Still So Far To Grow

If one is a child, then having childish ways is normal and healthy.  Thinking with the mind of a child is what children should do; but as one grows, the thoughts, the process of thinking, and the questions posed should grow as well.  Childish ways become less appropriate.  They fit as poorly as would children's clothing.  If the growth is mere aging, the body size increases but the mind's lack of maturity arouses suspicions of retardation.

Because it seems to offer security, it is where so many become stalled.  The security is available at a high price, however, and in the realization there is anger and maybe even guilt about the response.

This occurs as well in our understanding of Church.  For whatever reason, our growth in understanding God can seem retarded.  While our bodies grew, and our intellect, reasoning as it relates to the religious aspect of being has not progressed too far beyond a childish level.  Because it fails to develop, because we do not or cannot question it, it remains less significant or may even deteriorate.

Were so little thought devoted to art, science, or philosophy, we would still see the world as something riding on a camel's back; humors and biles would be seen to course through our bodies; auguries and spells would be the rule.  We would be scratching images on walls and wondering how fire happened.  Strange how what we say is so important but remains so ill-developed, and no one seems to mind.

The Problem

The problem is poverty, but the answer may not be money.

Overeagerness

He is just too eager to agree that he is wrong, too inclined to adopt the view of his superiors, as though they actually were.  It is unfortunate since reliance on his own judgment could be more beneficial and accurate than vehement agreement about his own ineptness.

Love Beyond Words

Love does not always depend upon verbal communication.  Words do not always say what they should.  That is because they can't.

I Don't Know

Why do we have to have answers all of the time?  Are we so insecure or afraid?  What is wrong with saying:  I don't know.

Feeling Responsible

Feeling responsible does not mean that he is.  Only that he wants to be, that he wants to be in control.

When Better is Still Not Best

I do some things against my better judgment, realizing that better judgments are not always best.

Life in the Living of It

No one is born to die.  No one ever was, Jesus least of all.  Like everyone else, he was born to live, not merely an ephemeral spiritual life but a human life with all of the aspects that make it human.  It is that kind of life that he gives back to us.  As Bob Fox had said in his understanding of Jesus' participation with us, life is our mission or vocation.  It is our celebration, and life is chosen in the living of it.  It is not, nor ever was it meant to be, sorrowful, vindictive, or remorseful.  It is not devoid of flesh and blood, but is rather fashioned from it.  Life is humanity.  It is joy, love, peace and so many other things.  It has and is power and reality, the power and reality that is (not merely was) Jesus.

The Problem With Objectivity

He is able to distance himself from the pain of others, which makes him objective, but it is not the best of gifts.  If it helps him to understand, his objectivity intrudes upon his capacity to respond.

Discovering What We Know

When new things are discovered they do not seem so new, so startling, and we can wonder why it took so long to realize them, because it is realization rather than the creation of something entirely new.  It was there to be known.  We had it within our grasp but had to learn we could grasp it.  Newness does not come from what was never there, but from what was not yet recognized.

The Foolishness of Faith

The foolishness of which Paul speaks is not the same as ignoring reality.  The foolishness of faith is rather the acceptance of things such as violence, hatred, and pain.  But it is also realization that it can be changed, that what is need not be, that it can be better, that it can be as it was meant to be.

Burdens People Carry

Seeing some people I get a distinct impression they would be as happy if they didn't have to exist at all.

Without Words

So many things unsaid; so many things for which there are no words.

God as a Memory

What is the significance for people now of the fact that God once pitched his tent with theirs?  That was a long time ago and a lot had happened, or failed to happen, in between.  It may be his presence and actions are transtemporal, but that in itself does not seem to have any great significance at this moment unless we want it to, and sometimes not even then.

Consequences of Waiting

I kept saying don't look at it yet and wait a little longer, but it needs a name, or already has one, and the little longer was, I am afraid, over a long time ago.

Remaining Faithful

Jesus had to die because it is a human activity.  He had to die as he did because it is consequent upon his message.  To not die on the cross would have been denying the value of that message.  It was how he remained faithful to himself, to his Father and to the message.  It was not a question of expiation.  It is not what God requires.  He is not that offended to need that price paid.  It is his nature to forgive, to understand.

How God Speaks

God speaks in silence, and answers in what he does not say.

Burying Embarrassment

We buried a man today.  He wasn't really dead.  It's that we did not want him to exist anymore.  His memory was becoming an inconvenience.  It was embarrassing.  So he had to stop existing.  He never was.

The Sacredness of the Status Quo

Some phrases indicating the sacredness of the status quo include:  keeping the peace, maintaining order, preventing trouble, defending traditional values.  The same phrases can be used to justify violence

Conditions of Loneliness

One need not be alone to know loneliness.

The Louder He Shouts

He thinks the louder he shouts the sooner the problem will be resolved, and that as he becomes more infuriated all difficulty recedes into non-being.

Biding Time

If there is need to say something, must you always wait until it can be heard?

Sideline Questions

While life and death cavort in the center ring, less vital questions dance at the sides, clamoring for attention and immediate response.  They ask about lunch for the kids and do you want cable TV, where are you working today and we need a few things from the store.

Fishing No More

Peter said he was going fishing.  The rest said they would come along.  Then on the beach, they saw the Lord.  They came to shore and fished no more.  They had mistakenly thought that having been with him so long they could now go back to what they had done before.  What they had done, who they had been, were over and could not be again.

More Soul, Less Logic

It is possible to be too logical.  We can become analysts or examiners and nothing else, and so sacrifice understanding.  Without recognizing the poetic and mystical elements, and appreciation of them, analysis and examination have little value.  Words, ideas and even things need a soul, even if having one makes them a bit more ambiguous.  For example, I say poetic when I may not mean precisely that, although it expressed the sentiment I feel.

It may only partially express it, and even then may do so inadequately.  However, it speaks of more than meter and rhythm.  It means more than its definition, and to limit use to what the definition holds would be to rob the word, making us leave it unsaid.  Aside from the word is what it symbolizes, and that is unique to the one who speaks it.  When we become too logical, when we ask strict interpretation and rigid meaning, reality (as it really is) is lost, overwhelmed as its soul is buried under intellect and reason.

Time's Limitations

Time does not make some things better.

No Humanity Shortcuts

They were asking what is the least they could do and still be right, what could they avoid and still say they were good.  It is the wrong question.  There is no quantification, no shaving of the standard. It is asking how much can I dilute humanity and it still be there. Humanity is not what you limit but what you fulfill.  We are ethical because it completes us, and completion is the aim.  It is the filling out of our nature as human people.  To act in a reasonable and good way in each situation is no more than faithfulness to who we are.  That is what ought to motivate our response.  Not questions of what can be gotten away with, and less what will I get in reward.  It is a limitation on our value as people to act in anticipation or in response to pre-payment.  It is unworthy of who we are.

Words Instead of Action

It is not enough to be shocked, appalled, dismayed or even flabbergasted.  They are words trying to survive in place of action.

Children and Merit

Chris said God wants the best for his children, just as we do, and so that is what we should ask in our prayer.  Not the least, but the most.  What we deserve because of our relationship with him and aside from what we merit.  Children don't need to merit.

Change Without Changing

They expect to see change without changing.  They want everything to be new and better while remaining precisely the same.

Proving

Proving is not questioning since the answer (or supposed answer) is known (or thought to be known) beforehand.

Maybe I Am Radical

Instead of dreaming radical steps to be taken, why not take them.  There is a liberty inherent in existence enabling our reaching beyond ourselves in fulfillment of who we are.  If to be who I am I must go beyond where I am at, I am free to do so, even if that requires what seem radical steps, steps (or leaps) into what I seem unable to be.

To be satisfied with some things may mean we have lost interest in them

Persistent Victimhood

There are people who have dedicated their lives to hunting Nazis and in the stoking, and apparent enshrining, of their rage seem to have given control to their quarry.  They have remained victims.

