate.  You intend to be quiet and still, to give your whole self to the Divine, the Power, the Ultimate Reality, God, and you soon are thinking about some issue totally disconnected to your intention.  Control what you can, intention, not what you can’t, attention.  

Happiness.

If you are looking for peace and happiness in relationships, things and money, you are likely to search in vain.  They are all passing.  If you can stay in a committed relationship this can be peaceful and happy.  young people often think that if they just get the right spouse, the right job, the right neighborhood with house, I will be happy and at peace.  Does not work very often.  Peace and happiness is within and cannot be found in another person, geography or job.  I am shifting my living to San Francisco more and Colorado less.  I will try not to look in all he wrong places for fulfillment.  

Efficiency

 Beer is not the smart way to imbibe.  It has lots of calories, takes up a lot of space and can be rather more expensive…than vodka.  Vodka is lower in calories, takes up less space and is cheaper than beer.  And you imbibe less vodka liquid than beer because vodka is rather powerful. Some people say they prefer their cold beer, but I doubt that the sixth beer from your big cooler has much to do with cold or not cold.  Whereas you don’t need a cooler for your vodka.  It’s fine not being cold.  So if you are a budding alcoholic there is an efficient way to get drunk.  I would recommend abstinence.  But if you are a mild drinker, called “normal” by drunks, vodka is efficient.  

Patrick

 Patrick is helping with my blog

Partick

 Patrick is helping me with my blog. 

The Backdoor

 Many people reject places of worship because they experience or have heard about them as judgmental, exclusive, dogmatic, elitist and uninviting.  So be it for that experience.  But then they reject any God.  For one reason is that they cannot find the backdoor.  They only tried the front door of institutions.  There is a backdoor.  The institutional power they rejected or felt rejected.  But there is another power that is found through the backdoor such as welcoming recovery programs, or groups that help the rejected, the poor, the messed up, the lost.  Sometimes simply being of service helps to find this backdoor power.  For addicts, it is the only power that will truly save them from themselves.  And for some, the backdoor may lead through recovery, and service, to the front door, but from the inside, and not the outside.  

A-Mends

 Amends can be broken into two phrases:  “A” and “mend.”  The A when connected to the mend means we tell someone we are sorry for what we did.  We apologize.  We may even confess a shortcoming that fueled the bad behavior.  But this does not focus on the “Mend” part of amends.  To mend means to fix.  Here you are trying to fix what is broken in you, that which leads to bad behavior and harm to self and others.  Apologizing is only half the action.  We have to work on the self on a daily disciplined and focused activity, such as prayer and meditation.  You are broken and need fixing/repair/overhaul.  You only have power to break.  Some other Power is needed for the fixing.  

The Not-God

 I am not God.  If someone decides to act badly or destructively to themselves, I try not to go into a guilt trip or blame myself, that I could have or should have done more.  I am but a mere human being offering  help, preaching, teaching, befriending.  I don’t know the effects that I might have in my aim to be helpful.  But I do know that I am better off for trying to be of some service.  The results are not in my control.  I am not God.  

To Do Or Not To Do

 If a person wants to drink themselves into oblivion day after day or on a binge, there is not much I can do for them directly.  I can pray for them.  Self-destructive behavior is rather oblivious to help.  But if someone wants to stop this behavior, then that is my business.  As a priest I run into people who are on self-imposed misery.  I am powerless here.  But then I seem to be found or find people who want to get out of this madness they are in.  That is my business, to be helpful to those who want help.  I believe you can help the helpless if they want help.  

Anger At What?

 Some people are very angry with a god who did not come through for them.  So they stopped believing in God, but they stayed angry.  As someone pointed out, now you are angry at something you don’t think exists.  If someone says they do not believe in a god because they have never much thought about it or were never taught anything, they are rarely angry.  They might be puzzled at believers, but they are not angry.  When I find anger and non-belief in the same person, their atheism is suspect.  You cannot be angry at what does not exist.  Maybe that is why Step Two in recovery programs is about asking to be restored to sanity, so you can at least be angry at what does exist or drop the anger.  

