Women and Male Athletes

I think that sports teams are scrambling to get players to treat women with respect.  Don't objectify them.  Don't see them as sex objects for your pleasure.  Don't make looks everything.  Well, take a look at the cheerleaders for these teams.  It is pretty loud and clear what women are to male sports events.  I think our treatment of women is learned behavior.

A Balance

Someone told me that acceptance does not mean approval.  I am working on that.  It sticks with me which is usually a sign that I need to focus on an issue.  Driving around town today, bicycle riders without helmets taking chances on the road, drivers on cell phones going minus miles per hour, lack of parking in the shopping area, and not finding the things I went to buy in the store, makes for a good chance to work on "acceptance not meaning approval." Don't move to Boulder.  Lots of acceptance  issues here.  Some days I am overwhelmed.  Is that why people smoke dope here?

Knowledge

I watched the PBS weeklong documentary on the Teddy, Franklin and Eleanor and extended family.  I realized that I knew nothing or very little about Teddy for sure and the others as well.  I thought I knew history.  Guess not.  I was beginning to feel a bit uneducated, when I read Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13.  He says there that love is more important than knowledge.  I feel better.  I may be uneducated, but I do try to love.  So whenever you feel a bit diminished for whatever reason, ask yourself if you are loving today.  When I am loving, I am happier.  When I am simply accumulating knowledge but not loving, I don't feel quite so good, except in my ego which cannot seem to sustain any happiness.

All The Same

A good coach, bishop, CEO, leader does not try to make all the people in their charge to be the same.  A healthy company, team, church is like a body.  It has different parts.  They are meant to be different but work in some fashion for a common goal.  In the church I belong to it is "The Kingdom of God."  Without the women religious doing all their various outreach ministries, we are not the body we need to be to manifest the Kingdom.  We need our nuns to do things that the rest of us cannot or won't do.  Go Sisters!

Michelle

My friend Michelle, works in an office down the hall from me.  Sometimes her door is almost closed, just a tiny bit open.  She is important around here with an important title.  I wonder if she is doing something important and does not want to be bothered by anyone.  But what if she is miserable and lonely and hungry and in a down mood, while doing something important?  What to do?  I am feeling playful.  This sometimes is my job description when everyone else is grinding out work.  So I take my bag of M&Ms and an empty bowl.  I walk down the hall to just outside her office door.  I pour the candy into the bowl so you can hear each M&M hit the bowl.  Then I put the bowl on a counter top.  Very soon, Michelle opens her door and comes out.  M&Ms trumps important work every time.  At least I have found it so.  Let the play time begin!

Importance

I used to not like saying weekday mass.  I was a priest who did not like saying mass!  I was too important for that.  I had a lot of important stuff to do.  As I got older I began to like saying mass more. I discovered that I was not so important.  Actually, I was the last to know.  People who put up with me in those earlier years surely got a lot of days off from purgatory.  I used to try to be loved by being important.  I now fit very well with what I do because my work is not earth shattering important.  I am not changing the church, society, or the culture.  Yes, I did have big ideas.  I accept not being important.  I am at ease with it.  I am working on "being ignored" now.  I find that I am not so much being ignored, but that I am isolating.  It is important to have some solitude, and personal time and space, but for me that easily slip into isolation.  I am working on that each day.  My list of "who has ignored me today" is much shorter than it used to be.  My list of "who did I approach and say hello to," is a bit longer.  So far, I don't think I bothered anyone's solitude.  How are you doing on "isolation?" "Self-importance?"

Not Much

Sometimes people ask me what I do here, wherever here is at the moment.  I often answer, "As little as possible," or, "Not much."  Most people don't know quite where to go with that.  People seem to relate early on based upon what someone does.  In the scheme of things, it is quite a bit more true than false, that I don't really do much.  I have no administrative power, vague job description, and outside of "priest' I have no title.  My business card makes me smile with its exaggeration.  I would like a card to say, "A sober man of prayer who gives candy to adults."  There is a lot of work to keep even that up.  Adults really like candy!  Anyway, I am a full time job for me.  Imperfection isn't easy.  What is your job description?  The real one.