The Most Sensible Among Us

Isn't it the crazy that make the most sense?

Exchange

We need someone to hear and respond, acknowledging it was heard and understood, that we are people in a process of exchange.

On the Meaning of Money (And Not Knowing What It's Good For)

Perhaps it comes from talking to Peter.  He is committed to a poverty that occasions growth.  Instead of being without, it allows him to contact what is, touching God and reaching into the depth of himself.  Maybe it is that this year I earned less than I thought I was worth, and less than I needed.  Whatever the reason, I'd been wondering about money.

Money and value are, of course, distinct entities but money for most is a necessity.  It can obscure more essential necessities, and may become addictive so that "need" ceases to relate to survival and becomes instead a function of "want."  Still, when we remove the layers of mammon, the dollar remains a medium by which we secure well-being and provide against our pain.

I realize money, when it is an end in itself, when it plays center stage, is not good.  It is a thing, and should it become more vital than people it has lost the proportionality that ought to be maintained.  Such glorification, the deification of dollars, is not a form of worship most people knowingly adopt.  Instead it is a more gradual approach, one that we see at the end rather than as it occurs.  It is being caught in the acquisition, maintenance or enhancement of useless things and in values whereby possessions become clutching and ownership more important than any reason for having.

That, however, is not my concern.  Instead, it is a realization that making a living gets in the way of living, that essentials are essential and have to be paid for.  Protestations I could make as a priest do not apply so well when there is no congregation to pay for my care.

What I believed about excess wealth or poverty being good for no one is still true.  I still think all have a right to work, to support themselves and to contribute to those in need; and believe there are nations, institutions and individuals whose use of money to gain, consolidate and wield power is evil.  I feel caught between these beliefs and fear I may get caught in a cycle wherein I would let go of some values or compromise some belief.  I suppose too I resent investing time in earning when it is better spent with family or friends, in study or wonder at what I may now not have time to see.  But to spend our time, we need money with which first to buy it.

To call for reorganization of society that would allow time to learn and work, time for being together in earning and in prayer, time too in which we could discuss what is around us, our hopes and our dreams; such a call is too simple a response.  It would raise the question beyond my own need to reply.  Though it might be accurate, it would say nothing to me about myself at this moment.

I have seen the ignorance and suffering poverty brings, the way it steals from one's dignity.  It offers little I would ask my children to share.  Still, I want them to know it is there, a reality to be touched rather than read about.  I want them to understand that people who are without have a right to achieve what others take for granted.  I would like them to feel a unity with those who are without, who may have no means to gain what should be within reach.  I want them to not only see but feel a need to undo what harm poverty has caused, and to do so out of solidarity rather than guilt.

It is knowledge I would not have them gain by experience.  Poverty, unless freely chosen, is not good.  There is no virtue in being hungry or living in decay because there is no alternative.  Nor is endurance a good choice simply because no other is available.

I am wandering from what I asked.  Maybe because I have no answer.  Asking the meaning of money is not to ask about extremes of wealth or poverty.  Neither is my situation.  To be caught up in either is to answer a peripheral question.  While disposition of the earth's wealth is a concern, it is too global, and still I find it hard to focus on me.  To say I must be wary of wealth's entrapment is fair warning, but one I do not need.  To tell myself to maintain clear perspective in discerning our need - recognizing a distinction between what is needed and what is decorative - is a reasonable injunction, but unnecessary.  I am involved with supporting life, not elevating it, and I fear that while I would rather avoid dealing with the issue of money it is there, an unwelcome complication of a far from simple life.

It is an annoyance, an intrusion.  It is, I suppose, what began when God told Adam to begin paying rent on Eden.  Money, paying for things, earning what is required is a component of being.  Not liking it will not make it go away.  Peter's answer is maybe best, at least for him.  Like St. Francis, he is trying to seize life's core and seeing money is not a part of it.  It has made him free and made closer his union with God.  His answer, however, is not my own.  What is, I am not sure.

The Wrong Standard

We unfortunately judge normality using ourselves as the standard.

Saying Mass in Hovels

They were living in hovels and waded in garbage, so he said Mass for them and was surprised that they asked for more.

Most Qualified to Contradict Me

I realize I contradict myself with regularity, that what I say today may differ from what I said yesterday or might say tomorrow, but I am getting used to this arrangement.  If I must be contradicted, I may as well do it myself.  No one else is as qualified, and I am closer to the source of contradiction than anyone else.

Wonders on Demand

Be careful of miracles.  Once you perform one, people will expect the exception to be the rule, that wonders are done on demand.  It is a temptation to which you may also succumb.

Who Are We?

Who are you when you are alone?  Who is it you are apart from everyone else?

Nothing Left But Commentary

He thinks it's all been said, that Thought stopped hundreds of years ago.  That all else has just been commentary.  He really believes we are simply saying the same thing, though in different words.  Sometimes I think he is not listening.  Other times I doubt that he can hear.

Reinterpreting a Rock

The Gospel of the Passion should not come to so abrupt an end.  It should not stop with a rock in front of the tomb.  It should not be an end but a beginning.

A Soul to Love and Cry

Humans are feelings.  People are in this way distinct from all else.  They are - because they have hearts and can express sentiment - different.  But sometimes feeling is beyond us and we can be all else but tender.  Maybe it is fear.  Maybe it is something else, but without a soul to love and cry, without a need to share and enjoy there is no truly human life.

Mom's Birthday

Living In Illness

Illness creates its own society.  You live inside it, as well as in other places.  It is a society with distinct rules and customs, its own language and focus.

Mr. America

I met him today.  His name is Lou, but he could be called "Mister America" as well.  I thought he existed only in textbooks or case studies, but there he was.  He knew that what was different had come from the devil, or worse, the communists.  He was convinced there was a plot and an enemy.  They were coming.  They were almost here.  We had to be ready, and maybe armed.  It was time for solidarity, for uniting against the incursion of "them," though they were clever at disguise, fiendish enough to hide their true nature and purpose.  All the more reason why we had to be on guard, standing up, and shoulder to shoulder, protecting that American Dream and those Christian virtues, saving a nation and church from an evil so ominous that some might even think it good.

He left to get ready.  He went back to Westchester to fight the good fight, even though he was curing the wrong ills and joining the wrong battle.  Enthusiasm seemed willing to replace reason, and conviction far outdid values.

How many Lou's are there?

Nothing Is Wrong

They are looking for ways to say nothing is wrong, but if it is, it was someone else's fault.

In Pursuit of Depth

What is new and startling quickly becomes old and routine, which sends us looking for new newness, a more spectacular display; unless, we can abandon the need to have renewed newness and continued variety.  This would mean pursuit of depth in experience rather than just change from one experience to the next.

Seeing Beyond Knowing

He said she was sleeping.  They knew she was dead.  He asked that they believe what wasn't there, to see beyond what they knew, but they could not do it.  Could they understand after he had raised her to life?  Or did the mystery just get deeper?

What We Remember

Monumental events may be more easily forgotten, more readily overlooked than the usual things that are part of them.  Even more do we recall everyday things.  But most of all, we remember the people with whom we shared both the great and the small occurrences.  It is the people that gave them their value.

Relevance

"Relevance" should mean more than repeating the words of a prophet.

Catharsis #10,001

Today I began a new catharsis, another metanoia, one more reorientation and conversion.  I hope it turns out better than the last ten thousand.

Rethinking Frankenstein, God, and Ourselves

In Mary Shelley's book, Frankenstein, though similar to the film, the portrayal of the monster is not the same.  In the book, he is not an awkward, inarticulate, and rather mismatched hulk groping about and killing.  He does do a bit of killing and there is some groping, but he is also a feeling and needing person who wants to be more than a monster.  In one scene, he confronts his maker and demands recognition.  He asks to be accepted by the hand that formed him.  He feels he has that right.  The ugliness he has is not his own doing, and the dread he causes is not due to himself.

