Hope

 Hope is not evidence-based.  Faith is.  You believe because of what you have heard and seen.  You might say you have never seen God but believe.  This belief is based on what you have heard and seen in others, such as parents, friends, rituals, preachers, readings.  You pick up on their experience.  In Recovery programs you have faith because of what you have seen in others.  Could this be for me too?  Could I get sober like these people?  You have no evidence that you can get sober because you have never been sober, only dry.  This is where hope comes in.  Hope is what keeps us all going forward.  I keep hoping I will be a good priest.  I have seen it in other priests and hope that if I do what they do, I have a chance.  

Mausoleum

The Mausoleum life is one that looks pretty good on the outside but is all about death and dying on the inside.  Young people especially know this if they have addiction issues.  They can still look good on the outside, but inside they are spiritually and physically dying.  They are not yet into recovery that heals the insides.  As a priest, I have my clerical clothes that I wear on the outside and can look pretty good when I need to look and sound good.  But if I do not have a spiritual practice for the insides, then I am dying, or living the :mausoleum life.   

Recycling

 I am more peaceful and therefore pray better when recycling does not make me crazy.  We have the three barrel system here in San Francisco.  Each barrel has pictures on it of the various things that go in that barrel.  Some of those picture images look the same on different barrels.  Often I am holding something in my hand that does not seem to fit any picture.  Makes me crazy.  But AI, a bot, will help my meditation.  How?  It will take away the crazy in me.  In time, when I am about to put something into one of the barrels, the AI will gently speak up and say, “No.”  Then it will tell me which color barrel will take my item to discard.  San Francisco says it is coming.  A bot helps me meditate.  The future!  

A System

Values need a system to enact them on a regular basis.  The system is some organization, coordination and so on so that the values can be lived out on a daily basis.  Sobriety is a value for an addict.  But just wanting sobriety or trying it in some haphazard way will not keep the value active.  Recovery programs are the system of meetings, steps, communal bonding that allow the value of sobriety to be lived out on a daily basis.  The monastic life is a system to allow the value of deep prayer to be lived out.  Both these examples are self supporting.  If you want someone else not in your system to keep it going, you are in a precarious situation.   

Who Am I?

Who am I if I am not working?  We are so driven to self-identity by the work we do for pay, inside or outside the home.  Even if we work at a job for pay from home it is still work that identifies us.  Many people think they are a “nobody,” or a “less than” if they do not have a paying job.  Stay at home Mom is seen a lot differently from a stay at home worker for pay.  This view says you are not productive as your full self until you get paid.  Raising a family from home is not seen as a career.  A stay at home Dad who is not getting paid would be under the same stigma.  No one pays me to stay at home, but that does not make me second rate or “unproductive.”  Besides, we in this category do not really stay at home.  But it is our base, our gathering of self place.  

The Afterwards

 Living in a City as a boy, I walked to church on a Sunday morning or any morning when I was serving mass as an altar boy.  Two precious things came after mass on Sunday.  The walk home went past family run food shops.  We picked up the newspaper, breakfast rolls, other baked goods, meats and deli stuff.  All was fresh that morning.  And there was no rushing to other organized activities.  No sport activities or organized games on Sunday.  I think it helped to set me up for meditation, for the slower life that meditation requires of us.  There were no coffee and donuts after church.  You simply hung around a bit because there was no real rush to go to the next thing.  And you did not need to go to the bathroom because you had nothing to eat before mass, no coffee or sugar stuff.  In San Francisco where I help out in neighborhoods, saying masses, some of this can still be done.  In the suburbs it is a different world.  

The Knitter

 Knitting takes separate threads, separate colors at times, separate widths, and knits them into one.  Though the threads are knit together, the colors or size remain the same.  In the spiritual life, we can be different shapes, sizes, colors, and still come together as one.  Meditation is like the knitting.  It begins to see unity where before there was only differences.  In prayer I can become one with myself in all my differences.  And then begin to become one with others.  Spiritual Knitting!

Doing Nothing

 There is a part of the self that gets renewed by doing nothing.  Just sit and do nothing.  It can be very sweet if you let it.  This is a part of you that is not about mind, thinking, muscles, exercise, but about doing nothing but sitting somewhere pleasant. Quiet and still.  Something in us needs this to be renewed.  Let go of the shame, guilt or fear about “not accomplishing” something.  You are accomplishing something or it is being accomplished by your not doing anything.  And if you learn to enjoy it, then you have accomplished something.  

One Day At A Time

 41 years ago today, I decided that I needed to get off the merry-go-round of a bunch of good days, and then the seemingly inevitable bad day.  My spiritual path had been, “I will never have this bad day again, forever.”  Unfortunately, I had not found a spiritual way to forever.  Someone suggested that I find a spiritual practice that was “just for today.”  My ego wanted forever, not today.  But what the hey, my way was not working.  As long as it had been “my way” God was not going to interfere.  So, humbly, I said “just for today” I would do a spiritual practice, and do it daily, but just focus on today.  Well, that was 41 years ago, so I guess it works.  Today is another day.  God Power began to work in a deeper way when I humbly surrendered my way, and my ego.  So now I have good and not so good moments, like anyone else who is sane.  But no really bad days of self-will run riot.  

The Impression

Many a time I walk along the downtown streets of San Francisco and see boy and girl walking together. The girl often dresses as if she cared how she looks, how others see her.  It took some doing.  The boy looks like he slept in whatever her is wearing, which took no effort.  I think about this is prayer.  I know my God accepts me when I am presenting myself with little effort to have looked good.  I am a mess and need mercy and forgiveness.  But I would like to present myself to my God in prayer with a better impression and this takes work, effort on my part.  Being good is often not so easy.  But as long as I am trying, eventually I will go in a better direction.  

Change The Air

 Change the air is an Italian phrase that says get out of the house and go into open air where there are people with whom you can visit.  So many of us live alone or in cramped conditions, that I think spiritual fitness might require that we get out of our little world, our electronic world and go visit with people in the outdoors or outdoor cafe.  I can meditate in silence and solitude but  I need to balance this with some communal activity free of any electronic devices.  Be with flesh and blood people.  There is a time to get into myself and a time to get out of myself, to practice social graces.  

Change Of Time

 For reasons that escape me, the time of my posting for several blogs ended up being late at night instead of early in the morning.  So you would not have seen the blog posted on FB until late that night.  Some people can go directly to the blog and its posting time is not an issue.  But I did not panic.  Rather I fixed what ones I could find.  The point?  When things seem to be going sideways in plans, do what you can to fix it and then move on.  Most of our plans are not life and death issues.  

Spiritual Books

 People read the Bible or the Big Book, and say they have questions or they do not understand something.  Well, God, your Higher Power has questions for you.  So why not start there.  Read more slowly, not looking for answers but for identification.  Are you the problem these books are writing about?  Are you like the persons who are being written about, problematic persons, selfish, scheming, lying, resentful, that the Bible and the Big Book are addressing?  Do you drink like the people in the Big Book?  It is not firstly about “understanding” alcoholism, but about finding out if you do what these drunks did to self-heal.  Do you put milk into your drink?  Do you make resolutions and don’t keep them?  Are you selfish, self-willed run riot?  Do you drink like the jay walker?  Are you introvert when dry and grandiose when drunk?  And so on.  Later, after a few steps you can ask questions.  

Love

 Love is an emotion.  It comes and goes.  To say, “I love you,” may be nothing more than feeling the emotion of love.  No action.  No commitment.  No ego-shrinkage.  To actually love someone takes work.  If someone said, “I love golf,” but only plays when they feel like it and never does the hard grinding practice to do it better, you would think they do not really love golf.  The same goes with marriage, vocation, hobby.  These take work on a daily basis that goes beyond the emotions of “love.”  I might not always love being a priest, or putting out this blog, but I do it.  I don’t wait for some emotion to come along and carry me.  Until death do us part!

Yes

The 12 Apostles are these twelve because they said, “Yes.”  It is not because they were holy, or smart, or disciplined.  It all started with saying yes to an invitation, “Follow me.”  So if you are someone who says you want to follow Jesus, start with a “yes.”  Nothing more is needed to begin.  A very badly lived life can begin to change with a yes.  In recovery, you don’t have to be good or smart or holy to begin recovery from alcoholism.  You start with a yes.  If you start with “I cannot do all this,” or “this won’t work,” then you will stay drinking to insanity and death.  Just start with yes, not with understanding or judgment.  Yes and then begin to do what is asked, imperfectly, trudging along.  Action, not perfection, follows yes.  Sobriety does not make you a saint, but it does give you a chance at being a much better person.   

Sameness

 If you find something written that helps you to pray, why not repeat it on a regular basis?  Say you find the poet Rilke to help you to pray.  Why then look for other poets?  Keep with Rilke.  It is about prayer aids.  Many people pray the psalms from the Bible on a daily basis.  Monks do this.  Keeping at what works opens up to deeper layers of the words and deeper layers in ourself.  Trying to find something “even better” is a bit of an ego trip or spiritual gluttony.  