Pluto

Remember when Pluto was a planet, the ninth and farthest from the sun?  And then it was declared “no planet.”  As one astronomer said, this does not make it worse than it was before simply because its ID was changed.  “Planet” is not a status, but rather an identification of something.  Pluto is still Pluto.  Nothing changed in Pluto.  So why do we people get all upset when someone changes our identification.  We are still the same person.  So many of us cannot accept ourselves without some title, which we think gives us a better status.  We are still the same person.  Title does not change us.  Whether someone calls me “Father” or not, does not change who I am.  If someone calls you a “name” out of disrespect or hate, that does not change who you are.  Don’t see yourself through the eyes of others.   

Spiritual Principles

 If you are an addict to something and you go to recovery meetings faithfully, read the literature, work inventory steps, you will find your flaws, character defects, such as selfishness and fear.  But all you have gotten so far is knowledge.  And as one person said, “Knowledge avails us nothing,” when it comes to addiction.  You have to live by spiritual principles.  Have a Higher Power and pray to this power in words and then meditation.  I have heard of many a person who went to lots of meetings for a while, read the books, worked some steps, but never prayed or formed any relationship with a Higher Power and then they went out, their lives got worse and so on.  Spiritual principles will make us loving people.  

The Purpose

 Not everyone on a communion line will have the same response to the host they receive.  If they receive a couple times a year, holidays, family visits and such, I doubt that the host means much.  They see with the physical eye that the host is a round white wafer.  They taste with the physical tongue nothing much.  Sacraments, to be effective, must be approached from a heart level.  Someone why sees with the eye of the heart, and tastes with the heart of the tongue, will have a rather profound experience of that wafer.  Persons receiving at this level, depth, might then be able to see beneath the actions of others, hear deeper than the words spoken, and then speak with the tongue of the heart to the pain buried deep with that other person.  Jesus on the cross saw in his public executioners something deeper, some pain they buried, so that they could do what they do.  And he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

Being Young

 If you are willing to grow, to learn, to be open to something new and healthy, then you are “young” as in young at heart.  Age does not matter.  Children are often eager to learn.  Why does that stop at some point in “adulthood?”  Why do people get set in their ways?  They begin to identify themselves with their work, their exercise, their race, economic status and voting identity.  They begin to talk only to people with whom they agree.  They want to live in places where everyone is about the same…like them.  I have met many a senior who is still willing to learn.  They go to classes, workshops, try new things, talk to people (and Listen) with whom they disagree.  You don’t have to travel all the time.  Sometimes that can be an excuse for being uncomfortable in your own skin.  But not always.  So you may be senior in years but young at heart in attitude and openness.  

The Bottom

 The bottom of your disaster/bad habit, whatever it might be, is not to be compared with the bottom of someone else’s disaster.  Otherwise, you compare and contrast and the convince yourself, “Well, I am not so bad,” and do nothing.  If this is so, you will hit a lower bottom because your activity has become habitual.  So whatever your bottom is, it’s one that got you to finally do something about your life so that you don’t get worse.  If down the road of positive action to renew or recover a better life, you look at the past and say, “I don’t want to go back there ever again,” then you are using the past in a positive way to keep on the better road you are on now.  Look ahead but don’t forget.  It keeps us humble.  

Emotionally Open

 If someone says to me, “There is no god,” that is pride speaking.  In reality we don’t know.  Even a believer or one who says, “There is a god,” does not know for sure with the mind.  I appreciate when someone says, “I don’t really know.”  This admits to a certain ignorance and humility.  I think that humility will take us further along the road of emotional growth than will false pride.  The emotionally insecure refuse to be open.  They close themselves off by certainty.  No more discussion.  

The Guide

 A guide will always be successful if they stay on the path for others to follow.  If others refuse to follow, or wander off the path, go it alone, the guide is not responsible for their contrary behavior.  Just stay on the path.  Besides, someone unexpected may wander into the path seemingly lost, but newly found.  A guide is not a counselor with an office to which people come and the guide says do this or that, while the guide just stays in their office.  A guide leads by example.  A guide was once in need of guidance.  That is how the guide discovered their knowledge.  I don’t tell people what to do.  I might make suggestions but they are suggestions I still practice.  But I must model the path by the manner and way I live my life.  Emotional balance keeps me on the path.  