To a degree, we have a similar right.  We can demand the acknowledgment of God.  But God is not our only creator.  We are also creators of each other.  In our relationships - by what we say or do and how we share ourselves with others - we are, for better or worse, continuing the creative process.

Unlike the monster, we have been both recognized and accepted.  We are loved by the one who brought us to be.  We carry God's name and share his life.  It is why we are not monsters, but children.  Our own role in creation, how we bring it about or respond to it, may sometimes be a different story.

What We Can Change

We are willing to have everyone else change, and might even help them to do so.  But, in truth, the only life over which we have such power is our own.

Congratulations, God

Congratulations, God.  Once again, you have succeeded in remaining the inscrutable mystery.

But That's What Love Is

Maybe it would be nice if love didn't hurt, and if there were no pain in wanting.  But if we took the pain out of love, would it still be love?  And if we took the pain from wanting, what would it be?

Trying to See Things as Abraham Did

It is a question to ask about the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Despite the message - that one's faith makes even an absurd and cruel act something of greater value - it is an impossible act to comprehend.  It is always hard to stand in another's place, to look through another's eyes. Harder still when so much time has passed, and customs have changed as has the understanding we have of God.  Still, there is a value in trying to see things as Abraham did.

God is not asking for Abraham's life, a life over which Abraham has control and which he might freely return to God.  Instead, it is the life and future of someone else's.  Has Abraham the right to respond?  Is Isaac his to use in this way?  Maybe in their world he was, though it is hard to see how.  And even if he could, should he? Should Abraham be faithful when the act of faith required the forfeit of his son, or ought there be a law beyond even God that says, "No"?

Were it not our God as well, we might say the Lord's request was indication that he was not a true god, not the father he claimed to be; and here again a question is raised, one involving our faith.  It stops being and Old Testament question as we shift the focus from then to now, from Isaac to Jesus and to the question of sacrifice in general.

If we accept the atonement as the function of Jesus, or see his death as sacrificial, then what does it say of the notion of Father which is central to his preaching?  If Jesus tells us a father does not give stones as bread, or offer serpents to his children seeking fish, then should we believe he asks death of the one he loves the most?  Does it mean the pound of flesh must be his own, or even that one is required?

It leads to questions about the meaning and value of atonement, an idea that is familiar but which may no longer say what we mean about God.  Maybe we can acknowledge that focus and move beyond it to an additional interpretation, seeing his death as the cost of Jesus' faith, a consequence imposed not by the Father, but by those who could not believe, who could not accept what he said and did.  If he dies because of, or at the hands of, fearful people, then fear of truth and resort to the violence that follows are the killing factors, the actions he can forgive from the Cross.

Maybe too it means sacrifice was not what God wanted, not what he needs.  Instead, faithfulness to his message as it is understood may be his interest, and in Resurrection God offers ratification of Jesus' belief and confirms his own faithfulness to the believer.  It would then say death, though painful and without value in itself, becomes important by being overcome, that faith surmounts the worst that unbelief might impose.  In this way, we are saying that dying happens, but believing goes on.

If this explains a part of what happens in Jesus' death, as well as our own, it does not explain Abraham.  To think perhaps he misunderstood is unfair.  Maybe we are left to think his belief differed from ours, that his vision of God was tempered by a world not our own, a world where deities might ask such things.  Hopefully, he learned that day that his God was not like others in this way too.  That instead of death and sacrifice his interest was in love and concern, giving not taking.  In that case, the important part of the story is in putting aside the knife rather than the decision to raise it.

Things happen when they happen. Not before.

Among the Blurs

When I take off my glasses, people become blurs. If they ask at that moment that I define who they are, then that is what they become. Better they question my vision than their reality. Better they define themselves according to what they are seeing. Each person is the expert on himself, and so only he or she knows of what the definition is made.

What Argument is Good For

If you want only to dissipate energy, arguing is fine, but expecting it will be productive beyond that is inviting frustration. It is confusing argument with discussion, and resolution with expression.

Voice Within

In Matthew's story of the Baptism, it is only Jesus who sees the Spirit and hears God's announcement. It is within him, and there is no one to confirm or share the experience. His faith must be in what he sees and has heard, and so must be stronger. He must trust himself, and his relationship with God. No one can say, "I heard it too and I saw the sign." He is alone with his faith, which if he can let it be is not alone at all.

Beyond Foolishness

Life is not long enough to permit a great deal of foolishness.

Explanations Not Enough

They were excited by his explanation of Scripture. It had a definite appeal and was exhilarating, but not until he broke bread were the disciples of Emaus able to recognize him as the Lord.

Next Steps

She has reason to feel angry, and she does. The question now is whether to continue to feel that way.

Familiarity

Agreeing what was best, all went on with what had always been done. It was not best, but it was familiar. We acted as though they were the same.

Al Welsh

Al Welsh died. I'd always expected he'd be given a Nobel Prize. That he never received one means only that someone overlooked the wonder of him. He could always ask why and what does it mean, and how can I help. He was a complete person, satisfied in himself and in his relation to God. He was, like Jesus, known by those who knew him best as a teacher. He was a learner as well. He was a wonderful man, a very kind and faithful friend.

Suffering is Not a Virtue

I tire of people trying to explain suffering, trying to make it a virtue or give it a value it cannot have. It is a mistake to think it is good, and worse to see it as a sign of election. It is not something for which we should give thanks.

The Meaning of Saying Nothing

We are on good enough terms so that I needn't say over and over what we need and want, and God needn't say he hears and understands. I know he does, and for now we are close enough to say nothing and know it has meaning.

Challenger

All across America, I suppose people are having the same conversation. Reporting on what happened with the kids and what neighbors and relatives had to say. Or else it is about work, who called or cancelled. It seems mundane, and that in a way makes it substantive as well. It keeps things alive and offers continuity.

Not Stepping on the Gas

While its implications are wide-ranging, it is surprising how simple was the confession of faith made by that eunuch to whom Philip brought the Gospel: Jesus is son of God. That was it. It encompassed everything and without it all else he might have said would have been insignificant. Of course, the eunuch's initial act of believing was in the stranger running alongside his car, looking in the window and asking what was going on. Were Philip to have done so, to most of us the answer would have been stepping on the gas.

Afraid of Life

Being afraid of life, he avoided living. He insulated himself against hurting by refusing to feel. He was then unable to love or be loved. He became nothing, albeit a nothing who knew no pain.

Respond Within

In Paul's conversion, others could see the light but the voice was inside him. Maybe it is that things shared with others are sometimes less significant, unless we first respond to what is within, those unique messages spoken to no one else.

Hard Questions

How do we reconcile irreconcilables without losing the integrity and individuality of what they are trying to be?

Harm Done

An awful lot of harm is done by people who begin by saying, "This is for your own good."

Elevating Love

We seem sometimes to ignore, or maybe sublimate, deprecating human love in our attempt to accentuate the divine. It suggests that human love is less than it is, that it cannot stand beside God's. We try to keep it at a distance, in a safe and innocuous place, a place it doesn't belong. That is not as it should be.

Love is, and is meant to be, a very human thing. Loving is an aspect of our definition. It reaches out, taking hold of lover and beloved. It is holy and good in itself, a characteristic shared with God and enlivened in our love of someone else.

It may hurt. It may disappoint. It may also fulfill, and it is less than itself if it exists only between God and us, rather than among us all. It has to be person to person, heart to heart. If not, it is not love, not as love could be.

Naming Love

He feels something and calls it love, but because she cannot respond that feeling must have a different name. Love is not a one-sided thing. It is there only when shared. It is the sharing that makes it real, that makes it itself.

Being Known

Man finds himself when he reveals or discloses himself. He becomes who he is as he makes it know to another. The same may be true of God.

