Saturday, September 16, 2017

September 16, 2017


SEEING  IS  BELIEVING! 
THAT  IS, IF  YOU  BELIEVE


See the light in the darkness....
See the green in between  
the slide of dark panels of darkness ...
as you walk through the dark forest ....
See the signs of God's green hope - 
light tipped leaves - light dipped leaves - 
when you're  scared of your steps .... 
putting one foot in front of the other - 
step by step - across the forest's ferny flaw*....



© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
*Cf. The Listeners [1912] by
Walter de la Mare

Friday, September 15, 2017

September 15, 2017


MATER  DOLOROSA 

You see her statue in many churches,
with swords stuck in her body like a
bull in a bullring - before the fall.

You see her face on the evening TV
screen - holding her dead child in her arms
with a scream on the skin of her face.

You see her face on the face of mother
nature - our planet - Mater Dolorosa.
There is suffering, suffering, everywhere.



© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
Today, September 15, is the feast of
Our  Lady of Sorrows. Should they
have switched it down to September 11?


Thursday, September 14, 2017


LEADERSHIP: 3 POINTS

INTRODUCTION

The title of my talk is, “Leadership: 3 Points.”

I have given a talk on leadership at this COSA ceremony at the beginning of another St. Mary’s High School year - every year now for the last 14 years.

Thank you for this opportunity to think about this topic of leadership again.

At 77 years of age - I would guess that I still have a few words about this topic.
So I sat down and listed 10 possibilities. Then I picked 3.

I’ll save the other points for another year.

POINT NUMBER ONE: ASK QUESTIONS - FOR EXAMPLE?

A leader asks questions.

A leader listens for the questions people have.

A leader has to address his or her own questions about leadership.

A leader is often expected to give answers. I prefer to stress questions before answers.

And I think the # 1 question to ask is, “For example?”

Asking that question gets the other person to think. It gets them to be more specific. The for example question forces clarity.

For example what are the specific issues we need to address when we talk about leadership?  Give me some examples.

So leaders ask other people questions - more than giving answers. and the number one question to ask is, “For example?”

I would think that example speaks louder than words - in fact, words to me are reflections and thoughts after the fact - after experiencing some example.

Looking forward, some of you will become coaches and captains of teams and for starters you will imitate the example of those you saw on the teams you were on.

Looking forward, some of you will be in organizations in this school - and future schools.

For example, some of you will experience COSA here at St. Mary’s. Those on COSA will influence you - in what you do and what you don’t do - how you saw people lead and not lead - how someone ran a meeting well or not so well. And what you will learn are the examples you liked and didn’t like.

Looking forwards, most of you will become parents, leading kids into the future, and you will do parenting the way you saw your parents do parenting. There will be things your parents did that you won’t do.
“For example?”

“For example?” is a great life question - to ask it a good 10,000 times before you die.

When someone is complaining - when someone is accusing you of something, ask - say, “For example?”

Let me give one of my favorite examples. It’s How To Use a Microphone.

COSA leaders - all leaders - learn how to speak loud and clear when you stand  up to speak up.

At different times in life, you will go to the microphone.

When I get a chance,  I like to tell anyone who will listen, “Here’s how I learned to use a microphone.”

For example, someone says to you, “You were at the microphone and it’s obvious, you don’t know how to use a microphone.”

So you answer back, “Sorry! So can you show me how to use a microphone?”  You’re asking, “For example, what’s the best way to use a microphone.”

It’s then I say, “Make a fist. Then make a ‘Thumbs up.’ with that fist. Then put your thumb on your lips - still making a fist. Then leaving your hand exactly as it is,  fold in your thumb.”

If you don’t know how to use a microphone, that’s Lesson  # 1. That’s how close you should be to the microphone - if you’re not sure.

Next, I would say, “If one person here this morning heard what I just said about how close you should be to a microphone - and puts it into practice for the rest of your life, then I have been a leader. Then it was worthwhile for me to come to this microphone to speak today.

I heard someone say and show that way to use a microphone in the 1970’s and I have been practicing that  ever since when I use a microphone.

For example, I was at a meeting on Riva Road on Opioids last Tuesday and I heard people yelling about 37 times to the people on stage, “Not loud enough!”

They were too far from the microphone.  They could not be heard. I was not in charge, so I didn’t say anything, but if I was in charge, I would show them the fist, thumb, to the mouth trick.

There are other tricks - but that’s one practical one. The Fist and Thumb to the Lips example.
Leaders need to be heard. Speakers need to be heard.

