Left-handed Desk

When I started school, I was left-handed.  I still am.  Sister Mary Phillips did not try and change me.  Fortunately, our first grade desks were full desks, so that both a left or right handed person could work without having to distort their bodies.  Between Sister and the desk, I was given an early sense that left-handed was just fine.  This solid base of self-esteem allowed me to put up with the many desks that cottoned only to right-handed people in the upper classes.  I had to scramble to find one of the few if any user friendly left-handed desks.   Typewriters and early computer keyboards were not geared to me.  I had to adjust.  Thanks to Sister Mary Phillips and the first grade desks, I could accept a lot of reality as it later was presented to me.  May we all be a Sister Mary Phillips to the young and innocent who are the way God made them.  My big sister Maureen thought I was going to burn, but never because I am left-handed.  

 

Love Of Self

Does God love drunks?  Yes, but drunks don't love drunks.  Instead of admitting that I don't love myself, the drunk pulls everyone else into their mess.  "No one loves me."  "God hates me."  Everyone else gets the blame and isolation soon follows.  So, you may not be a drunk, but if you find yourself isolating in defense of a hostile and uncaring world, you might ask yourself, "Do I love me?"  What if you are not sure?  I would then try and be helpful to someone(s) who wants help, or who may themselves be practicing or feeling isolation issues.  Does anyone do snail mail anymore?

The Medication

Religion can be a medication for bad feelings.  I have found it to be a wonderful medication, but it took me a while to figure out why it worked for me.  Many people leave religion because they are not feeling better.  They feel worse.  Many people don't mind a path that is a bit demanding and challenging if they are given some tools.  Many people are not lazy or looking for an easier softer way.   Religion stumbles when it delivers shame, guilt, condemnation, boredom and rules that make no common sense.  In many ways people take up their cross every day, and a lot more than the preacher in the pulpit.  What people want to know is how taking up the cross can be uplifting and lead to wholeness and holiness.  A good blog would help.  Tell me if you find one!  Be gentle.

Forgiveness

I read this and pass it on.  "Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past."  It stopped me in my tracks.  I need to live in today.  It is all I have.  If I get up in the morning and am resentful about some past event, I cannot focus on preparing for today, with hopes and needs.  Why do I dwell on the unchangeable yesterday?  This is not the same as talking to someone or doing something about a past situation in order to effect the future.   I sometimes hold onto forgiveness until someone changes or apologizes to me.  Neither of these things changes what happened in the past.  When I see forgiveness as having little to do with someone else's behavior, and a lot to do with me hoping for a better past, it becomes easier to forgive.  Forgiveness is about changing me and not someone else.  I might avoid a person or place, but I stop trying to change them to make me happier.  I might not forget.  Some of us Irish don't forget.

Theology Of The Body

This is a marriage theology that my church proposes.  The conjugal act is central to the renewal of vows to a faithful love.  Well, how about a different approach to the married body.  This body takes out the garbage, puts dirty dishes into the dish washer, empties the clean dishes and puts them away, hangs up clothes after taking them off or puts them into the hamper, puts down the toilet seat after using it, cleans up the sink after washing, helps make the bed, helps with laundry, and the list goes on.  Don't come with kisses and conjugal acts if you are otherwise self-imploded or clueless.  As marriage goes along, the conjugal acts become more infrequent.  My list is a daily way to renew the vows and be faithful.  But then I am a priest.  What do I know?

Salt And Pepper

We cannot live on salt and pepper.  These are condiments, meant to flavor the food.  We need the food, though condiments are quite yummy, and sometimes the food is not so yummy without a little added flavoring.  At times, I live a day without feeding my soul.  I attend to outside stuff, errands, tasks, and yes, trivialities.  This is like trying to live on condiments.  Prayer, reflection, time just for me to be a bit quiet and still, is the food I need each day.  Why do I starve myself some days?  Surely, you who read this blog early in the morning, are not going to try to get through your day on condiments and ignore the spiritual life?  I am going to pray right now, early, before I load up on the guilt and shame I just sent your way!

The reward

I read an article where it was asked why so many priests are alcoholic.  I really don't know what "so many" is, but I have one idea why the drink is popular among the clergy.  In the seminaries of old, which were run a bit like monasteries, seminarians could not drink or smoke until they got ordained or reached some other level of seminary training.  Drink and smoke became the litmus test of "having arrived" which appeals to the male ego.  So new priests would drink and smoke as a right of passage or of having arrived at some completion.  This withholding of something as a reward does not go anymore  with drink and cigarettes, plus the screening is better in seminaries.  But if you are thinking of withholding something from someone, be it a child or adult, as a future reward for proper behavior, you might think about it.  The seminarians of old simply conformed on the outside to get the reward, ordination.  The insides were given much less attention.  There is a difference between not drinking, and sobriety.  One is behavioral.  The other, sobriety, is transformational.