Unity or Conformity

Unity cannot be equated with conformity. The unity of the Church is a oneness of worship and doctrine, but not a complete and unquestioning acceptance, a conformity rejecting the prospect of differences. To require such uniformity as a sign of unity would be to say Paul should have been a circumciser, that John should not have shouted in the desert, that Jesus should have joined the Pharisees. Questioning is questioning, not denial. Differences are signs of life and make progress come about. When it does not challenge itself, when there are no questions to be raised, then the Church is in danger of dying.

Being A Prophet

To be a prophet is to tear the fabric of which we are a part and to say what cannot willingly be heard by those we love. It is a task that should be reluctantly assumed. To want to pursue the role is to not understand its implications. To volunteer is to raise the suspicion of falseness, or foolishness

Being Themselves

People are who they are. Being themselves makes them sacred. Their relationship with God, and with other people, increases the completeness of themselves. They become more of who they had always been. In like manner, they were good to begin with, and become better - more, rather than different.

What is Said

What was said only to Jesus at his Baptism, that he is God's son, is said to the chosen apostles at Transfiguration, and in resurrection it is said to the rest. The circle widens.

Love & Fear

We are not only afraid to love and show concern, we are also threatened by those who would love and express interest in us. Maybe we are afraid we might have to respond.

Busy Being Strong

The president is so busy being strong, he betrays what seems such weakness.

God As Statuary

Most analogies are poor, still I would like to offer another. It is possible (though perhaps not fair) to compare God to a piece of statuary, a work of art that must be seen from many perspectives. Something that must be walked around, looked at from up close and far away, and for a long time and at different times. But most just stand in one place, or else we walk right by. Even when we stop and look we may not feel what it tries to express, but at least we have some idea, a perspective to share with others who have seen it, and in the sharing to understand more.

Paralax, Not Progress

It seems like progress but is only paralax, apparent movement. It is the train passing, not the platform; and it is the world going by him, not he who is on the move.

The Depth of Eternity

We are accustomed to speak of eternal life in terms of an eternity of length, and while that may be so, it is not sufficient to view it only on a horizontal plane. There is also height or depth, a vertical dimension which gives significance to present reality as well as what may yet come.

Madness In All of Us

People can be confused or frightened. They may use sense experience to say what they could not otherwise bear to hear. Their bodies may carry the pain of their minds, and when reality is overwhelming they may retreat to a safer place within, a place we call madness. All people can do all of these things. All can be hurt or afraid, and if some sometimes do so to a greater degree, does it make them sick? It does only if we insist that it does, and then perhaps because we fear they could be us.

Not all of us will be lepers, nor will we develop cancer. But all could be what we call mentally ill, and so we distance ourselves. It is them, we say. They are the different ones. They are sick, and need hospital care and medication. They need to be where we won't see them, or our own reflection in them.

Sometimes they are sick, and sometimes they may benefit from a particular care, but for all they are, they are also us. Their confusion is not so different from our own. To turn their fear into disease is to hope it will stop being what we have felt. We can pretend and we can assign names, but it is only pretense. Our fear of the fear points, rather than to a distinction, to our weakness, our humanity, that most common of bonds.

God's Clarity

We must sometimes assume God's will is the same as our own, that what we consider best is what God also thinks correct. And if this is really not the case, if what we want is not how God would have it, he would do well to make himself a bit more explicit.

Hard to Know

It is sometimes hard to know whether we are seeing the glint of madness or the light of revelation.

Caring About the Outcome

As creator or life-giver, does God not owe more to the process and have greater responsibility for its outcome? He was first to reach, first to offer and first to care, and doesn't caring mean wanting most of all?

Chains

Mr. Williams says chains of gold are chains nonetheless.

Meetings

At most meetings there are people who validly point to difficulties inherent in a proposed project or activity. Even though they serve a purpose, they can be very disheartening. Just once we ought to act, even though it may be hard and even if we might be wrong. Who said things should be easy or that we had to be right all of the time?

For The Cause

What happened to all those willing, and sometimes even anxious, to die for a cause?

I don't know, maybe they all died.

No Choice But to Stay

People say, "If you don't like the Church as it is, get out." They also say, "If you don't like the country the way it is, leave." They do not realize it is because a person loves that he must sometimes criticize, urging that it get better rather than stay satisfied. He cannot leave and there is nowhere else to go. His heart is there. There is no choice but to stay - and make people mad. Leaving it wouldn't help; changing it might.

Emotional Junk Mail

They are in life responding to all the emotional junk mail, treating it as though it were significant communication and leaving no time or energy for more important matters. Perhaps the junk serves a purpose, providing busy-ness and a way to avoid what could be too hard to face.

The Wisdom of Knowing Less

We can perhaps demythologize too much. We can end up knowing so much, but having so little. In finding the facts, we can destroy the beauty.

Leaving Home

Aeneas left home carrying his gods on one shoulder and his father on the other. In what may be a less graphic - though just as real - way, so do we all.

Success & Failure

Only if there was a chance of success can we truly call it failure.

Trusting

The prophet Jeremiah feels God should maybe look-out for God's people, that he should stop being so tough on Israel, in general, and in particular the prophet. There are times I feel the same way, times when God seems to be fouling things up, especially me, and he is missing the point of just about everything, and would he please stop. Please, smarten up. But when I complain, when I ask about it, he doesn't answer. He doesn't apologize. He won't even try to explain. Still, I think maybe he does understand, maybe better than I do; and even if he doesn't, there is little to do but go on trusting.

God's Interlocutors

I thank God for people I have known, especially those who can act as though they have seen God's face and know his first name, and try to tell us what he said.

Reactions to Us

We cannot be responsible for reactions to us. Whether people accept, like, hate, tolerate, or venerate is within themselves and not our concern. Yet I think we sometimes alter our message or ourselves, so someone will look favorably upon us, so they will recognize themselves rather than us in who we are.

Despite what they say and in spite of the evidence, God is not a giant spider

Talking to Walls

We sometimes talk to walls. Not because they do not hear, but because they will not answer.

God's Role

It is sometimes easier to say God has no role in day-to-day functioning, to say his casual role is inapplicable to specific situations. The alternative is to see him as responsible for some terrible things, things inconsistent with whom we want him to be.

How to Solve Problems

To deal with a problem we must first give it a name. It need not be the right name. We can change it as we get to know it better, but if it has no name, no identity, then we have nothing to alter, no place to begin and no way to know when we have finished.

Like God Prays

They prayed like God must pray. They prayed like they meant it. The words were not just words. They instead said what was in their heart, and they said it for all to hear.

What Relationships Depend On

Some relationships depend on actions, on doing or responding to what is done. It is OK to some extent but allows no joining at a more essential level. That can occur in any situation but it is necessarily incomplete, and there is a danger of it being the extent of our relationship to God if doing, not being, becomes what is shared.

Forgiveness

It is hard to forgive, especially when you are right or have been very wronged. Maybe it would be easier if we could share in Jesus' rejection of what he had wanted to say and be. We needn't be alone, even in this, and we are no less right, though the wrong may seem less, if we can forgive.

Being

All things are being, in that they "be." As human beings we go a step further by "being human."

Adventures in Faith

We talk in symbols and metaphors hard pressed to withstand the eternal "what and why." When scrutinized they cannot pass beyond their ascribed meaning and so reveal inadequacy. Of course, there are some things which must live in metaphor or sign. By nature they are poetic and delicate, not meant to be probed. They make no claim to finality (though they may have a right to immortality); these are not the current concern.

Rather, of interest are the eternal answers, truths and definitions: the final statements not admitting the prospect of limitation. Once assumed they become final irrevocable points beyond which there is no need to go, or to even want to venture.

But in truth there is always more to be said, and said with reason and conviction, even if still incomplete. Very often all that is offered as a next step is a denial, a negative statement about what went before. That is not in itself enough but it seems to require such vehemence only because opposed to so definitive a formulation.