12 Inch Voice

 Praying aloud can help you to pay attention.  You can do this in public places. How?  Use what teachers call the “12 inch voice.”  If I typed this blog in 12 inch font you would need a magnifier to read it.  12 inch refers to font size.  It is small, like a quiet voice that only you can hear though others are around.  The noisier the environment around you, the less anyone will notice or hear you praying in your 12 inch voice.  No one listens to my homilies, so why should they listen to my 12 inch voice!  Say it isn’t so Knoxville and Boulder.  

Service

 One way of being of service is to use fewer words.  Like what?  Well, if someone says, “How are you?”  And you have some physical issue, just state the issue.  Simply.  Information can create and feed a relationship, but let the other person decide how much they want to know, which is, how much they want to befriend you.  Say you tripped recently and hurt your shoulder in the fall.  Your response can be simple:  “I tripped and bruised my shoulder.”  That is it.  How is that being of service?  It allows the other person to ask more or not.  If they are uninterested, why assume they are interested?  They may not want that much of a relationship, or their time to be taken up with listening to you.  Allow them to ask for more information.  If they change the subject or say, “Have a nice day,” then you have not burdened them with your miseries.  And you have found that this relationship is not worth your time either.  Which is a service to yourself.  

Sabbath

 In the Bible creation story there is a Sabbath.  The seventh day, the Creator rests.  Jews have a sabbath.  Other religions do too.  Sunday is supposed to be it for Christians.  Not happening much in our frenetic modern world.  Why not try a Sabbath time each day?  Make some time for rest to allow your spiritual life to flourish.  Call it a time for gathering some stillness.  This is stillness in mind and body.  It may well allow your spiritual life, your soul depth, to flourish.  You could take a slow walk, not an exercise walk.  You can slowly read a little of a spiritual book, one spiritual to you.  You can do nothing but look out at the world around you and let your heart tell you what you see.  You never know until you take this Sabbath time on a daily basis.  Rest. 

The Warm Up

 Athletes tend to warm up before they do their event or practice.  The body cannot just jump into something from nothing.  So you need to loosen up, stretch.  Why not do the same with prayer?  Don’t just jump into it from something quite different.  Do some preparation.  Like what?  Like trying to relax.  Try breathing slowly, or more slowly if you have been frenetic.  Slow down your thoughts.  Get quiet outside as well as inside.  Breathing exercises or a mantra for a few moments to transition from busy to attentive.  Think of prayer as spiritual athleticism.  You are trying, on a daily basis, to get spiritually in shape.  Some days are better than others.  Athletes know this, but the more you practice the more good days you will have.  

Words

When you pray, fewer words can be better, so that you pay attention to what you are saying.  If you don’t pay attention, then why should God or your Power pay attention?  I find that when people use a long explanation, when a shorter one would do, I tend to lose focus on what they are saying.  One way to say fewer words is to pray out loud if you can.  Out loud, you might even listen to what you are saying.  With fewer words we don’t have to rush to get it all in.  Besides, the Divine knows what you need before you ask. And often due to some insanity on your part, you don’t know quite what you need, only what you want.   

As You Can

 Pray as you can, not as you want.  You read a book by a monk about monks praying and you are attracted to that way of prayer.  But you are not a monk.  They have no spouse, mortgage, child, commute.  You are a jogger who reads about the training of a champion runner, maybe an Olympian.  You want to train like that, but you have not that time, or maybe talent.  So do what you can.  Pray as you can.  You may have a realistic plan, but that is interrupted by family illness or sudden events outside your control, to which you must attend.  I have come to know the difference between being lazy as opposed to being delusional.  

Ocean

As I write this I am in Florida near the Atlantic Ocean.  I watch people jump into the water and splash around from my window in an apartment at the beach.  I see the vast ocean and these tiny people in relation to it.  They are having fun.  The spiritual life is coming to the realization of our right size, not overblown falsely by ego and not diminished by shame and guilt or condemnation from others.  Recovery is about becoming right-sized.  You once saw yourself with your overblown big deal ego and then arrive at the door feeling like you are a nothing loser.  You recover your right size.  I have been in a small pool so far.  The ocean awaits!  Yikes.  

Matins

 Some prayers are meant to be prayed in the pre-dawn darkness or at least before you “begin” your active day.  Why?  Darkness precedes light in the creation account.  In the beginning is chaos, darkness, but a darkness that listens.  Then “Let there be Light” and the chaos is transformed into light.  So if we don’t want our day to be one of chaos then it is important to begin with prayer.  And let the prayer begin with listening in the darkness.  God awaits our attention.  Be still.  Be quiet.  Listen with the heart.  Allow your God to be Lover and not your fixer or rescuer from problems.  Not at this moment.  After this stillness, then some set prayers, psalms for instance, scriptures, spiritual readings, and then meditation.  Then let the day begin.  

The Timer Buzz

 I can set a timer on my watch.  It simply buzzes for a moment that is timed.  I can do this for during the daytime when I am about this and that.  The timer is to remind me to pray, or at least recognize that I need daytime prayers.  I am not all about work and tasks.  I am not all about being important or needed.  I am also about love, the heart.  So I pause as soon as I can after the buzz, and be still, listen.  Then I have prayers on my cell phone I can say, recite, like psalms, scriptures, thought for the day, and so on.  This can keep me grounded and centered.  It minimizes my insanity.

George

 George comes into the usual social gathering where everyone seems to be having a drink and snacking.  George looks the same as when you saw him a month or more ago.  His hair is uncombed, he looks physically out of shape, and still has no sense of fashion when it comes to clothes.  Though he appears the same on the outside, something seems different about George.  He is not having a drink.  He seems more relaxed, less noisy.  He is making eye contact, instead of being evasive.  Outside the same.  Insides changing.  This is recovery.  It is a bit like baptism.  The baby look and acts the same, but is different on the inside, for believers.  The round host at a Catholic mass looks the same before and after consecration, but it is different.  So work on the insides.  Who knows!  You may eventually realize that brown does not go with blue.  Or does it?  

Could And Should

 A “could” person is one who has a way of seeing from a heart that is fed in deep prayer.  This person knows what they can do and what they cannot do.  They do not act out of shame and guilt.  They have no neurotic self-need to stay busy.  One who prays deeply cannot stay busy in the exterior life.  The “should” person lives a more shallow spiritual life, if any at all.  Their energy to act, and the petulance that usually accompanies action, comes from shame and guilt.  They want to make themself feel better.  When I get upset, whiny, or resentful while doing good deeds, I know I have flipped from could to should.  It is always about me and not much about others.  

Never Enough

 Are you distracted or preoccupied about saving the world around you, if not the whole world?  Your distraction might be more about being needed, than saving the world.  If so, then you might be diagnosed with “never enoughness.”  Many people find the solution to never enoughness by being busy all the time fixing what they think needs it.  Not that things and situations don’t need fixing, but the motive is important.  Why?  Because sooner or later the fixer will need fixing.  One needs a spiritual practice, time away from it all, in some quiet reflexive state.  One needs to listen to the heart.  And the heart listens to a power that is not you.  What will you discover while the world falls apart without you fixing it at the moment?  You will find you are enough.  Then what?  Then you will know a pace and manner of service in the world.  

The Gate

 In an amusement park the entry gate is different from the gate out, so as to keep the crowds moving.  Prayer is not like this.  There is the one gate for both in and out.  The gate in is an invitation.  The gate out is a resolution.  Going to the gate and through it is all our verbal prayers.  But once inside, as in a sheepfold, there is space for quiet, safety and rest.  It is not the place for our verbal prayers.  The sheepfold is a place for silent intimacy.  I believe God appreciates our verbal prayers and recitation of psalms, but at some point, I believe that God would like a deeper intimacy wherein God can connect to our deeper self.  There courage resides.  Courage on the spiritual path is fed on intimate love, not fiery speeches.  It is the courage that energizes resolutions so that when we leave through the same gate, we go out to serve with love.  Love takes courage, because it is often not returned.  God knows this.  

Your Place

 If everyone says you should be doing this but you say no, you need to do that, well, who is right?  Can they all be wrong?  Sometimes.  Look at two spiritual icons, Jesus and the Buddha.  Everyone thought that the sitting under a bodhi tree or being crucified was crazy.  Everyone but Jesus and the Buddha.  But they were spiritual giants.  Are you?  Every time that I went against the trend of others, and I was wrong, it was because my spiritual life and practice was shallow to say the least.  But my God saved me from myself, my self-centered decisions, and I ended up way better than if I were on my own.  So I know that I have to stay in touch at some deep level with my “Savior” if I am not to get lost in trying to do it on my own.  

