An Injured Soul

Recently, I hurt my back. I got out of bed and pulled something. I do irrigation wok each day at the monastery while I am here in the summer. What do I do? Let my back heal and leave the fields unattended? Or attend to the fields and ignore my back? I decided to rest. Each day, I thought of how the fields were just not getting irrigated. I was impatient to get out there to do the job. But I had to wait until my injured back got whole.

It is the same way with our spiritual life, no? There is always a lot to do in the field of the kingdom. Lots of people and situations need daily attention. But if I don't pull back on a daily basis and rest my soul in prayer, it will become injured, due to neglect. Then I will go out to do my work/ministry attend to daily tasks, but I will do them with some irritability, resentment, or overall bad mood. Of course, the job will be done poorly, and people might wish me to go away and have my fit of discontent elsewhere.

So it is best to let the world go on without my attention for a while each day while I attend to the health of my soul.

A Piece of Fruit

The Church is like a piece of fruit. Some of the fruit is really good and healthy for the body. Some we just cast aside, such as a pit or outer skin. But the fruit would not be a fruit without those parts we cast aside as uneatable. The Church is graced, but it is also human. Some Catholics treat this reality like a piece of fruit that they throw away completely because of skin or pits. Such people are not fed at all and the soul suffers. Christ is in the sacraments. The sacraments include priests and congregations that can be somewhat pit-if-full. This is the Church founded on Christ. If it good enough for God, then why should we reject the whole body because of some things that are less nourishing or even lethal if taken in? We put up with pits and outer skins of fruit to get the nourishing parts. The Church will never be perfect, and completely nourishing. But why starve our inner life because of imperfections? We don't want to become a pit that might turn off someone else do we?

Summer Schedule

If you're going to be in/around the Basalt area this summer:

For all these dates, I will say the 10:30 am mass in English, hear confessions at noon, and say the 12:30 pm mass in Spanish at St. Vincent's in Basalt, CO.

June 12
June 26
July 10
July 17
July 31
August 14
August 21
September 4

On June 26, I'll be preaching at the 8:15 mass at the Snowmass Monastery.

Gone Today, Here Tomorrow

In John's gospel, chapter 16, Jesus says that his disciples will be sad now, while the world will be happy, but that later the disciples will rejoice in their hearts and no one will take that joy from them. Say what?

The world does not much care for the Christ and will be happy to see him gone from there scene. Jesus is about to be crucified. His followers will be saddened at this event, but then there will be Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost. With these events Jesus will live, be raised up, and seen by his disciples, but the ongoing joy that no one can take from them will be that after he Ascension and Pentecost, the Risen Christ will live on in the hearts of the disciples. Through prayer they will recognize this. For a time, the disciples will be looking up or around to see where Jesus went. Then with the Spirit they will recognize him within their hearts. No persecution can take that presence from them. Only lack of prayer can hide it from them. Is it not they with us who have been baptized and confirmed in this same fire of Spirit?

The Gym

Prayer is exercise for the soul. I take time to go the the gym to exercise my body, to keep it in shape so that it will not fall apart, and will be able to function well. If I ignore physical exercise, in time bad things begin to happen.

My prayer space and time, is the gym for my soul. I go there to keep my soul in shape. If I ignore my soul-time prayer, then bad things will happen. The body, my outer attitude and action will mirror my out of shape soul. I will become irritable, displeased with how things are not going my way, whining, complaining and just all around unpleasant either in thought, or action.

When I give up my prayer gym for my physical exercise gym, saying, "I don't have time for both today" then I will end up with a very fit body that can do lots of unkind and uncaring things each day. My prayer gym has no dues or fees. It only costs a resetting of priorities. Those around me hope that I will go to the gym for my soul each day.

Thank You God

I don't think people so much leave the church when they stop going to mass. I think it is more that they stop being grateful to God, saying "Thank you." God gave us the Eucharist as the way that God seems to want to be thanked. A person my be grateful for something, say life itself or nature and simply says, "Thank you God." This is good, but god seems to have a preferred way to say thank you.

If a child comes to her mother and says, "Thank you," for something, the mother might say, "If you want to thank me, then clean up your room." If the child is too self-absorbed, this request will be a big inconvenience. So it is, we might want at times to say thank you to God, but on our own terms. Call it "leaving the church." Is it not really an act of self-absorbtion?

Suffering has its surprises

My back went out this week at the monastery. I do irrigation work in the fields during the past eight summers. Until my injury, which has kept me out of the fields, I was living under the delusion that I was very needed here to do the irrigating and that if I did not come it would really limit how much land could be irrigated for cows and horses to graze. We make money off of those animals, as we lease the land.

Being a 2 on the enneagram, I get energized when I can be helpful. Feeling needed in the "helpful" department goes along with it. Well, did I get an awakening! The monk who runs the ranch told me, "Terry, if you can't do the work, then we will just have someone else do it." Bubble burst!

But here is the good news about my hurting back. The monastery can go on just fine without me. I don't have to come here early in the summer or late spring to fulfill a "crucial" role. It opens up options to be elsewhere at times in this seasonal period. It means that I could do less physical work here and still be useful. Maybe I will learn to cook for the monks!

God is teaching me in my suffering. My ego is getting right sized again, and maybe there is another path God wants to show me. It is comforting and a big WOW! that God is the one who really needs me, and for whom I can be most a helpful 2 on the enneagram.