It is always possible, and desirable, to go beyond, no matter how much uncertainty may prompt or derive from the probing. Some things may have to be left behind to make room for what is new. It is alright to do so, and easier done if we recognize there are no ultimates, no points beyond which we may not go. It is alright if it becomes an endless refinement of belief and thought. In voyages into faith and thought, as in other adventures, there is no need to fear we will fall over the end of the earth and tumble into a terrible pit of despair.

Parenting & Growth

Relationships between people and their parents seem to founder when roles do not grow, when the dependence and giving that characterized its early stages do not give way to a mutuality that acknowledges distinctions while fostering the growth of both parties. It is a process that ought also apply to our relationship with God, allowing each the completeness of ourselves and a mutuality built no longer on need but on a desire to share. There is no freedom in need, no choice about union if without it one may be harmed. It is the child's relationship to parent, not that of an adult.

Futile Searching

He was searching for what had not been hidden so it was no surprise that he never found it.

Being God

People sometimes act as if I were God. They expect me to have his wisdom and make his judgments. They do so because they are afraid to accept the Godness in themselves. I think that is it, but whatever the reason I wish they would stop. I find it hard to be God for them. It is hard enough just being me.

Caution

Peter did not think it necessary to caution Jesus until it came to the issue of dying and rising. He seemed able to permit rejection by the priests and leaders. The prospect of adversity maybe supported his need to be special, but that dying and then the rising. That made no sense. It was not done and Peter needed his life and belief to make sense. Maybe it is the making sense, the trying to introduce reasonableness into what was only open to belief, that prompted Jesus' rebuke. Perhaps that was the Satan to be put behind him.

Part of Life

He told them Lazarus' illness would not end in death, but he would have to pass through it. It was a part of life neither he nor Lazarus would have chosen, but it made possible and made real the raising of them both.

Breaking Bread

Had they not recognized him in the breaking of the bread would Jesus still have left them?

Process of Resurrection

Resurrection is not so much a fact as a process. It is a day-to-day and on-going activity accomplishing itself in the overcoming of the dying in ourselves and of the people and things around us. This refutation of deadness, however, does not permit the mere recycling of old life. Coming to life, beginning to be all over requires an entirely new life, a new way of living, something as new as the new day in which it will be breathed and exhausted, making way for what is to come next.

We don't re-live old days but rather re-vitalize the whole of life, just as the resurrected Jesus was unlike the one who had died.

Pain

She carries so much pain, reluctant to let it go, afraid the alternative is hurting those who caused her sorrow, but if she would choose not to offer them pain neither must she keep it. It is alright if no one hurts.

Carpenter's Son

He was only the carpenter's son. They knew his brothers and sisters, and his family lived just down the street. They thought he had no right to wisdom, and wonders should be beyond him. They just couldn't believe and so what they wanted came to be, and it was over. Nothing happened, just like they knew it would.

The Spirit

If you could grab hold and pin it down, would you still call it the Spirit? Its name implies a lack of definition and form. It is the Spirit who offers possibilities or outlines, not going beyond the suggestion of what might be. At the same time the Spirit is Holy, with the same holiness seen in the Father's creative and the Son's redemptive acts.

Potential

At some point his "I'm going to" became "I could have." The plans became excuses. He kept his potential intact.

Seeing Marriage

They were talking of being married fifty years. One said it would be wonderful, representing a half century of sacrifice, of surviving the suffering and difficulty of life. It made the fifty years sound like a million. Another said it should be seen as a celebration of love and closeness, of a life spent in discovery and fulfillment. It sounded like but a day.

How we see it makes it what it is. How it is lived, what people bring to it or allow it to give makes marriage real for them. And so even though in each marriage there may be sacrifice as well as love, and difficulty beside fulfillment, the dominant factor is what we allow it to be. What we will see is what is.

Loaves

Had they understood what the loaves had meant then his walking on water would not have seemed startling. It would have been dismissed as a lesser event, but they hadn't understood and so responded to the sparkle of it all.

Their Different God

Their God was different. He gave as well as took. It was sharing, not a one way traffic. Other gods demanded. They thundered and threatened. They required statues with angry faces and bodied modeled on our own. But their God cared. He loved them and they shared in a specialness the sharing created. He had no need of sacrifice. It added nothing to him, and he had meaning apart from their response. He needed no cajoling, no groveling. He hadn't to threaten and so they could learn he was real.

Conflict

Frustrated by truths that conflict with belief we cling to the safer of the two.

Forgiveness

Can we forgive God for the stupidity of death? Have we a choice?

Church's Youth

The Church is very young. It is still in its infancy and like all infants it is trying to know who and what it is, and where it is going in a world it does not yet understand. So it has to try and fail and guess and grope but it has time and in time it will learn.

Shades

Jesus is black, yellow, brown and red. He comes in more shades than "basic white."

Poverty

Today we buried someone who was poor, so poor the family had to beg for a grave. And because of their poverty some thought they had no right to their grief and sorrow. They thought instead they should be grateful and nothing more.

It is symptomatic of so much thought that excludes from humanity those who do not, or cannot, attain or what have not, for whatever reason, conformed to what seems a norm. The poor are excluded more than most. Their human-ness is denied, and in denial of it we are denying our own.

Benefits of Belief

People without belief have no one to be mad at when terrible things happen.

Indefinite

A number of things have to stay indefinite. Exactness would destroy them.

Activity

She defines herself in terms of activity and when not doing something she ceases to be.

Mom - 26 years

Stateless

God is without nationality and bound to bless the bombs of no one.

Hiding Humanity

Institutions and images challenge and confront one another. Ideologies and opinions come into conflict. But behind the image is a person. The institution is ultimately flesh and blood. The opinion conceals who stands behind it, nor do ideologies live apart from their disciples. Nothing survives as an idea. It must be sustained in the mind and heart of the believer. However, it is far easier, so much safer, to hide humanity in a movement. To be a something attaching a something else is as secure as it is impersonal.

Interest

He seems to have lost interest in living. Not that dying has any appeal, but there is so little vitality in a life that cannot be shared. It doesn't seem worth the effort.

Unspoken

Unspoken words sometimes say more, but can also hurt more.

The Prodigal's Brother

What about the son who stayed home, the prodigal's brother? What can we say about him? He did not leave. He did what he thought he'd been told. He had, in fact, every right to feel righteous and I think he did. He was faithful, but at the expense of growth and maybe he hid in his constancy. He did not change.

The prodigal who went out was not the same as the one who returned. He had taken a chance and so became different. He lost everything, but maybe in losing he found as well. Maybe he found himself. Not so his brother. He stayed in the womb that was his home, not knowing there was a need to look beyond. He stayed where there was no searching, no losing, no danger. Maybe that is why he never became someone about whom a parable might be told. Maybe it is too why he could not understand.

Because he never asked a question he was unable to see an answer. He played it too safe and so ceased to be anything more than right, and just a bit dull. He never grew, though he may have thought he did, and maybe at the end his story was seen to be a tragedy, a history of what might have been.

Small Circle

We have control only over the small circle in which we stand. This is so even if we wish, or act as though, we had control over others or were influenced by them so that choices we made could not be our own. We decide about us. It is a power we cannot cede, a right we cannot take even when it is offered.

Compromise

I hear what he is saying and I know what he means. I can even sympathize with his point of view. But I still disagree.

Rainbows

Sometimes I feel I am chasing rainbows. Since I cannot really stop I can only hope they are worth pursuing.

Problem

Having named the problem he was accused of causing it.

Mixed Message

Today I met a man who felt God was speaking to him. But while he spoke distinctly God's message was not always clear. Parts seemed to make sense. Some words were easily understood. Yet when he tried to put it together something was missing. They key to it all was not actually there. Hiding behind my image I did not reply, "I know just what you mean."

God does speak. He tries to communicate. We try to say who he is and what he would like to mean. Yet his message can sometimes be garbled, maybe because having said it as best he can he must then trust us to unravel or interpret, maybe filling in the gaps or offering the key so there will be a meaning to give value to his words.