Old Friends

 When I was young, I could move and make new friends.  People at that age I was in, were open to new friendships.  Many of them had moved too.  But now that I am much older, I find that I need to retain those old friends.  The ones from early school days remind me of who I am before I tried to reinvent myself.  The friends I made in my career years I need to keep.  We share some common memories that are precious to growing into mature adulthood.  People my age are not so interested in making new friends.  They have their friends, and are a bit set in their ways.  This is why assisted living places that are good, make a big effort to bring people together.  Old people learn how to be alone since they have lost so much.  But alone is not usually a healthy or even natural way of life.  So, as I move along, I try to retain and revisit these old friends I have made over the years.  Houston, Knoxville, Boulder, New York City, you just may find me about.  

Surrender

 When you are in a battle with something and you surrender, it doesn’t mean you always lose.  Surrender can mean that you drop your weapons that are failing you, and pick up something new to continue to battle.  What are the old weapons?  Resolutions, wishful thinking, false pride, and willpower.  These are all broken weapons.  And you were doing battle alone, with no help, no group support.  You find new tools.  At first, the enemy, your nemesis, seems to go away in defeat.  It is not defeated,  But rather retreats and waits to see if you will be consistent with your new tools.  False pride says, “I win.”  You drop the tools, and the enemy returns.  Your life goes from bad to worse.  Whatever the solution that worked, it must be done on a daily basis and not in isolation.  Surrender to the old way and trust in the new way.  It works if you work it.  

The Problem Remover

 Alcohol is a bottle of problem remover.  Drink the bottle and no more problems.  It is a way to manage one’s life, until it doesn’t.  For a while this solution puts one at ease.  Then the problem remover bottle becomes a dis-ease.  All short term solutions to problem solving management in one’s life are just that: short term.  Once we stop the short term solution we may come to discover that the real problem is not any one issue, but oneself.  Feelings arise and are faced.  One’s life appears totally out of control.  One cannot manage.  Many people say that alcohol was their problem when in fact it was themself who is the problem.  People use many other outside things to solve the problem of self.  None of this works long term.  The solution to self is done with others and not alone.  And it is very much an inside job as well.  

Progressive

 Alcoholism is progressive.  Other things are too.  But alcoholism is sneaky.  You think you are cured, but all the while it is progressing within you.  It is pretty much that way with anything I try to be rid of.  Bad habits don’t go away just because I did some good practice today.  Skip tomorrow and the habit will come back because it is always progressing.  Maybe that is why we have to keep doing our examination of conscience and admit our faults to someone even if they did not go public today.  They lurk.  Keeps me on my toes.  

I Have Arrived

 I have arrived as a supermarket shopper.  I picked up about six things, too few to stand in line for a cashier, but maybe too many to get any help from self-checkout.  I have never used self-checkout without a store employee doing it quickly for me with my one or two items.  So I found my store savings card and told the helper lady that I was ready to be helped.  She said, “There is an open machine right there.”  I took her off my prayer list.  So I went over and stared at the incomprehensible.  A voice said what to do but not how.  I put my store card here and then there and then finally al beep.  I assumed that i had registered my store card.  Then the voice said what to do with each item but not how to do it.  So I put the bare code here and then there and then the beep.  There was more correct than here.  And so it went.  I tapped, “No bags.”  Then the voice asked how I wanted to pay?  I stared.  Then I saw the visa sign and tapped that.  Then the voice said to follow the diagram as to where to put my card.  I stared.  And stared.  Then I saw the card machine on the far left side.  I put my card in and a beep.  “You were successful,” said the voice.  I have arrived.  Easy peasy!!!

The Group

 If you have a conversion of some sort, such as religious faith or recovery from addiction, don’t try to do it alone.  You need the group.  A lot of people of faith gather with others of that faith, in order to help carry one another along.  It keeps one from isolated conversion, which is a kind of oxymoron.  With the group you might learn how to live your new conversion.  You only know how to live the old way with maybe some old lethal companions.  Just learning how to live life on its own terms needs the example of one another.  And a group can always give you a second opinion.  Conversion does not mean you are no longer crazy.  

Never Too Young

Why do so many young people think they do not have problem with something that keeps recurring?  It is often because they are young. “I am too young to be…” is what they might say.  They think their recurring issue of bad behavior, for instance, can still be controlled when they “grow up.”  Or they compare and contrast with others and say, “I am not that bad.”  The problem with waiting until you “get that bad” or desperate, is that death, illness, injury, disease, unemployment, and broken marriage vows, may come first.  So don’t wait.  And we older people, let us not be afraid to say, “You need help.”  Any maybe even be part of the help.