Going Deep

 I suppose if you believe there is no God, Power, infinite Source, then emptying the Mind might be the purpose of deep meditation.  I am not so sure my mind ever gets empty.  Rather I might become unaware of random thoughts.  Since I believe in an Infinite Source I believe that there is an intimate union, One that is transcendent, and ultimately a sense of Union with this Power that is not me.  And when it becomes Love, there is only Union.  I believe in this Power because for a few people this sense of Oneness and Love can come without any practice.  Just read the Bill Wilson experience, the co-founder of AA.  Love is always a gift.  

Your Stuff

 Are you an adventurer or a watchman?  As someone said, it depends on how much stuff you have.  Too much stuff and you become a watchman.  With sufficiently less stuff, you can travel lightly and become an adventurer.  I still have a lot of stuff.  But working on it.  And I cannot take it all with me when I make the ultimate journey.

Relecture

 When you take an old text and reinterpret it according to changing times and events, it is called “Relecture.”  New Testament writers did it with Old Testament text.  The old is correct but expanded or deepened in terms of new events.  Bill Wilson wrote the Big Book in 1939.  It is correct for its time, but new information comes along about addiction and people expand their original understanding.  New research gives deeper information.  Social relationships have changed and so on.  It is not about right and wrong, but about expanding in a reinterpretation.  

Clingers

 god does not seem to like clinging people, but rather ones who pass on an experience.  The story of two people walking away from the debacle of their leader, executed back in town, are talking about what happened.  Suddenly the leader, not quite as dead as they thought, appears to them but they don’t recognize him.  As they walk along, he passes on wisdom to them, and then eat with them.  In the meal event they recognize him, and in that instant he disappears.  He did not want them to cling to him.  So they ran back to town and passed on what had happened to them.  Kind of like a Recovery situation o evangelization, whatever you call it.  

Forgotten. Memory

I go to Sea Ranch, California for holiday/retreat with my sister Jane each year.  We go to the same house each year.  When I get there, I suffer from “forgotten memories.”  There is something that can be done, or needs to be done, but I have forgotten how to do it.  Example: I know the overheard fan works but what switch turns it on?  Don’t we recycle food wastes?  But what is the process?  There is the gizmo for the tv, but which is it?  And so on.  In time it all comes back.  Forgotten memories build patience, acceptance and in time wisdom.   

Anniversary

 Today I am a priest for 49 years.  Who would have thought that I would last this long?  I have been blessed with work in wonderful places and people.  I am a New Yorker, but started out my first days, weeks and years in Houston, Texas.  I had never set foot in Texas before that.  It was great fun.  I was good at fun, but not at holiness.  I had long hair and a beard, short hair and no beard, an Afro, all in search of an identity in this new and unfamiliar role as a priest.  The people of St. Leo the Great parish gave me the grace of their patience and love, so that I could form a base of being a priest for them.  My first wedding, the bride passed out in front of the altar.  I became a Houston Oiler fan.  Lots more in the next places I went, but enough for now.  

The Alone

 In some circles of spiritual practice God is referred to as a Power.  Another aspect of God, also a verb is “The Alone.”  This is a way to make sense of meditation which is done generally, alone.  Alone is away of being in the present moment.  It is not the same as loneliness, which gives one a sense of isolation and failure.  God has a lot of time to be alone before creation materialized into people, places and things.  So God knows alone and wants to share it.  Great mystics seem to come to a wisdom connection through spending time alone.  Jesus sent off to the desert.  Buddha sat under a tree.  Alone time in meditation keeps the ego in check, so that when you do go out to be of service it will not be all about you.  

Recipe

 Those on a spiritual practice have a recipe for this practice.  That is, the person mixes a little of this with a little of that and a main ingredient for their recipe for holiness.  They indeed become food for others because of this recipe in practice.  How so?  One is by example, that is, their manner of being present and listening, such that they make helpful responses if response is called for.  Another way the person becomes food for others is their helpfulness, their service, their putting aside of self, self, self.  The spiritual person is caring for themself by their recipe of practice.  The parts of the recipe come from listening to others or readings from those who have a practice.  A good recipe is always food for the soul.  

Mother’s Day

 Yesterday, Churches got a bump in Sunday attendance.  Why?  It was Mother’s Day.  Lots of adult children dropped out, or have but a tangential connection to Sunday worship.  But they are visiting Mom or Grand Mom, so if Mom is going to church that her kids abandoned, they tend to go too.  It pleases Mom and does not cost much in time and energy.  Many such adult children say that worship is meaningless or irrelevant.  But these same people are hooked on internet stuff.  Or their daily worship is at the gym, exercise class.  Or shopping can do it too.  It is a temporary fill-up.  It can become a work to how you look or want to look, or feel connected to the world out there.  Meditation does not try to get you hooked so that you will come back for more.  It is a humble Power that waits.  But it will fill something that nothing else can.  And it will make you less self-focused.  That is, you won’t be looking in the dark store window as you walk by seeing how you look.  

The Hole

I had a hole in my heart from a very early age.  Before adolescence and girls, I found this hole filled by a spiritual practice of prayer and Sacraments in my Catholic upbringing.  I loved being an altar boy.  I was filled up by the mass and Holy Communion.  It was a God-hole requiring my God as I knew God, to fill.  But then came teenage years and in the pressure to date, to have a “girlfriend, I tried to fill it up with a person.  That did not work.  Next I tried to fill it up with “career.”  Get a fulfilling job for instance.  That did not work.  I had left behind me the idea of priest and regular prayer.  No substance could fill this hole in my heart.  When I seemed to run out of options, God had not run out on me.  This Humble Power waited for my humble response of surrender.  Life of daily prayer and meditation, and then service fills up that hole.  

Meeting God

 Some people say that they like the silence of prayer, because that is where they meet God.  They meditate.  They do Lectio Divino, or the 11th Step.  But if you find God in silence, do you pay attention to other silences during your day?  Maybe your God is found in that silence too.  Like?  You pass by a person sitting on the sidewalk, just staring out, saying nothing, maybe begging in silence or just homeless.  There is silence.  They are not bothering anyone and no one is bothering about them.  Maybe your God is in that silence?  Or the silence of a newcomer in a Recovery meeting, who is ignored by others because they want to talk to their friends.  Maybe God is waiting to be recognized in that newcomer?  God is sometimes hidden in plain site. Maybe a simple “Hello” is like a prayer they are waiting to hear?   

A Bit Off

 I know I am in a bit of a spiritual deficiency only after the results.  I pay the price for learning.  What is the deficiency?  I trust myself in something instead of grace.  It is trusting nature, me, my human limitations, instead of asking for and trusting a Power, spiritual that is a bit better than simply me.  I don’t ask for help.  I can figure this out myself.  I am lost, clueless, staring at old behavior?  No problem.  I will figure it out.  It is better to pray early in the day to build up some grace power, so that I don’t get deficient later.  Slippery slope.  

The Catch

 “Did you catch mass?”  It was a phrase I might have heard as a boy when mass was said in Latin and there was no homily, no sermon.  Mass went by quickly, even if you were paying attention.  I always paid attention even before I was an altar boy.  Latin can be said very fast as most people did not understand it anyways so there was no reason to speak slowly for comprehension.  Some people used English missals with the Latin on a parallel page, so as to follow and know what was being said.  So you caught mass like you would catch a ball or a firefly.  It was quick and done.  Some people catch recovery meetings the same way.  Come late, leave early, talk to no one.  They “caught a meeting.”  If you eat in a hurry while focused onto something else you “catch a bite to eat.”  I try not to catch life.  It passes quickly enough as it is.  

Membership

 It seems to be a recent newsworthy phenomenon how many people are joining the Catholic Church this Easter.  What has been found in the past is that about half of those joining actually stay and practice their faith in worship gatherings after a year of joining.  It is a bit like having a library card but never using the library much less actually reading a book.  It is much the same with people who join recovery groups to stop some addictive behavior.  They may practice the steps or not for a while, go to a few meetings for a while and within a year are gone.  They might consider themself to be members, but without a practice like 12 steps and service at meetings.  For me, membership is work.  Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes it is a bit of a burden, but feelings pass.  Trudge, if you must, but do it daily.  

Meals

 I notice in the Resurrection stories of the Gospels, Jesus seems to be eating or offering to eat with his disciples after he appears to them.  Eating together is a way to get to know one another, and to actually forgive one another for bad behavior.  Not eat and run, but eat and talk.  So you might ask yourself how often do you sit down and eat with someone in a leisurely fashion, and talk?  It can be a great way to work out differences or to make peace over some differences.  I have seen where people are in a room full of others in some common “spiritual” effort, but afterwards, a few go out to eat or have coffee, and talk.  The meeting after the meeting it is sometimes called.  You can live alone, but it does not mean you have to be alone.  