He trusts us then to act on what we thought was heard, assuring us we would never be wrong. Because of his faith in us he believes in our reply.

Exceedingly

We used to say, "I have sinned exceedingly." We don't say that anymore. If we sin at all it is certainly not exceedingly.

Incomplete

In the beginning God created all kinds of beautiful things. He made suns, moons and stars. He made earth and mountains. He fashioned oceans, rivers and any number of animals. But it was not complete until he made man. And man was incomplete until there was woman. Only when there were people could he say it was good.

Sometimes love can hurt more than anything else in the world

The Seed

Perhaps the road had wanted to receive the seed. Maybe the stones tried to nurture it. Maybe even the weeds sought to make it into something. But they couldn't. No matter how much they tried, they couldn't be earth. They would receive according to their nature, and it would be better and mean more than trying to be something else.

Before Meaning

Before determining what something means, we do well to ask what it is. When something occurs it's to be named, a step we often overlook in our rush to clarify and interpret it, never realizing we are making clear what was never there.

Easier & Simpler

It is easier to tell you what to do than ask what you might like. Simpler for both if one of us takes charge, but it is not necessarily better. Not for either of us.

Legion

It was night and he sought no day. It was winter but he wanted no spring. He dreamed of death and thought of dying, and sometimes he thought they'd already come. He was as he was because he knew nothing better. He thought it had to be this way, and so it was.

To him God meant judge; life meant suffering; existence itself meant only resignation; and love meant nothing at all. He endured. He survived until he ceased to be. His name, unfortunately, is Legion.

Why Naming Matters

Things are what we call them. They are the name we give to them, and the name determines, permits or ratifies the action following from it.

Today

You can always think today is when the miracle will occur.

Creation

They were saying God created so there would be something, then someone, to reflect his glory - a rather self-centered or egocentric and decidedly unworthy notion. If we call the process sharing rather than reflecting, making it participation, inviting creation into the glory, it becomes more worthy, more valued action.

Mistake

God, it is too late to make the difference I wanted. It is too late to undo the death, and eternal life is not the life I need. I think you have made a terrible mistake.

Touch

The leper had to be cured and Jesus could have done it with a word. Instead, he touched him.

Wanting to Walk on Water

Peter asked could he walk on the water and Jesus said yes. But the apostle was so busy listening to the words that he missed their meaning. The words made no sense and realizing this he began to sink. The message or the meaning was that he could trust and had to believe. That he hadn't understood even though it made all the sense in the world.

In many ways what we say and do and how we are, are not unlike what Peter had tried. It is like wanting to walk on water. Wanting but doubting it can be, so attuned to the prospect of "no" that we are unprepared when the answer is "yes." We know it should be able to be done, and so we are content labeling our wishes as strange and somewhat senseless.

But the meaning makes them real, more real than words. More real too than staying in the boat, more real than sinking. Beyond what is seen is the reality. Behind the words is their meaning. Aside from what should be is what really can become.

Standing

Eventually, even Buddha had to stand up. Only so much can be learned sitting under a tree.

Housing Court

The judge at housing court was a good person. He was very nice and spoke with civility. He wanted to be reasonable and tried very hard. I am sure he has done many kind things and had reason to think himself fair. But he was trying to listen to something he knew nothing about. He was deciding on what he had never seen, a quality of life he had never had to live. The facts were all there but had no flesh. The decision was not his to make.

Not Poets

They thought themselves poets because they could coin glib phrases. Really they were coiners of glib phrases.

Risks

Because I love you I may sometimes hurt you. Love is like that. If I trust you, you may one day cause me pain. It is that way with trust. But because we believe in each other it does not end with the hurt or pain, but grows into something more. If love is real, if we can risk its growing, it can be what God is and what we are meant to be.

Beyond Birth

How often do you see pictures of George Washington in swaddling clothes? When last did you see Columbus depicted in his mother's arms? Have you recently celebrated the boyhood of Marco Polo or the childhood of Lenin? The important thing about these people is not that they were children, nor that they were born. Those are foregone conclusions.

What makes them significant is what they would later do. Why then do we keep Jesus a child, in the celebration of his birth making him a baby once again, a child who for some never grows up? Why is it hard to let him climb out of the manger, and down from his mother's arms? Why don't we let him become a man, the one who lived and died and rose, the one who brought salvation? Are the aspects beyond his birth so hard to hold?

On Isaac

In Isaac's death, the sacrifice would be of what might have been, the loss of what might have been shared and of a life beyond his own. It would have been an invitation to loneliness and an emptiness too great for God to permit.

Knowing Around

We are often content to just know about a person, which may be like "knowing around" him. It is the opposite of knowing him as the vital person he is in and to himself. We can do this same thing with Jesus, about whom we have a few facts and a bit of conjecture. Most are content with such knowledge about or around him. Maybe because it frees us from having to see and touch or feel and understand the person he is, and to whom we might have to respond.

Accepting Ourselves

Accepting others is important. So is acceptance of ourselves, all of our selves, recognizing who we are and that we have limitations, shortcomings, hang-ups and a mountain of problems. But having these as part of us is all right. They are part of being human. They complete us in that role.

Naming Demons

Before he could call them out of the man Jesus had to ask the name of the demons that possessed him. It's that way with demons. The nameless ones retain their power, remaining hidden within. Name them, then call them out where you can convert or cast them aside.

What Has to Be Done

I think sometimes I may have to cry over every place we've been and over all we shared, knowing tears will make it no better. It is just what has to be done.

Welcome the Guests

The king went to all that trouble (sending our servants, letting them be killed, sending troops, burning cities, sending more servants and all the while keeping the banquet warm) just so someone would come, and when they get there he starts throwing them out. Hardly the most intelligent of actions, unless the throwing is not part of the story. Unless the king has begun to slip perhaps the story should end when he goes in to see and welcome the guests.

Divorce

At the best of times divorce is not good and it gets no better with time. Even when it is the most tolerable alternative it is, and remains, a source of pain. To be the parent leaving home somehow seems even worse. He is, of course, invited back from time to time. He is there to witness graduations, some birthdays and maybe a Christmas or two. He also sees the children on vacations or weekends.

But life does not get lived on weekends or holidays. Instead it is day to day, and when nothing too important is happening. It does not occur on those distracting and none too real days we call special.

Seeing Sadness

She is old and in mind is older than her body. She looks at so many people and things saying, "isn't it sad." The only sadness, however, is her seeing it where none exists.

Simplicity

Are we oversimplifying when we say God is love? Not really. Not if we realize the depth and beauty that love is, and has the ability to become.

Naming Things

At Creation God said to the man, "Your job is to name all things. Call them something and that's what they'll be." He would be giving identity and meaning, calling our their essence. The job hasn't changed and is given to each of us. Name the people and things in your world so they can have value, but this time begin with you. Begin by naming who you are within yourself so you can later say who you are, or wish to be, in relation to the rest of what you find.

Concert

The audience tried hard to feel what Brel had felt. They wanted to share the fear and hope and defiance of his music. They reached out to absorb the flame, hatred or passion they thought was there. But when the lights came up they sensed that for them it had to end. Their's was not the freedom of those whose hearts sing as fully as their voices. The show was over. Reality closed over them and they went home.

Sheep Gate

The man at the Sheep Gate did not answer the question. Jesus had not asked did he want to be pushed into the water.

Files

Because we have a file on someone it does not necessarily follow that we are dealing with his concerns. And the size of that file is no indication of the depth of our response.

Fine Line

It is uncertain whether he is being idealistic or self-destructive.

God's Power

If we say God has all the power we have taken away his inclination to trust us. If we say he has none we have taken away his ability to respond.

