Agains

 If you want to avoid something that has not “Yet” happened, it might be good to avoid to “Agains.”   For instance, I have not yet been hit by a car crossing the street, but I again jay-walk.  It is only a matter of time until the again leads to the yet being wiped out along with me.  Your partner has not walked out on you but you continue to practice bad behavior, low social skills.  You have not had a heart attack but again eat lots of sugar and carbs and processed foods, and so on.  The drunk knows about the yets and the agains.  Until they don’t.  

The Purpose

Without light the eye does not know its function to see.  All is dark.  Without sound, the ear does not know its purpose, to listen.  So it is with the soul or spirit within us.  Without prayer, it does not know its function and without prayer, we do not know we have any inner life.  And we will see and hear better if we have some spiritual practice.  We will see what is real and hear what is real instead of seeing only what we want and hearing only what we want.  The narrow world is always for the self-centered and fearful.   

The First Time

 Do you know the date of your First Holy Communion?  I know mine.  May 20.  I think I was in the second grade.  After that I could begin to train to be an Altar Boy.  The First Holy Communion is a memorable date but not necessarily a life-changing one.  One Communion is a bit like your first recovery meeting.  You might remember the date but it won’t change you. Your wedding date does not make you a husband or wife.  It takes lots of repeats to make a change for the better.  Fortunately, I received lots of repeat Holy Communions after the first one, so the effects tended to get deep into me.  Someone in recovery and in repeat meetings knows how the process of recovery works with repeats.  Just like addiction gets worse with repeats.  Although I still am in touch with mediocrity, I think I am in better spiritual shape now with repeat days of prayer.  Over and over is a good way to go.  

Prada

 I saw the movie, “The Devil Wears Prada.”  The night before I watched on TV, the first of this movie, made 20 years ago.  One of the differences I noticed is that there was little cell phone focus in the first movie.  In the second one, they were part of one’s body it seems.  And being answered immediately.  New York City street scenes had changed some, but it was the cell phone that made the difference.  How do you ladies wear those high heals and walk?  Isn’t it painful?  Oh, there was a cell phone in the first movie, but not so noticeable as the second and the thing I like is that the actress threw it into a fountain of water as she made a decision to change her life.  Such is the control of the phone, high heals or not.  

Worship Technology

 We have a secular spirituality.  We worship technology, efficiency, and with it tend to lose a sense of the Transcendent consciousness.  We are forever with our techie things rather than poetry or spiritual writing, art, and leisure for desert time.  We don’t like being alone with ourself because it makes us feel lonely.  Without our phones we tend to think we are missing out on something.  People call us or text us and then say, “Why didn’t you respond,” as in NOW.  Transcendent consciousness means that God is the only NOW that is consistent and waits for our response.  Not a demanding God but a patient one.  At lease for now.  If you walk out of your room, house, apartment and forget your cell phone maybe it is a God-shot?  Keep going.  

Hidden

 I am a Christian, A Catholic to be more precise.  So I believe that Jesus is the Christ, God.  I try not to look at other religions, non-Christian ones, as completely devoid of Christ.  If Christ is God and God is everywhere, then I try to see Jesus Christ in other religions, but hidden.  Some of the most spiritual people I have met in non-Christian religions have seen something of their religion in mine.  Does this mean we are all the same, one as good as another.  Not for the believer.  But it does keep us from trying to destroy one another.  I talk about my religion as the Truth, the Way and the Life.  But if you don’t agree with me, beheading you or burning you at the stake is not the answer.  

Sundays

We tend in our Western culture to compartmentalize religion and spirituality.  Christians go to church on Sunday for instance, but outside that time, life is controlled by secular culture.  We tend not to see the spiritual in the ordinary of each day, the repeat tasks.  Some other cultures resist Western ways in part because they do not want to lose the sense of the spiritual in the ordinary.  Recovery programs in the West know that it is a 24hour process.  You don’t do a couple meetings a week but otherwise don’t practice the principles the rest of the day.  I try to keep this in mind when I am going about my day so that I don’t try to escape into my electronic world.  

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.