Baby Baptism

 Catholics have baby baptism.  It reminds me a bit of rehab programs.  Both can be experienced with some kicking and screaming.  The baby is immersed or has water poured over them, usually ice cold water.  The baby may kick and scream.  They just pooped in diaper, or want to be fed or want their nap.  The person entering rehab is reluctant to say the least.  But both purposes are accomplished.  The baby is Catholic and the person in rehab is dry, not drinking or drugging.  But then what?  The baby grows up and needs teachers, training, practice in order for the Catholic to grow in them and make them truly transformed adults.  There must be a daily practice and regular worship.  The rehab person must have mentors, a daily practice of recovery, meetings, when they get out of rehab.  What we have now unfortunately, is a lot of “used to be” persons.  I don’t want to be a used to be person, but I have to have a daily practice too.  

The Core Mission

 If you line up the four Gospel resurrection stories, they don’t match up completely.  Jesus appears but the details are not the same.  In one instance the disciples are supposed to go back home to Galilee where they will see Jesus. In another instance it says that all will begin from Jerusalem.  In another, he appears and shows them his hands and side.  In another he shows them his hands and feet.  Then there is Acts of the Apostles with some differences.  What to make of all this?  Well, there is the core belief, Jesus is Risen.  Then there are different experiences, emphasizes, memories of the core event, but the core event is the same.  Look at church.  Lots of differences in worship but the same core belief.  In Recovery, there are lots of different meeting styles but it is the same core belief and reason for being there.  Differences need not divide if we can hold onto the core belief.  The problem comes when we forget the core and argue over the way it is expressed.  Martyrdom can result from this.  

Heart Change

 A lot of people say they are Christian, that is, they believe Jesus is God.  But their faith remains in their heads, yet does not move to their hearts.  How so?  They don’t forgive so easily.  They hold grudges and resentments.  When Jesus rose from the dead, as Christians believe, he came to his surprised and terrified followers, who at that moment were not following at all, and said to them, “Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.  Whose sins you retain, are retained.”  Jesus was forgiving them for their cowardice and betrayal, so they should do the same.  In recovery, people see others who are not drinking, and they may stop drinking themselves.  But that is not recovery, until it moves to the heart where one begins to forgive and let go of resentments.  You can go to church, synagogues, temples and meetings.  But this is but a start.  

Cactus

Become an aloe, like a cactus or aloe plant.  They grow in desert places, dry places and have the capacity to retain moisture to feed birds, air and soil.  They can even flower when least expected.  Prayer gives you the succulent of aloe which is a healer, just like the plant.  Your spiritual life practice can become of service to others who are short on soul-feeding.  So if you feel like life is a bit dry, and desert-like, keep at it.  Your Power is like aloe.  And it is for a purpose.  

Earthquakes

 I live over a fault line in San Francisco.  April is Earthquake month.  Am I prepared?  Well, on the level of foodstuffs and what to turn off and such, yes.  But for the rest of my life, not so much.  I live too much down the road.  Earthquakes take out the road, real or imagined.  We already had an earthquake this month.  It reminds me that I need to ask what am I doing today, instead of being a Scarlett O’Hara, and saying I will think about that tomorrow or down the road.  I will go to a meeting some other day.  I will pray some other day.  I will call so and so some other day and so it goes.  Life lived tomorrow.  So I write this blog today so you can have something in the now.  I feel so good about myself, I will now go off and read the Sports pages.  

Listening

 One of the beat things about listening to someone else is that it can break the stranglehold of self-centeredness.  I find that spiritual paths that focus on sanity, surrender and service, the “Three S’s” are very good for getting me out of myself.  So I try to be a good listener when I know that someone is trying for self-expression, or to untangle emotions, for instance.  On my better days I will even put down the Sports Pages, my breakfast bible, and listen.  If I wish the person would finish so I could get on with my important day, saving the world or whatever, then I am not listening.  Looks can fade and strength can fade, but being a good listener can be an always thing.  And can keep you attractive, or at least worth keeping around!  

Erasure

 If you write something down with a pencil on a piece of paper and then erase it, there is still some mark where the writing was.  It is clearly visible but still there.  Oh, for those who don’t write or don’t write with a pencil, the erasure is at other opposite end of the pointy part.  I digress.  Anyhow, I hope that I can be the kind of person that when I am gone from someone, though my presence is erased from their mind, I leave some good impression.  Like a blog that you read and then forget it.  But you remember it was good at the time.  Or it was so stupid and shallow that you cannot fully erase it from your mind.  Let us try to leave good impressions.  

The Killer

 If you offer an alcoholic in recovery a drink of alcohol, they will refuse.  It is not a choice.  Alcohol will kill them.  Why?  Because they cannot drink just a little.  Would you in-jest something that would kill you?  Not if you are sane.  Someone with a height phobia would not go near a high cliff.  They have a propensity to jump or get dizzy and fall off.  If you have the propensity to check your phone while driving, you would leave it in a bag or out of reach or just turn it off.  The life you save might not be just your own.  So too it is with foods.  Once you know, you know.  Second chances don’t always end in survival.  

Elsewhere

 Some of us like to live in “elsewhere.”  We don’t much care for the real, our real.  Elsewhere is found through fantasy, drugs and alcohol, entertainment centers or events.  Elsewhere can become addictive.  You will know this if you find yourself pretty much escaping your reality when not doing a focused activity.  Walking down the street is an example.  Did you see the flower just blooming today?  No.  You were there but then not really.  An attempt at meditation can bring us suddenly to elsewhere.  How did I get there?  I was trying to not pay attention to thoughts or to have a “spiritual” thought.  If we are comfortable with our real life then elsewhere may be just a now and again thing, a brief respite, a concert or movie.  But beware.  It can be addictive.  

Baptism

Today is the Anniversary of my Baptism into the Catholic Church.  It came about four weeks after I was born, and was at St. Frances of Rome Church in the Bronx.  Though I drifted off now and again, I am thankful that I am a Catholic.  It gives meaning to my life.  If the Catholic Church were perfect it would not want me.  I am always a work in progress, trudgingly slow much of the time.  I like the use of created things to express the spiritual.  Oil, water, candles, incense, bread, wine, and the physical actions that give expression to what we are doing in our worship.  We wear certain clothes at certain times to express what we are doing.  Things express meanings of the heart.   And when I mess up, backslide, I know that I am still loved, if not by me, but by my God, who died on a cross to show me love.  “Come to me all you who find life burdensome, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon yourself and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart.”  Jesus said that.  

Public Wearing

 When I walk around the streets of San Francisco or on public transport, I can wear my clerical collar.  I identify as a “clergy person.”  But that is just outside stuff.  Without a spiritual life of some depth, I have but an “outside” appearance.  I want my insides to reveal what I am supposed to believe.  The insides will reveal themself according to my prayer life.  If I am in touch with a spiritual power that I believe dwells within, this will be revealed the way I am with others, especially people I do not know.  Are those around me, or in a meeting or on a bus, strangers or are they part of myself?  Meditation points outs my shortcomings that make people remain strangers, but then can give me the power to treat them as part of myself.  

Ignorance

 Ignorance usually precedes boasting.  We think we can do something we cannot.  The ignorance often hides our sense of fear or cowardice.  It hides our sense of self-preservation.  So we say we will accomplish this or do that, but when the time comes we renege.  Peter saying he would die for Jesus is a famous example.  A spiritual path will reveal that which hid in our darkness.  You face your real self not the false one you show to the public.  Recovery programs do this.  Through self-examination a person discovers their inventory of strength and weakness.  They ask for “courage” to change.  They do not assume they have built in courage.  Ignorance is anathema to recovery.  Meditation, thought by newbies to be soothing, often reveals to us stuff we did not know was there, the darkness that trips us up.  Alone, we can do nothing much against this ignorance.  So we seek a power that knows us and can help us.  

Who Leaves and Stays

 It seems that I try to leave God on a too regular basis.  Skip prayer for some “urgent” something, or too much agenda of good deeds to pray and meditate.  This is all about self-will and ego energy.  I am at the “should stage” in these moments.  I have enough sense to know I should not skip prayer, but do it anyway.  The Good News is that God does on leave me.  Maybe it is like my blogs.  You skip them for more urgent things, but I keep putting them out there.  

Living Together

 I don’t have to go very far to find ways to be of service, to be helpful right in my own home rectory here in San Francisco.  I live mostly with old men.  I am one of us.  I try not to leave things undone for someone else to come along and do what I did not do.  And when I find things not quite right, I try to fix, rearrange, make neat, without whining or judging.  If I can get through the day judgment free and whining free, it is a good day.  

A Daily Prayer

 A good daily prayer is to ask God, your Power, to show you some truth about yourself.  So you keep an even keel, you might be shown some defect of character that you ignore or don’t see in yourself.  This may come when you are judging others, or full of your own self-importance.  Or you might be shown something very good that you did not notice or forgot about yourself, when you are having a down time.  Trust God will keep you in balance.  It takes courage to want truth revealed about oneself.  Courage is to change the things I can.  