Holding Too Tightly

They hold tightly to what isn't even there and wait for a future that cannot come. Grasping air because they see nothing else they run from what threatens to be. To soon must it become real. The air will slip away. Make-believe life will be swallowed by a very harsh and real situation, one permitting no more dreams. Then they will become old, though they are hardly more than children. They will be bitter. They will be angry. They will have been cheated. What for others might have been, for them never had a chance.

Dad - 1 year.

Without

There will, I know, be other good things but without you, all that's best is over.

Church's Survival

The Church will survive. In spite of us and our need for or resistance to change, the Church will be. It will outlive our dreams and outlast our disappointments. It will live beyond our hope or weather our bitterness. Through all else the Church continues. I would like to hope it will be better, more complete and more itself, for our having been a part of it, a part that tried to make it do more than survive.

Logic

They came to a logical conclusion but fortunately were able to reject it.

Unreliable Time

Time as measurement is unreliable. What was so new now seems so old. What is over can look as if it was just beginning. Some things are so quickly over, even when we wished they would be forever. Others have no end when they should never have been.

Peacemakers

The Gospel says, "blessed are peacemakers; they will be called God's children." It fails to mention they will be called many other things as well.

No Need for Observers

Some have been "observing the situation." For so long have they been doing it that they became part of the extraneous scenery. Life has no need of observers. It is not a spectator sport. Nor does it need referees or judges. All life wants or needs are participants.

Prayer & Love

Prayer has at least this much in common with being in love: one can pray by oneself but it means more when shared with others, even though praying, like loving, can be difficult at the start.

Interpreting the Epiphany

The story of the kings, like many such, is a story for each who reads it. For me it is about looking, and wandering. They were, I'd like to think, people who knew something but wanted to know more, who had seen a part but knew there was more to see. Sometimes they looked in the wrong places, knocked at the wrong doors, doors like Herod's, but from the mistakes they learned, even if only that this was not what they sought.

I'd like to think too that maybe they'd followed other stars before seeing this one, that they'd seen Messiahs and would-be saviors to whom they could say, "goodbye" or "thank you," or whatever would signal a new search.

And when they got to Bethlehem, when they stood in this star's light, what could they say? Not very much that would make sense to a child. They could give only gifts, gifts which, like most children's toys, were inappropriate to his age and understanding. It seems all they could do was look, and hopefully see; be present and maybe understand what had happened. They'd come as kings seeking an equal, a fitting thing to do. He was one of them despite his stable. It was a kingship, not of royalty, but of humanity. They shared a common blood, as do we all.

The story ends with them being sent back another way, on a path through a different land and maybe one with a different star. I think maybe in our seeing of the Lord each is given a road and a star to follow. We can only go where it leads, stopping on the way to look and wonder, being glad to be where we've been and glad too about what is next, knowing the future like the past will be filled with God.

Beyond Sin

As we move from a sin oriented Church to one in which goodness and holiness become given factors, we find we have less to say and little to do. Time and effort directed toward caution and condemnation have to be filled, but we're not sure with what. There is a temptation to run into the past, to dust off and rework those old notions, but we know it is past, that it can be no more. We are beyond self-deception and dancing to dirges.

Acceptance

Acceptance of you, of what and who you are, does not mean we then agree but it at least allows us to talk and hopefully to understand.

Ignoring problems is not the same as solving them

Choice

If we cannot always win we can at least choose with whom we will lose.

No Evil People

No matter how rotten they seem, people are not evil. They can be afraid or threatened or unsure. They may be unable to love, trust, or feel. But they are not evil. It would be easier if they were. We could blame them for that. But no one can be blamed for what he lacks, condemned because of emptiness.

Can't

We sometimes say "can't," but mean, "won't, don't want to, are afraid to, or would much rather not."

Now

If at times we can be concerned with faraway things and long term realities, we cannot invest too much time in them. They have limited impact or influence upon this day and the present need. We can give them moments but nothing more.

All reality is filtered through the importance of this day as it is being lived. The present makes demands that make past and future unavailable. Maybe such concentration of the present and close by is a factor in our relationship with God. Maybe God, at times, seems uninvolved in our sphere, a bit too remote to be important.

Disciples

The disciples of John were sincere men asking a sincere question. When they heard the answer they went away. Jesus never knew if they understood. Perhaps they went to ask someone else or to look in another place, or maybe it was to tell what they had heard and seen.

Practical

God is not practical. He is unconcerned with expediency. Were we to judge by our standard he would be in a category with the fool concerned with beauty and goodness, who is uninterested in power, discounting its worth in favor of finding love in people and value in creation. Of course, God, being who he is, can afford to be impractical. And being who we are, we can too.

Defense

Why is it, God, I end up defending you more than I want, saying that what seems so dumb must be beyond your control rather than part of your plan.

Shadow

The power we thought others had was only there because we thought they had it. When we realized the control over us was ours, we were free of what seemed to be. The shadow was shown to be no more than that.

Best at Sadness

He says he's best at feeling sad, that he'd not recognize other feelings and might not feel at home in them, though he would like to try.

Heaven

Heaven. Where is it; what is it; what does it mean? It's not where people used to think it was, and some even feel it may be nowhere at all. Maybe it is just a state of mind or being, or something that is not yet. Perhaps questions about heaven have no answers, yet they have to be asked, especially since we say people are going there. We say too that Jesus is already there and waiting for us.

Is it possible that it is merely a way of speaking, a manner of expression having no significance in itself, but which can be replaced by no other word? Is it a symbol more than it is an address?

Is it above the sky? Is it beyond time and space? Is it outside reality as we have so far experienced it? Whatever, wherever or whenever it is, it is a question that needs study, but only conjecture is available. It should be considered, but maybe not as much as other more pressing concerns. Maybe it suffices, at least for now, to assume a time will come when we will find out first-hand. Until then, not knowing where or what it is or will be, as well as what goes on there, is all right.

If we are unsure of the nature of heaven, we have at least the consolation that even less can or need be said about anything such as hell.

Revelation

Revelation is not over. In truth it's hardly begun. God has not stopped. He is still trying to reveal himself. He still speaks his word, a word we are free to hear and to which we can respond. We may hear it differently and may find it is spoken to each in a different way, but all should listen trying to understand. Then proclaim what we thought it meant. There may be no shortage of interpretations, but maybe there should be. We are unique as people. We can be unique as hearers.

Loneliness

I was talking, or rather listening, to a lonely man. He had plenty of things, but he is without people. Maybe he is unable to get along with others even though he may want to, even though he wishes there were someone to do whatever a friend does. It is a sad thing, and I think maybe aloneness is a worse sickness than anything else.

Fun God

Eckhart speaks of the fun of God. It sounds far better than his joy or his pleasure.

Love

When we love we give a part of ourselves, a part that dies with the loss of those to whom we gave it, but in return we are left with the parts of themselves they shared. We keep who we were together even if the loss never ends.

How Not Why

James wanted to know why Grandpa died. I said it was because his heart was unable to work. It could not move the blood through his body, and though the doctors had tried to help he died. His body could not live anymore. As he sometimes does, James gave a tolerant look, the one that acknowledges, but does not blame me for, not hearing what was asked. I had not told him why. Instead I told him how, and it was not enough, even though it was all I had to offer.

Blame for Nothing

If we can hedge or qualify enough, we can end up saying nothing and no one can blame us for nothing.

Getting Better

They say they want to be good. That was never an issue. We started good and remain so. The issue at hand is how to be better.

Our Best

We do the best we can, and even when it's no damned good it's still the best.

Where Jesus Is

It would be easier were Jesus present only in lovable people. He is, unfortunately, also present in the creeps.

Happiness & Contentment

Happiness is what occurs and is a feeling engendered by an event or a moment. Contentment is more a state. Without the intensity of happiness it is longer lasting, a pleased satisfaction that becomes a characteristic of, rather than an occurrence in, life. Many of us have known happiness. Few, I fear, are content.