Learn how to yell at speakers, “Louder!” The other day a bunch of us were able to yell that out and some people got closer to the microphone.

Leaders need to be heard for starters.

SECOND POINT: THE TASTE TEST

In your lifetime you will experience a lot of laziness, craziness,  people making comments that are not thought out too well. People don’t prepare. People don’t to their homework. To put it bluntly: In your lifetime you will experience a lot of crap.

So my second suggestion for being a leader is that you learn to use the taste test.
It goes like this.

A person is walking down the street. He or she stops. They see something on the sidewalk. They go over to it and say, “It looks like.”

They get down on their knees, bend over it and smell it. “It smells like.” Then they take their finger and touch it and say, “It feels like.” Then they taste it and they say,  “Oooh. This is crap!” Then they say, “Good thing I didn’t step in it.”

A leader knows crap when they see, smell, touch,  taste and almost step in it.

For the rest of your life, you will experience people feeding you a lot of crap - in dating, with regards drugs, in business meetings, and especially regarding money.

People want your money and they will feed you a lot of crap to get it.

Don’t fall for it - and you what it is. It rhymes with it.

Remember you heard it  here - this second point about leadership.

THIRD POINT: BE A GLOBALIST

There are two kinds of people, those who build walls and those who build bridges.

I hold that good leaders build good bridges. I hold bad leaders build walls.

I don’t know how much it will cost to build a new Bay Bridge.

Ask those stuck on Route 50 on a Friday evening - as they inch their way forward so that they can cross the Bay Bridge - into Eastern Maryland or on Sunday night when they are coming home - whether they would want money spent on a bridge or a wall.

As priest - I know one of the key jobs for a priest is to build bridges.

As priest I know that the New Testament word for priest and pope is pontifex - meaning bridge.


I love Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. It has God reaching out his finger to touch Adam’s finger. It then shows Adam  pointing his finger to touch God’s finger. It’s two fingers trying to bridge the distance between two people.

Notice God’s hand is not a fist.

If there is one thing I see happening around the world, it’s this call to be nationalists - isolationists - to build walls that separate people from people. It’s this urge to wall out people.

It’s this tendency to make fists - instead of open hands; to shake a fist at another instead of making an open hand to shake a deal with each other.

I see it in groups. People want to isolate and insulate each other from each other - to push away and bully people we don’t like.

A leader notices hands when with others.

It’s happening right now on the border between Myramar and Bangladesh. There is a group of people who are labeled the Myramar Rohingyas. They are Muslim. They are also labeled “the most friendless people in the world.” 300 to 400 thousand are trying to migrate and move - trying to find a place to live. Hindus and Buddhists, and other Moslems are giving this group of Muslims a tough time to find a place to exist.

If there is one thing in the world that is happening in the last 20 years it’s migration.

What’s your position on people coming into America? Wall them out or invite them in?

If there is one thing that’s happening in our world, it’s this brownification of peoples. Take the subway when you're in New York City or Toronto and look around at the color of the skin of the people traveling on faceship earth with you. People are migrating.  People are marrying. People are having multi-cultural babies. We are becoming one world - whether we like it or not.

For the sake of transparency I grew up within eye sight of the Statue of Liberty and its plaque invites the world’s tired and poor to come to America and join us.  Listen again to what that Statue says, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these the homeless, tempest tost,  to all. I lift my flame beside the golden door.”



That is part of my Christian outlook on life.

It’s everyone’s earth.

All are welcome.

For the sake of transparency my parents came to America from another county - speaking both English and Gaelic. My parents had little education. My parents did what many people who come to America did. They earned money and sent it back home to pay for their brothers and sisters to come to America - as well as to feed those back home.

I’m 77. You’re 17 and younger. Lucky you: because you’re going to be seeing the world’s borders crumbling a lot more than ever in the next 50 years.

That means there will be pushback - and screams about immigration.

People are going to want more and more walls - so that what they perceive as their land and their stuff -  it will be protected.

Christians forget the Resurrection story - where God comes through walls.
So leaders have as one of their 3 key points: All are welcome.

I would hope that COSA leaders here in St. Mary’s would be highly in favor of no walls - no cliques - no isolating the different that who I am.

CONCLUSION

Let me close with a quote about leadership - that touches on  my 3 points for this morning: “A little old lady was refused a hearing by Alexander the Great. She spoke up and reprimanded him saying, `If you have no time for the little person as well as the big, you have no time to be King.’”  