Personal Trainers

 Many people have personal trainers or belong to a group with a trainer.  You believe in the trainer and what good they can do and want for you.  Belief is not the issue once you find the trainer.  The problem is that you cannot get the trainer to do what you want.  Like what?  Days off from scheduled sessions for no good reason but a whim, or desire for some self-indulgence.  Fewer reps.  Skip some exercises you don’t like.  The trainer will have none of this.  You don’t control the trainer.  You can leave, quit, but not control.  God, Power, is like the trainer.  Many people believe in God, but their problem is that they cannot get God, Power to do what they want.  For many people, spiritual growth is not about belief issues.  It is about not wanting to put in the work.  

Cyrene Guy

 Do a good deed that you don’t want to do and then walk away with no thanks for it.  Just be an anonymous person who is helpful.  It will change your life for the better.  Simon of Cyrene was just passing by minding his own business.  Someone was stumbling by, all bloody from a beating, on the way to being crucified.  He was too weak to carry his cross.  Simon got pulled out from among the crowd of people and made to carry the cross beam.  When he was finished, he walked away.  No one said a thank you.  Maybe he grumbled, “Why me?”  But I suspect that he became a better person for it.  You don’t have to wait until you want to do a good deed.  

Glory

 Some of us are addicted dust.  That is, we are addicted to something, and will die someday still addicted.  But the addiction does not have to be the cause of death.  As Eric Vardon says, “We are dust called to glory.”  You can be addicted to work, exercise, food, sugar, demon rum, relationship-dependence but they don’t have to kill you.  We are dust.  We are human, therefore imperfect.  Accept it.  Humility.  Spiritual paths are not to make us perfect, but to make us whole, that is, all we are meant to be, dust called to glory.  Recovery, prayer, service, good reading, is all about dust moving to glory.  

Wisdom Figures

 I don’t think it is quite to the point to call people who have been members of any association, “old timers.”  Their gift to the association is not that they are old in age but that they are wise from being part of the association for so long.  They are really ‘Long Timers.”  I have met  a few people who are old but not so very wise.  So age does not bring wisdom.  But working on oneself in a growth-oriented group over a long period of time, does bring a giftedness that benefits newcomers and those who have fewer years in the association.  Long Timers know history and they know all the mistakes.  Wisdom often comes from falling down and getting up rather than never falling down.  

False Unity

 One of the reasons that people tend to imbibe alcohol is to feel a sense of camaraderie, a feeling of unity with those around them.  But what it often does is cover over our attention to the fact that we are drinking too much.  Such people often wake up with a sense of “how did that happen?” The feeling of having drunk too much the day before or a few hours before comes too late to prevent the hangover.  Feeling normal in a room of people at a social event can be a task, so I try to feel normal within myself earlier in the day through some spiritual tools such as meditation or reading some spiritual pointers.  Drinking does not do much for the heart.  

Compare An Despair

 Too often we tend to “compare and despair.”  We see something that we lack or think we lack and wish we had it.  That other person is better in some way that we envy or wish for ourself.  So I try to remind  myself to look into my spiritual tool box for some humility.  The other person or situation is a call for me to have some humility.  From humility I can have a better day.  Shame won’t do it.  Regret won’t do it.  Humility takes far less energy than envy, shame and regret.  I accept where I am now, but I can make a change from my reality.  I can grow from here in my spiritual life and write this simple blog.  

Reread

 I save books that help me to be a better person, to grow from within.  I underline in the book and write in the margins.  I put the book aside.  But in time I pick it up and “reread” the book, especially the underlinings.  Often, I find that, “Oh, I forgot that,” or I see something from a different perspective because I have changed in my own growth.  Let other people read your novel collection.  Keep the stuff that changes you for the better.  And work on remembering.  Maybe a treasure box with quotes you got from readings, that you can check more regularly.  

Certain

 Be certain that things are fixed and finished.  No future study.  No open to discovery of more or other.  This is fundamentalism.  It keeps one from having discussions or from listening or being open.  I like the recovery program model.  It is suggestions that have worked for many.  It has a track record, but still it is suggestions.  And it is always open to learning more from modern science and research.  Evangelization, at its best, invites people to take a look or to consider.  Differences are not the problem.  Open listening is a way to stay in touch with differences.  

The Umbrella

 To skip morning spiritual practice because you feel pretty good is like going out on a cloudy morning without your umbrella because it is not raining at the moment.  Though it is predicted to rain later.  I did both today so dump my blogs.  I am all wet spiritually and physically.  Clothes hanging here and there to dry off, paper toweling in my shoes are the results of no umbrella.  Just because things are going well at the moment is no reason to skip spiritual practice.  Early practice prepares for later events, expected or unexpected, in the day.  I just read a psalm today that said the rain ought to bless and praise God.  Well, it did.  

The Purpose

 I meet people now and again in my daily life who tell me that they have found God or a Power other than themself who has saved them from their miserable, maybe addicted, life.  I ask them how did this God or Power do that?  Whatever they did to get free, I then ask them “For what purpose did this God free you?”  They might talk about bring a better worker, or just having a job, being a better parent or spouse, and better this and that.  Occasionally someone will say, “So that I could help others who were suffering as I was.”  Sobriety is not just about being a better person.  Your Power did this so you could be of service to other addicts like yourself.  In religion it is called, Evangelization.  

the Spectator

As a spectator you are watching something, listening to something, and there are others with you, or in the same physical space, who are doing the same thing.  Think of a sporting event or a symphony, or a lecture.  You might think you are a “we” because you all had the experience of spectator, student, fan.  But then how much more are you connected to those same people with whom you sit, when the event is over and you leave?  Not much?  Then you are not a “we.”  Sobriety and worship are not spectator events.  To the extent that you participate, if you are not drawing into relationship with others there, you are missing out on the importance of “we” to a spiritual growth. It is a bit like saying you live in a “neighborhood,” but don’t know any of your neighbors.  People come to meetings so that they don’t drink.  Then they leave, talk to no one.  They don’t drink, but they don’t become spiritually fit.  They don’t connect with others in the room except as an identity, “recovering alcoholic.”  Recovery is a lot more than not drinking.   

Mistakes

 We all make mistakes.  The hope is that we learn from them and don’t continue to make the same mistakes.  That does not mean a mistake free life from then on.  The hope is that the mistakes we will make in the future will be new ones.  Someone in recovery or who joins a church does not become mistake free by the practice.  A recovering drunk may no longer drink one day at a time, but that does not make them perfect.  May the power of new mistakes be minimal enough so that they can be useful in service to others with love and compassion.  No one going to church is a saint.  Well, maybe the priest is.  Or am I delusional?  See, I am not yet perfect.  

The Desert

If you find yourself in the desert of your spiritual life who will lead you out?  Not someone who has never been there.  A guide is useless who has never been on the journey.  You will be lead out by someone who has been in their own spiritual desert.  The desert of prayer is when you feel lost, lonely, abandoned, without those good feeling buzzes, empty and dry.  God is not absent, but the feeling sure has absence all about it.  Stay with it because it is the prelude to you being of service someday to someone who is there for the first time or first few times.  You can become their guide.  So don’t talk about how wonderful prayer is.  Not unless you include your own desert times.  The lost need to hear this.  

Saint of Relapse

 Mary Magdalene, the person who first announced that Jesus was risen, is the saint of relapse.  She was saved from seven devils it says in the Gospel.  That is, she was saved seven times from something she could not get rid of by her own power.  She kept relapsing until she didn’t.  After seven times falling back into here addictive behavior, she won out and became quite a person committed to transformation by listening and practicing what her guide, Jesus, told her and did by his own example.  She became selflessly loving and loyal.  She was of service to Jesus by keeping him company while he died an agonizing death on a cross.  So if you keep relapsing, she has your back.  There is always hope, as long as you are still alive.  

Angel Monday

This is Monday of the Angel.  Yesterday was Easter Sunday.  Someone had to announce, “He is Risen!” Or else no one would know what is going on in the cemetery where Jesus was buried.  The angel does a singular job and then disappears from the scene.  The angel was of central service for a singular moment.  I keep that in mind when I am needed for something.  It is not all about me.  Show up for what is needed, do it, and then let go of being a focal point.  The angel did a very important and central task but did not get a big ego about it.  A good example of humility, responsibility, and anonymity.  I did important things in church the last several days but now I can return to anonymity.  I try to keep “being needed” separate from “being important.”  But maybe I will get a day named for me! 

Connection

 People can drive drunk and they can drive sober.  The choice involves a feeling of connection.  The sober person sees a red light and stops.  They feel a connection with the person on the street who sees the “Walk” sign is begins to cross the street.  The drunk sees no connection with a person, but only a connection to get that next drink or get to that next place so that they can “fix” their life.  If I am stressed and get behind the wheel, I remind myself first that I am not the only person trying to get somewhere to do something.  It keeps me connected.  I am sure the walker and other drivers are better off for this brief pause.  