Guilt Is A Zucchini

Guilt is a zucchini. Everyone has a crop of it and all are anxious to give it away, as though it were a gift rather than a burden. No one wants it, but most smile and tuck it away. Despite the imaginative recipes, when you have prepared it or disguised it, it remains a zucchini. Better not to bury it, since you risk multiplying it. Better still not to accept it when offered.

Shared

There are so many things that can now be shared with no one else, words that have no meaning when spoken to someone other than you.

Next Steps

We spend so much time looking ahead. We are so busy planning that next step that we never get to take it.

Prayer

Prayer is necessary, but not prayer that pleads and apologizes. That is not as important or necessary as prayer that asks God who he is, and shares with him who we are and what we do. Prayer has to treat God as an equal, as someone capable of understanding, a person wanting to listen, care and share in our lives. Prayer focused on real things and true relationships takes God seriously, and is of more value to him and to us. Far more than what is but groveling or begging, a process making both parties nothing to be taken too seriously.

Marriage

Marriage is unlike other relationships because it is a choice of one another and the sharing of essences.

Lents & Easters

We spend so much time in our Lents we may not recognize the Easters.

The Prodigal's Father

The prodigal's father, knowing his son might make mistakes and might lose all he had, still took a chance. He had to, since his investment was in the son, not what he gave him. And when his son failed, when he threw it all away, it made no difference. The things were gone. The child returned. Because he loved him he did not merely await his return. Rather he ran out to meet him. Not to say, "tell me you're sorry," but to say, "try again."

The Naming of Jesus

The naming of Jesus is a significant feast since it celebrates a time when he truly became someone, when he could be called by name. He could be identified as someone unlike any other. It was also a time when he became one with a people, part of a nation. Now he could answer to the name Jesus, and the title Jew.

Permission Not Required

You need no one's permission but your own. You are as free as you let yourself be, and if no one agrees it needn't make a difference. How, and even if, they respond is for you to accept or decline, and you give it the meaning you want it to have.

Averageness

If everyone were average, the curve would be a straight line.

Church's Truth

In the Church's history there have arisen certain definitions. Some are said to be "of the faith," and so beyond denial. Might it be better to say that at moments in its course the Church has indicated that particular things seem most reasonable, that at that time and with the understanding that prevailed something seemed beyond serious question; but with time and an evolution in understanding such articulations of truth could again be open to debate and expansion, to re-formulation or even exclusion of them from consideration. In this way definition reflects the Church's thought and belief at one time, but not necessarily for all time.

Destination

At times we seem on a road leading to no apparent destination. What will we do when we get there?

Pain & Love

When faced with no pure form - no embodiment of either good or evil - we are necessarily ambivalent. The people who cause us such pain are those who also love us so much. To grasp one is to risk the other.

Needing Each Other

To do great things people need people. It is the same with Christ. The salvation he accomplished would mean little without us. His life, work and gospel need us to make them living and real here and now. We also need him. Without Christ so much of what we do accomplish would be as nothing, here and now and hereafter.

Walk on Water

Planning to walk on water but wearing your rubbers suggests a certain lack of faith.

Foolish

I sometimes feel foolish. I wonder should I feel that way more often.

Yes & No

Saying yes to different things, they said no to each other. Both thought they were right. Maybe both were wrong.

Solace

We used to console those who would provide solace. We are now tolerating or enduring those who would care for us, waiting until they are satisfied in their gift. Then we can be free to mourn and move beyond our sadness.

Entertainment

It is sad how he thinks the world is there to entertain him, that the times we are not amusing we are nothing.

What I Do Not Believe

I am reasonably sure what I do not believe. I am fairly certain what I find less acceptable in the Church's practice. These, however, are negative assessments and so do not suffice as foundation for belief. Our faith is not in what is absent, or in the fact or absence. There needs to be a positive aspect, one proclaiming what is or what is hoped.

Fundamental to religious faith is realization of the presence of God and of his attempt to influence reality in a good and holy way. It is saying, perhaps for no reason other than my desire to believe it is so, that God is and he is as more than a principle. He instead quite personally present as a source of love and he shares, trusting and believing in us.

He is, I believe, part of all that is and his interest is in the perfection of the creation he brought to be. God accepts and respects; he wishes us the fullness of which we are capable but allows us to be it or not. He partakes rather than dominates. He trusts and he loves. He is a believer in the goodness of what is and has faith that it will become better. His eyes see beyond failure or weakness. Unlike ourselves, God tolerates contradiction and ambiguity.

He would perhaps wish progress proceeded at a quicker rate, but still he fosters our role in redemption even when that leads to regression or occasional collapse. This is a manifestation of his faith. There are others and he communicates them in so many ways. The ways I know best are the Church and Jesus, but his message is as clearly spoken in other tongues and under other forms. The message can vary with the people who hear and speak it, but because it is God's it remains true.

Christ, I believe, is his child, as are we all, born of flesh he said was holy and confirmed in belief that God acts with and in us, making us more of who he is by becoming one with us. Like his father, Jesus is a model or trust and belief. In his life he could rely on an unfolding message, trusting its fulfillment would make more sense than some of the elements of which it was built, believing his living of what he saw as God's message was no less than that, and was in some ways made more. In the uncertainty that made real his faith Jesus enlivened a doctrine that repeated in clearer ways what the Father had said from the start: he loves and needs us, and is fully himself in the sanctity he shares and in that trust taking shape in our striving to be one. That message is ratified in resurrection, the validation of Jesus' life and of his own believing.

The faith he received from and shares with his father is handed on and shared in the Church, but Church does not stand between us and God. Rather it is the bond between us, the expression and formulation of our union. Because it is a sign of faith, ours and God's, it can be a source of uncertainty, a clouded mirror reflecting what seems to be while promising there is more. It is a faith institution, handing on and wanting to understand the mystery of God's presence, his apartness, his hopes and his need. It is a growing thing, a contradictory and fearful thing, like all that is human. It becomes different without becoming less. It has all the weaknesses and strength we bring to it.

Church is a praying community, and that may be its essential feature. Church prays. It worships. It speaks. It communicates with God, and while each of us tries, the Church is how we try to do it together.

There are other beliefs I hold. I believe in you and in me and in us together. I believe in the future of our faith, and of our world. I believe in the possibilities open to us, but these, I think, derive from the more basic things I already tried to say. Believing in God's belief makes the rest possible and enlivens what so far is.

Miracles

They expect miracles. His mistake is feeling bound to provide them.

New & Old

He said put no new wine in the old skins. He did not say throw away the wine that was in them. Old and new can remain. Each is complete in itself. If not now they do not mix well perhaps when the new has aged and the old has mellowed.

God can do impossible things. That's why he's God.

Dad's Foreward

These are reflections, thoughts that are sometimes random and may be contradictory. They are what came to mind in different settings or with certain people. They refer to my work as a priest and then as a psychologist. There are references to family and friends and strangers, those who, whether intending to or not, left an imprint on my life. They are what I have over time written on the backs of envelopes and in the margins of appointment books, thoughts that seemed if not important then true. Or else it seemed a question worth asking even if the answer was not so definitive, and even if it only expanded the uncertainty into new directions.

What is the common element in all of this, the thread unifying these thoughts and remembrances? Given the contradiction and diversity what is the aspect belonging to it all? The unifying aspect here, as in any such collection, is the individual who has thought and written them, the person who selected which of so many should be collected into this book. The common element is me, as it will be when you begin collecting your own doubts, thoughts, concerns and reflections. For all that changes in us and around us, the constant is ourselves. Though changing we are the same, only moreso.

We are not what we do, how we act, or even what we write. We are not just our belief, our uncertainty, our thoughts or what they lead us to. We are instead all of those things, and that is but the start. Being is the constant and being who we are makes it constantly new, ever unique and always just the same. The sharing of that being offers each of us new choices. I hope that is what you find here, choices: opportunities to reflect upon something new, or to ratify what you had always known.