September  14, 2017


THE WAY OF THE CROSS

My way, the high way,
at least that’s the way,
I expected today to go ....
But once again I forgot,
life and others have other plans ….
So the stations of the cross
that hang on the side walls
of every church now hung
in my center aisle. So where’s
my Simon, where’s my Veronica,
where’s our Mary to help me?




© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
September 14: the Feast of
the Exaltation of the Holy Cross





Wednesday, September 13, 2017

September 13, 2017


SALT  SHAKER  

God - like a simple, regular,
inexpensive salt shaker - shakes
grains of salt on everything.

Taste, appreciate, savor,
grains of God in and on all
of creation. “Oooh Good!”*



© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017
* Genesis 1: 10, 21, 25, 31.



WHICH  OF  THESE  3 
BLACK  AND  WHITE 
 POSTERS  CATCH  
YOUR  BRAIN  THE  MOST? 







Tuesday, September 12, 2017


SEEKING  TO  TOUCH  CHRIST


 INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 23 Tuesday in Ordinary Time  is, “Seeking To Touch Christ.”

That comes from a sentence in today’s gospel, “Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.” [Cf. Luke 6: 12-19.]

If we read the gospels carefully, we often see and hear about people reaching out trying to touch Jesus or Jesus reaching out and touching people.
Jesus touched eyes, ears and mouths.



Remember the woman who said to herself, “If I just touch the hem of his garment, I’ll be healed.”



And Jesus said, “Who touched me.”  The disciples said at that, “We’re surrounded by this crowd and you ask, ‘Who touched you.’” They didn’t now, but he knew power went out of him.

EACH OTHER

Did you ever notice how much people want to touch others or be touched by them?

Little children cling to their parents.

I’ve walked through nursing homes and there’s an old person sitting there in the corridor - in a wheel chair - and spotting me they reach out their hand to touch me.

Lately, have you seen people doing this new practice of fist bumping? It’s quicker than handshakes. For men who don’t like to handshake, it’s more masculine: a fist!

In 1957 - I think it was 1957 - I was in Washington D.C. and my brother says to me, “Do you want to go over to see the Hoffa hearings?”



We went and stood there in the back. I spotted Bobby Kennedy and Jack Kennedy up front - great tans - and when they came down the aisle after a break was announced  I reached out my hand and touched  the sleeve of Bobby Kennedy’s jacket near his wrist. Power did not go out from them - but something happened.

QUESTION

Did you ever reach out to touch someone who was great: like the pope, or a famous athlete - or a famous movie actor or what have you - or  Bobby Kennedy like I did?

If it felt different, why was that?

After all these years, I still remember the Bobby Kennedy moment. Why was that?

CATHOLIC SACRAMENTS ARE TOUCHY FEELING

Have you noticed that Catholic Church faith practices use touch?

Yesterday afternoon I was on duty and I went up to Heritage Harbor to give some lady named Joan the sacrament of the sick. Her daughter had called - saying her mom was dying. I walked in and shook hands with her husband - great smile. I put my hand on his shoulder in support and said, “I hope you are okay.” He was up there in age - but I sensed he was feeling the possible closeness of his wife’s death. I shook hands with the care giver. This lady named Joan was out of it - unconscious - yet the Church wanted to anoint her on her forehead and hands in the name of Christ. I did.

On Saturday I anointed a baby at a baptism at 11 A.M. and another kid at 6:15 Saturday evening  I anointed both of them in the neck here with sacred oil before the baptism and then on their forehead after the baptism.

Touch. At the two masses I had Sunday - and at the picnic - I got to reach out and touch well over 1000 people.

If you talk to priests, you know how sensitive we are about touch - especially because of the child abuse stories in people’s minds.

At Baptisms  I like it to  ask everyone in the baptismal party to reach out and touch the baby’s forehead and give him or her a blessing - a thumb sign of the cross on their forehead.

Sacred touch - healing touch - a sign of peace is not just for Mass - but the sign of peace moment at Mass has certainly evolved. The percentage of people against that sign - I would think by observing - is under 10%.

CONCLUSION

Life can be touching.

Life can be a hands on experience.

Life gives us the opportunity to have a Sistine Chapel ceiling moment. We all know the painting of Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel - Adam and God’s index finger almost touching each other.  In fact, if you want a good night prayer or anytime prayer - close your eyes and reach your index finger to the skies and touch God. Say, pray, “God, just keeping in touch.”