The Bonnet

 Happy Easter!  I will celebrate it in my way.  May I suggest you ladies think about today being the day of the “Bonnet?”  Yes, wear a hat today to celebrate Easter.  If you tune up the movie, “Easter Bonnet” or the song of that name, you will see that women walked down the NY Avenue on Easter with their Easter hats.  They always walked with a man in the movies.  But this is a different time.  You can go it alone.  I will look around for a special hat for myself in my closet.  And if someone inquires, “Why the Hat?” Just say it is Easter.  Of course if you wear a hat it won’t quite fit in with jeans and a tee shirt.  What special clothes will I wear today inside church and out on a walk along a San Francisco street?  

A Drink

Walk into a crowded bar or social event that has alcohol.  You don’t know anyone.  No one seems to know you are there or care.  You feel like an outsider.  Maybe you feel like you don’t matter or fit in.  Then you have a drink and maybe another one until suddenly, you feel a part of.  You feel that you matter.  You fit in.  Nothing has changed in the crowd.  Only you have changed.  It is the great delusion of alcohol.  The real thirst is for connection. Spare your liver.  Just introduce yourself to someone, anyone.  Well, anyone who is sober.  Or be of service and walk up to someone who is alone.   

Good Friday

 Today is referred to as “Good Friday” by a lot of people.  It used to be a church visit day, but is more of a “get away” day for the weekend.  If you are clueless about why it is called “Good” the explanation might be most puzzling.  It celebrates or recalls a miserable death by crucifixion of an innocent man who loved everyone.  What is so good about that?  Good question.  Well, what if you had nothing to give to people who hated you or did not even know you, or did know you but were pretty clueless about who you truly are.  Ignore them maybe?  Stay away from such people?  What if you gave your life for them, since you do not have money or things to give.  Or give all of yourself in service to people who you don’t even know.  Law enforcement or military, or a bus driver for school children who dies to save others.  We call them good, not crazy.  If you call their action meaningless, you might check your quotient of self-centeredness.  It is not all about you.  

The Messenger

 I try not to focus on the messenger, but rather the message.  It’s why I stay with the same groups.  I don’t always like everyone in the group or church for that matter.  But I am more interested in what message people bring to the group or church.  Sometimes, volunteers and people who do service in church or a group and not to my liking.  But the message they bring is important.  They are being of service as I should be too.  Or someone I don’t particularly feel drawn to, says some very important things that help me.  If a pastor has a message that helps me, I don’t leave and go somewhere else simply because I don’t much like the pastor.  Besides, the message might challenge me to be more tolerant.  Maybe the messenger is having a bad time, or a bad life, but my spiritual Power is using that person to speak to me.  

Geography

The problem with God for many people is geography.  They are looking for a god out there in the cosmos who is supposed to be fixing all the world problems, but is not, in their opinion.  They are not looking for the God within themself.  They have no meditative life and often their prayer life is fox-hole type prayers after some mess, often of their own making.  But they often blame the out there god for the mess.  Anyhow, I try to make meditation a daily part of my life.  It helps me.  And I am less likely to blame anyone for the mess around me.  Meditation helps me to ask what I can do to make the world around me a better place.  Being of service is not natural to me, but it is spiritual.  So I try to be spiritual-centered early in the day.   

The Bridge

 If your life is full of emotional pain, adrift with a lack of purpose, try being of service.  Be useful and do something for another person or community.  It helps me to be of service in doing things around the rectory that makes life a bit better for all of us.  I have a six month commitment to a meeting one morning a week for guys that are trying to deepen their spiritual life.  I make the coffee and run the meeting.  I find that service is a bridge between pain and purpose.  I try to cross that bridge every day.  I hope this blog is bridge-crossing.  

Sabbatical

When you go on a sabbatical it is for the purpose of learning something new to include recalling something you had forgotten or to deepen an understanding.  Teachers do this to make themselves better teachers.  Well, drunks go on sabbaticals too.  They stop going to meetings, working the recovery steps and what do they learn on their dry sabbatical?  If they live, they learn that they are real alcoholics for instance.  Life gets that bad on the sabbatical.  Then they come back with a new purpose and enthusiasm they lacked the last time around.  Some people do that with their religion.  They drop out and become “used to be” people.  Life gets bleak with no spiritual replacement and eventually they might come back with a new enthusiasm and focus on working their faith.  

False Gods

 Some people say that they don’t believe in God or don’t believe in false gods.  But if they tend to live in fantasy, then they surely worship a false god.  Fantasy is most often about oneself being omnipotent.  In the fantasy, you can do extraordinary things and are bowed down to by others.  Well if that is not a false god then I don’t know what is.  So if I am walking along and find myself passing the time in fantasy, I remind myself that I can do better during this going from one place to another than wallowing in false god worship.  Worshipping myself makes me a religion of one.  No other members.  

Enough

 Today is my birthday.  I will go to a funeral today for a priest who died last week across the hall from me in our rectory.  He was one month younger than me.  He is gone and I am here.  I have come to realize that life is a gift as I age.  It is a gift not so much for me as it is a gift for others.  I have a chance to be of some service to others, that they might have a better day because I am alive in it. Being also Palm Sunday weekend I will have the Evening service today.  We celebrate someone who is a Gift to many people.  The gift of life is not all about me, but all about all of us caring for one another.  So once again you get a blog to read.  And I get to open some birthday cards.  

One Way

 The problem with addictions is that the love only goes one way.  A drunk loves booze but the drink does not love the drinker.  And so it goes with drugs.  You are addicted to social media, but the media does not have feelings for you.  If it were another person, who did not care about you, then you would most likely give them up, unless of course, you are addicted to the relationship.  One way relationships tend to be addictive.  There is a reason we cannot give them up, and it is most often not about love,  It might be fear of loss.  I try not to pour something into me or pour myself into something if there is no back and forth, no mutuality of the heart.  Booze never cared.  

Plans

 When I get up in the morning and make my plans for the day, they don’t always happen as I planned.  Then I get upset, and consequences follow.  Why have a lousy day simply because I did not get as planned?  After all, it was only my plan and I did not check in with the world to see if we all agreed.  So when I wake up I first ask God what plans God has for me.  Since I am clueless, I ask that I be open.  I may still have plans, but it with an attitude of openness, that is, a willingness to surrender my will and life to God as I have come to know or not know through prayer.  

Domesticate

 I am a Christian who too often wants to domesticate the Gospel I read.  I want it to be comfortable and comforting.  I tend to have short term memory for what bothers me.  I tend to focus belief in that I am converted to believing the correct doctrine and tradition.  My shortcoming at these times is that I ignore the conversion of the heart.  I am shortchanging myself from a conversion of the heart that will more deeply affect my actions and attitudes.  Meditation opens me to listening to a Power, my God, who can ever so gently or more directly, point me in the direction of conversion of heart, such that my actions will not be from ego, fear, self, but from love.  I am a work in progress.  

A Restful Night

 When I wake up from a good night’s sleep, I am rested.  This good feeling can fool me into thinking that I am spiritually fine too, as if sleep healed all my shortcomings or took them away.  Sometimes, when I wake up rested, I think that I have all this energy and want to get on with the “doing” of an active life, saving the world and such.  I will pray “later.”  Then the day goes downhill with my ego in charge and my spiritual life starving and weakened.  So I try to wake up and remind myself that I am a spiritually sick person in need or recovery and that I now have the energy to pray first and then see about saving the world, or at least correcting all the shortcomings of others.  Prayer usually gives me a second opinion about what to do in the world of “action.”

Spiritually Sick

 If a drunk comes into church to pray, to feel quiet safety, a respite from the chaos of their life, and they do not act well, but even a bit badly, I don’t judge them or tell them to get out.  They are spiritually sick, and at that moment are trying to get well in as best a way that they can.  Why judge a spiritually sick person for bad behavior?  It would be like trying to throw a drunk out of an AA meeting who is there to get well.  This is the best they can do at the moment.  When my behavior is somewhat immature I reveal that I am spiritually sick at the moment.  I need help, not judgment.  

Time

 If the alcoholic thought about their higher power that got them sober as much as they thought about alcohol when they were drinking, then the Recovering Addict would become quite spiritual.  The idea that we cannot possibly be focused on a spiritual power all the day long is challenged by what debilitating stuff we do focus on all day long.  Spiritual recovery is getting away from “it is all about me.”  If you find yourself planning your daily destruction, then you are surely pretty focused.  Being focused is not the problem.  It is the object of our focus that makes or breaks us.  

Nothing

 “I am nothing,” is what we sometimes say when we feel so insignificant, or ignored, or seemingly forgotten.  “I am but a drop in the ocean,” is our self-image at these times.  But a drop in the ocean, though but a drop, is part of something much bigger.  We are all part of this something, drop by drop. The ocean is not an ocean without a lot of drops to make it I up.  So be your drop and do your part to make this ocean what it is.  You don’t have to be big, or noticed to be important.  Participate in the ocean of life.  Be kind to the drops around you.  

