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.