+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Painting on top: 
Ron DiCianni, Divine Healing

Monday, September 11, 2017

September 12, 2017


REVELATIONS

A spider web with rain on it….
A baby’s smallest toe….
An orange skin  and an elephant’s skin….
An icicle being transparent ….
A mother horse nudging its colt ….
A dog looking up - then down - with no sound ….
A zebra looking at a football ref puzzled….
A leaf feeling “uh oh!” - fall is coming ….
A fallen ice cream cone feeding 100 ants ….
A rock having no clues about tears ….
A wave hitting shore and falling apart …. “No!”


© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017


September 11, 2017



THE PURPOSE OF COMMUNITY:
BRIDGE BUILDING

Next time you go across a bridge

turn off your radio or iPhone and
reflect on all the people who worked
together to build this bridge. 

Next time you go across a bridge

realize a bridge is a metaphor for
the purpose of community - building
bridges to bring us together.

Next time you go across a bridge
ask yourself, "Am I a bridge builder?
Am I weaving my way to others? Am I thankful for those reaching out to me?

© Andy Costello, Reflections  2017

SHAWN  BOWMAN,  28, FATHER, 

CANTOR  FITZGERALD  EMPLOYEE

By Frank Donnelly
Staten Island Advance
 staff writer

Friday, 09/28/2001



Date of Death 9/11/2001

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Shawn Edward Bowman Jr. wasn't an early riser by nature, but each morning he got up before dawn to shower and dress his 16-month-old son, Liam Edward.

The 5 a.m. wake-up call gave the Sunnyside resident precious time with Liam before work and let his wife, Jennifer, sleep a few more minutes. Mrs. Bowman is pregnant with the couple's second child.

Mr. Bowman, 28, a human resources information specialist for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 104th floor of Tower 1, is among the missing in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

"He was a very devoted father and husband," said his mother-in-law, Jacqueline Davitt. "And as a mother-in-law I could not have asked for anyone to be nicer to my daughter."

A lifelong Staten Islander, Mr. Bowman was a model employee who reported to work an hour early each day. Among his duties, he trained colleagues in the use of special software.

"He wanted to make sure everything he did, he did well," Mrs. Davitt said. As dedicated as he was to his job, which required frequent travel to Europe, Mr. Bowman was even more devoted to his family.

He was little Liam's special playmate. He devoted Saturdays to treks to McDonald's for pancakes and walks in Clove Lakes Park. Weeknights were reserved for romps on the floor.

"His son was everything," Mrs. Davitt said.

The day before the attack, Mr. Bowman left work early to bring Liam to the doctor's office. He and his wife were planning a trip to the Bronx Zoo with Liam to celebrate Mr. Bowman's 29th birthday on Sept. 16.

"He will live through my daughter, but it's a shame his children will never know how wonderful their father was," said Mrs. Davitt. "He will be sorely missed and our lives will never be the same."

Mrs. Bowman is due to give birth in January. The child will be named Jack, after a character in Tom Clancy novels that Mr. Bowman enjoyed reading.
Mr. Bowman was especially fond of mysteries and political accounts and devoured every copy of the New York Times and Barron's newspapers.
He also enjoyed cooking and was an Eagle Scout. He was active with Pouch Camp, Sea View, and with Troop 43 of St. John's Episcopal Church, Rosebank.
Born in New Dorp, Mr. Bowman moved to Arden Heights in 1999. In April, he and his wife moved into his mother-in-law's Sunnyside residence while they awaited construction of a new home in Columbus, N.J.

He was a graduate of Monsignor Farrell High School and the State University of New York at Albany, where he received bachelor's and master's degrees in business administration.

Following graduation, Mr. Bowman worked as a human resources information specialist for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Manhattan. He often traveled to the company's overseas offices to train colleagues in special software use. Mr. Bowman was a parishioner of Our Lady of Good Counsel R.C. Church, Tompkinsville, where he was married on April 17, 1999.

Surviving in addition to his wife, the former Jennifer Davitt, and his son, Liam Edward, are his parents, Carol and Shawn E. Sr.; a brother, James, and his maternal grandmother, Anne Barbieri.

There will be a memorial mass tomorrow at noon in Our Lady of Good Counsel Church. The Rev. Joseph Mostardi, the former pastor, will officiate, wearing vestments Mr. Bowman's family purchased for him.

The Harmon Home for Funerals, West Brighton, is handling the arrangements.

*************************

Shawn Bowman was the grandson of my godfather, Ernest Bowman - so I want to mention him on this September 11 and I ask you to say a prayer for his family.

Sunday, September 10, 2017


WHAT  TO  DO? 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 23 Sunday in Ordinary Time [A] is,  “What To Do?”

Sometimes we don’t know what to do?