Ruts

 Why do people in addiction recovery programs keep going to meetings?  Why do religion believers keep going to worship?  Ruts.  Today, one may be sober or a believer, but if they do not work at it, meetings or worship, prayer, service, they will inevitable stumble into ruts, old behavior.  They may not drink that day, or lose faith, but they will practice  old messy dysfunctional behavior which makes their day and usually the day of others around them all the worse.  Ruts are the beginning of a slippery slope.  

Normal

Normal changes.  To live life on life’s terms is to be able to accept new normals.  If we can accept these type of changes then we have a better chance to flourish on a different platform.  If you lose a body part, you live a new normal.  You are not diminished, but changed in your everyday way of life.  If you are getting sober in recovery you are living a new normal.  If you have a conversion experience of any sort, it will affect your daily life.  Some things are dropped and some new things are embraced.  We cannot grab onto the past and still live to our fullest in the present.   

Inside And Outside

 I often speak of prayer as getting inside yourself, to your deeper self in meditation.  But prayer of this sort or any prayer is to help us get “outside” ourself.  Yes, we do pray to get things, but if we are on a spiritual path, what we want to get is in part to be of service to others.  Just wanting what I want when I want it for no other purpose than  to feel better is not getting outside oneself but rather feeding the self and becoming more insular.  This can feed isolation.  So if I ask God to feel better, I hope I have some purpose outside myself.  

Enough

There is a wrong path or a lack of path that is called “enough.”  It is the detour from a deeper, growth oriented spiritual life practice.  A drunk gets into recovery and does all the right things.  Then one day says, “I am sober enough.”  There is no enough.  It is delusional.  Go forward or you will go backward.  No standing still.  Try standing still in a spiritual practice and  you go from sober to dry, from daily practice to occasional to rare, to nothing.  People who used to believe or go to church or meditate all know this.  And they probably used to read my blogs.  If you don’t grow you go.  

Death

 Death is inevitable.  But we can postpone it by good behavior.  A drunk who sobers up and enters recovery, interrupts their death.  Someone who listens to their doctor or trainer and begins to live a healthier lifestyle of exercise and diet, interrupts their death.  I think that meditation does too.  In touching our depth it also heals the body.  I have found it so.  

Inconvenience

 One thing that moves us beyond our own inconvenience is being of service to others in need.  We don’t need much depth in a spiritual practice to be helpful when it is convenient or serves our own sense of worth, or makes us feel better.  These actions have their obvious rewards.  But without some depth of spiritual practice, some deeper meditation for instance, we won’t move beyond our own inconvenience barrier.  But this depth of practice will also protect us from overdoing, and burn out.  The Power always moves us and levels us.  

More Days

 One thing that sobriety and good health habits tend to do is give you a longer life.  The longer the life, the guarantee is that things will change.  We all would like to live longer, but many of us don’t want any change.  We have found a sweet spot.  We want life on our terms, the sweet spot.  Or we seek a way of life that comforts us sober and with good health, few aches and pains.  But life changes.  So I need to deepen my prayer life, solitude, meditation, reading, to be able to accept the changes that come without my permission.  

Tempered

 Those who are fired up by the spirit can do with some added solitude.  Why?  Because with solitude, the message you deliver will be sparse with words.  It will be clear and brief.  If I practice solitude, quiet prayer alone, and meditate on scripture, I hope to be “fired up” to preach, but with few words.  That is why my homilies are often praised for being short.  Maybe they lack depth, but they are short.  In meetings, if I am going to share, I ask myself how I will use few words to focus on the message.  When people talk on and on in sharing a message, should they actually have one, others tend to tune them out.  Match your message with a person’s capacity to listen.  Solitude can help you.  Happy Friday the 13th!

Fire

 What does fire do?  It tends to spread.  When someone gets all fired up, as we say, they tend to spread their enthusiasm around.  Or they tend to pour themself into whatever has caught them.  Runners do this in training.  In Religion and Recovery, both spiritual paths, people tend to deepen their experience by practicing, such as service to others, talking about their experience, sharing their hope and love.  Such people are important to all those for whom the fire has gone down to smoldering coolness.  The spark is there, but it needs others to blow it back up to fire.  That is why the Spiritual is often referred to as Wind.  

Weeds

 I went to the San Francisco Arboretum last month for the Magnolia Season.  Blue sky, no fog or cold wind.  Chamber of Commerce weather.  I watched the gardeners pruning the ground around the plants and trees.  Get rid of the mess, weeds, and such that get in the way of growth and nature’s health.  I thought of character defects and human shortcomings.  These are our weeds.  We are the plant or tree.  We are meant to be beautiful, but choke ourselves off with character defects, bad habits, and bad choices.  People in Addiction Recovery know of God the Pruner when they practice any one or more of the Twelve Steps.  No one prunes themself.  Though the delusional think, “I can do this myself.”  

Garbage Man

 When I go out early in the morning for a walk or run, I see the garbage man and the truck getting rid of all the mess we make each day.  God, your Higher Power, is the garbage man of the mess we make each day in all our imperfections, mistakes, and self-will run in over-drive.  The Catholic Church has a sacrament for this.  It is called Confession.  During Lent season a lot of Catholics go see the Garbage Person, God.  Addiction recovery Programs have a specific step for this.  It is Step Seven.  When you put out the garbage in plain sight, Garbage Power takes it away.  

Close Your Eyes

 God Power is obscure but not invisible.  What?  Well, why do so many people close their eyes when they meditate?  Why are eyes closed when you sleep?  To see better the visible, to be led to the unconscious, the depth of oneself and reality.  The open eye cannot see all of this Power.  God Power lives in your darkness, intimately.  This spiritual Energy lives in seen and unseen creation, trees, plants and so on, but that is not an intimate, most near presence.  In the darkness, eyes closed, you enter the obscurity of faith.  Now you see with the eyes of God.  Darkness is not so dark.  

Grace

 Grace is often spiritual power showing up in unplanned moments.  This power is always at work.  God does not sleep.  But it is most experienced in the unplanned moments.  You wake up and plan your day.  Grace is not so visible though you ask for, and expect, spiritual help.  But Grace is most experienced, felt, in the unplanned moments.  “I am going to do something tomorrow,” but then you don’t.  The drunk knows this one.  But one day you just walk into a meeting, your first.  This is Grace felt at work.  You don’t even feel like you did it on your own, like in planned moments.  You suddenly pick up the heavy phone, now grown lighter, and call someone.  You walk into a church or synagogue, “out of the blue” as we say.  Grace just wrote this blog!

Electricity

 Spiritual living people, such as believers in religion or recovery people, are pre-electricity people.  They are candles.  A candle is meant to be lit in the service of light.  And the candle will then burn down.  Prayer that leads to service, sacrifice for others, giving up of self, is like a way to keep the candle lit.  Without prayer, you burn out. Then you go from light to darkness for yourself and others.  So keep a balance. Time for self and time for others.  If you know your baptism date and your last drink date, then you know when your candle was lit.  

Tyranny

 Humility liberates us from tyranny of self.  People in recovery know this quite well.  Humility does not mind being ignored.  It does not crave attention, that is, the need to be the center of their universe.  Freed of this energy suck, we can spend ourself on being of service to others.  We are all miracles happening or waiting to happen, just not in the self-willed time line.  

Patience

Do you lack patience sometimes?  Or often?  Well then you very well may lack hope.  And you won’t wait until the end of the story as someone said.  Quick and negative judgments can get in the way of The Power’s ability to bring about “miracles.”  Miracles are not necessarily instant, but eventual, the slow kind that require patience.  Some people mature quickly and some take a lot of time with mistakes along the way.  And when someone or something seems like a “hopeless case,”. God may still be at work, but you don’t see it.  Maybe the story never seems to end even with death or extinction.  But then maybe there is more story, the beyond.  Recovery people never give up hope in one another.   

Expectation

There are some things you cannot change.  They are going to happen anyway, regardless of your preferences.  Yes, miracles in behavior change do happen, but they are miracles, that is, rare.  So I try to keep the daily expectation to accept the things I cannot change.  And maybe  God does not care to change either.  Why let annoyances be your primary emotion for the day?   

Do Not Disturb

Sometimes we think that God does not care because we get no response to our prayers, entreaties, spiritual wants.  Did you never get a “Do Not Disturb” sign or put one out on a door?  It means not now, but later.  God is at work but maybe not on your timeline.  We lack faith and hope.  People say they believe until they don’t get what they want.  God no longer exists once this Power no longer lives on our timeline.   The next time you put the “Do Not Disturb” tag on your hotel door or phone, say a thank you prayer to God for the hope and faith you might still have.  

The Patient

 I try to remember that in giving spiritual path advice, I am always the patient, never the doctor or healer.  It keeps me in touch with humility.  That I have any spiritual life is a gift more than something learned.  I can sometimes falsely think that if I do this I will get that, something gained on my own power.  So I simply tell people what I do, or what I did that did not work, rather than tell them what they “should” do to obtain some sense of healing.  And I tell them I have found a Power that is not me.  Connection rather than isolation is key.  

Fast Or Far

 As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go with others.  I have found this to be true in several areas of my life.  I can run all out by myself, but if I want to improve my stamina and distance running pace, I need to train with others.  I make a commitment to show up not only for me but for the “team.”  I always feel better when I go to church and there are others at mass, equally interested as I am.  Church is community.  It needs plural.  Recovery is the same way.  No one recovers their sanity from addiction alone.  You may stop the addition alone, for a time, but inevitably you don’t go far in recovery.  You need the group, the meetings, the contact on a regular basis.  

Priority

 Sometimes when people stop their active addiction to something, drugs, and alcohol, for instance, they have more energy and time for their job, and so they skip recovery time and practice, become a dry drunk and work like a maniac. It never works. Job work only works if you are actively working the program of recovery.  To not drink does not make you sober.  It just keeps you insane while getting paid for it.  

More And Less

 If you have found your purpose in life, not your job or hobby, then you find that you want to do more and more.  That is why people who have a deep spiritual life seem to be very giving.  They appear always to be working at their purpose, but there are times you do not see, and even while they are working, they practice a deep spiritual connection.  Prayer and meditation is both private and going on even while we work for some people.  I am careful not to make my job my entire focus.  

One Swing At A TIme

Still on golf, each day is like one swing at a time.  I am never sure of the results, because each day is different, like each golf shot situation.  When I wake up, I do not expect today to be like yesterday.  Today has its own character.  My spiritual life is to practice the inner journey so that I can respond to whatever arises each day in my life.  You go out to play golf and expect to shoot in the low 80s, and you barely break 100.  What happened?  If you are not prepared for the unexpected, your golf equipment might be at the bottom of a lake or in a trash bin.  You are that irate.  The life of golf cannot be lived on your terms.  Stuff happens.  Enjoy what you can and accept what you cannot seem to control that day.  

The Moment

 Golf is a wonderful sport or endeavor for staying in the moment.  You will hit the ball as much as a 100 times or more in the course of the 18 holes.  Each swing, you think only about that swing.  Golf keeps you in the moment.  Before you attempt to swing at the ball you may be thinking ahead or behind.  But once you address that ball, put your club behind the ball, you are focused on that shot alone.  And sometimes you end up playing with people with whom you would not ordinarily mix.  And it is a game full of pauses, so you get to talk to people outside your normal social range.  I am of service to other golfers by not playing since I am so bad I would ruin their rhythm.  

Active Rest

 In meditation, rest requires effort.  Why?  Because continual surrender is difficult and this is what we are trying to do in meditation.  We are not problem solving or having an active chat with God.  It is work to let go and just be.  If we are trying to get something, some result, out of our own devising or effort, then we are not going into deep meditation.  Wanting to feel good, or get “results” is not deep meditation.  When God wants us to know something, that will be God’s doing.  Wait. Be still.  

Change Who?

 I remember when my prayers were to change God and not to change me.  The god of that understanding was to do my bidding if I just said the right prayers or enough prayers.  Whenever something went my selfish and fear-based way, I thought I had God figured out.  Never occurred to me that the Spiritual Power was being merciful and patient with my shallowness.  Eventually, slowly but surely life goes downhill, so slowly it goes somewhat unnoticed.  But when the tipping point is reached I survived because I realized that now my prayers were to change me.  God was just fine.  Thy will, not mine be done.  

Freely

 What is Free Love?  It is when you love without expecting gratitude.  If you love to gain leverage, that too is NOT Love.  If you are keeping score, that is not love.  Such motives only bring resentments because we can never get enough payback.  And sometimes loving freely means not giving people what they want.  We are free to accept criticism from people who just want their addiction refueled.  As we grow spiritually, we realize that more and more we feel better loving freely without any need for a particular response.  

Stories

 Stories are what help people to relate, to be brought into the orbit of the story-teller.  That is why there are stories in the Bible, the Big Book, the Grapevine, and numerous other spiritual writings.  People are not initially attracted to techniques, rules, beliefs, traditions unless there is a personal story that goes with it.  I tend to tell a bit of my own story in a homily or teaching.  Some say this is trash and not what I am supposed to be doing in preaching.  Yet I have found that people will catch my attention with a personal story.  In Recovery gatherings, it is often a story that gets the attention of a newcomer.  Many people don’t even know that they are looking for a spiritual connection.  They do know they are feeling isolated, overwhelmed and maybe a bit lost.  Stories give us hope that there is a solution.  

The Two “S” Walk

One of the ways that I live a balanced day is with Solitude and Service.  It is the two “S” way for me.  I need quiet time alone in prayer and meditation.  Not a cameo, but I good block of time.  This time in solitude builds grace upon grace from my God, Power, so that I can selflessly and pleasantly be of service to others.  Too much of one could drift into isolation.  Two much of the other can result in resentment, whining and self-pity.  So I try to keep a balance.  This way I can adjust to life as it shows up any one day.  If an unexpected outside need arises before I pray, well, let’s hope I have some spiritual reserves.  

Negative Thinking

 When we think negatively about a situation or persons, we most often end up simply punishing ourself.  It is a bit like saying, “ I won’t eat with these people because they are thus and so.”  So we don’t eat and they don’t change.  What appears as the easier softer way often ends up badly for us.  The seemingly bad behavior of others, that is, behavior with which we disagree, can be a grace in our life.  How?  By challenging us to accept life on life’s terms.  What we call negative, short of life-threatening, may be the best that others can do at the moment.  We are not walking in their shoes.  When I stay in my spiritual lane, I am more balanced, patient and accepting.  

Ashes

 Today is Ash Wednesday.  We are a divided nation right now, but one thing that unites us is that we are all sinners.  If you don’t like the word “sin” then call it imperfections or shortcomings that don’t seem to go away completely.  So go get ashes today and wear them on your forehead as you go about your day.  It is a time to admit publicly that you are imperfect.  Today you don’t “fix yourself up” to look good, and wearing those ashes might remind someone that it is Ash Wednesday and they might want to go get ashes too.  In Recovery meetings people of all walks of life admit their imperfections.  It is what unites them.  

Consequences

 When we self-destruct, we suffer consequences.  Bad things happen.  We lose people, places, and things.  But if we don’t lose our life, consequences can become a Grace.  Consequences can bring us to give up our self-destructive life, that is probably destroying others as well, and seek a solution.  I have seen people who have joined recovery group processes, and church communities driven there by consequences due to bad behavior.  So when bad stuff happens to me, I have to ask myself, “Is this a consequence of my behavior?  If so, what can I do about it.”  Surrender is an option.  Consequences are a certainty of bad behavior.  

A Covenant

 In “A Covenant of Water,” a novel written by Abraham Verghese, a lot of bad things happen to people, and a lot of belief in a God or Power is dropped.  Gods are supposed to make things go my way, which is always seen as a good way.  There seems to be physical “Conditions,” that reveal an imperfect world, that is, the real world.  There is one woman throughout most of the book who never stops believing in spite of all the sad things that happen.  She is a Connector. And she shows up, a twelve year old, at first being married to a man she has never met who is 40.  But the book reveals that we are all One, a Covenant Connection, that not even a thin window can separate us.  What holds us together is love, not everything going our way.  

Action

Jesus Christ proclaims the Kingdom of God.  Many followers think it is their job to tell people about the kingdom.  But notice what Jesus does when he heals.  He heals a leper.  It is physical healing, but that might be all.  In other words, the now former leper has a chance for a much better life in the community.  Jesus counsels him to tell no one.  That is, talk is cheap.  Rather, reveal healing by action, in this case, to go to the temple and offer sacrifice.   The very action of temple sacrifice reveals that this former crippled person can now do things with his hands.  And it shows that he is still a believer in his religion.  The point?  Action reveals a lot more than words.  It is the same with people who have the miracle of recovery from addition.  Words are less convincing than action.  Action deepens the recovery more than talking about what happened.  People are more convinced by what they see than by what they hear.  

What You Have

 When a searcher comes into a new group, congregation, who are on a spiritual path in their own search for a fuller life, the newcomer might be very skeptical and standoffish.  Everyone seems kind of “weird.”  The newcomer is there physically but standing off with some judgment.  I often can tell if they are engaged or not.  So what to do?  I have learned one quip.  Say to that person, “You may not want what we have, but do you want what you have?”  It worked for me when I came back to my spiritual path practice.  And have a Happy Valentine’s Day!

First Things

 When someone comes into my church or to a meeting for the first time, as searchers, I don’t try to win their trust.  That would take quite more than one visit.  I recognize them as new and searching.  They are not tourists looking for information.  A searcher has a hole in their soul, their life, and it is a deep enough wound to bring them here.  One thing may get them to come back.  It is not good coffee or a treat, or friendliness.  They probably don’t do friendliness with strangers very well.  What will bring them back is HOPE.  They have to hear a message that gives them hope, that whatever we have, might be a solution for them.