Sometimes we know what to do - but if we do - there are consequences - uncomfortable consequences - Uh oh consequences!

After all, who  wants to feel - the funny feelings we feel - when we feel we have to correct someone else? Those are some of the ugh moments of life.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s readings make religion real.

Today’s reading puts some words that are covered with sandpaper into our ears and then into our mind. As they slide down our ear canal they can rub us the wrong way.

So and so is drinking too much, do we say or do anything?

So and so is cheating on his or her spouse, do we do anything?

So and so is killing themselves by overeating - do we intervene?

Today’s readings touch on this issue of what to do.

Ezekiel - in the first reading - tells us - we are appointed by God to be watchmen and watchwomen and warn those who are being wicked - to tell them, “This is killing you.” and / or, “This is killing us and others.”

You’re kidding.  Nope. That is what Ezekiel is saying.

If the other kills themselves and we didn’t do anything to warn them, then Ezekiel says, God is saying, “I am holding you responsible. But if we warn the other and they refuse to turn from their wicked ways, the other will die from their guilty behaviors, but we will save ourselves.

The second reading tells not to owe anyone anything  - except our love for them.

Translated: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This means not doing any evil to another - no adultery, no killing, no stealing, no wanting their stuff.

And the gospel comes back to the watchman or watchwoman theme.

If your brother or sister sins against you, tell them their fault - but just between the two of you.

If they won’t listen to you, get two or three witnesses, and you and they together confront the person who is messing up - and if the person won’t listen to the 3 or 4 of you, then go the larger community and all of you challenge the person messing up.

If the other still won’t listen, then cut them out of your life.

But Jesus in today’s gospel  adds - pray for that person - and it seems to be saying, “Do that prayer as a group."

The title of my homily is, “What To Do?”

FURTHER QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS

One of my favorite sayings is, “Teach thy tongue to say, ‘I do not know.’” That’s found in the Jewish Talmud.

Years and years ago - before being  here in Annapolis - I remember being stationed with a priest who had a drinking problem.

Yes, we experience in the rectory, what many families experience in their home. We have an old saying: Rectories can be wrectories.

We talked about “What to do?” hundreds of times about this guy.

A good dozen times we told this guy he has a drinking problem 1 to 1 as well as 5 or 6 to 1.

Nothing worked. He spent his life in a daze.

I write and I remember writing out of frustration a short piece and it’s published in one of my books. I never showed it to the guy - but I looked it up today while writing this homily.

TO AN ALCOHOLIC

The speed of the suicide
depends upon the mind of the person.

Just the other day
I was reading in the paper
about this man in Florida
who blew his brains out
with just one shot.
That’s all it took,
that’s all it took, just one shot.

And as I put down
the paper I wondered
about you sitting there
with another drink
in your hand
and it’s not even
noon-time yet.

You’ll never make headlines.

But I suppose someday soon
I’ll read it in the paper
or hear that you died,
and I suppose very few
will know you’ve
been blowing your brains
out for years, 
yesterday,
today, everyday,
with many shots.

And I ask myself:
should I tell you what
I’m reading or should
I guess how long it will take?

There it was. I was facing what I’ve heard from my own family members - as well as lots of people asking a priest - the title of this homily, “What to Do?”

However this same guy once said about another, but similar situation,  “I’m not going to tell you or him about his problem. I have to live with you or him.”

So we ask others to intervene. So we send anonymous letters. So we go to AL anon.

And sometimes if we tell another why people are having problems with them, things get worse - things get uncomfortable.

I remember a moment when I was a young priest in my first assignment. 

Someone called and asked to see me. They wanted me to be the messenger of tough news to a family member. So I called and met with the person whom nobody would tell them about their problem. Then when all hell broke loose, the person who asked me to deliver the poison meatball said, “I didn’t tell you to do that.”

They didn’t sue me - but I learned my lesson - big time. I never did that again. But I did learn better and more difficult ways to get people to confront each other. Tough stuff….

CONCLUSION

Most of the time - it’s my experience - that most of life - sad to say - is kept in the bottom drawer, swept under the rug, grin and bear it, because we have to live with one another.

Most of the time - it’s my experience - that sometimes people change - wake up - improve - or die and the problem is solved.


Most of the time - it’s my experience - that when we hear people complaining about others  - it’s smart to ask oneself  the biblical question, that the disciples said at the last supper when Jesus said, “One of you will betray me?” and they asked, “Is it I Lord?” So when people are complaining about a, b, or c, - it’s a good idea to pause and see where I have to change concerning a, b, c, or d, e and f - or whatever the problem is.