February 5, 2022

OUTSIDERS AND INSIDERS

 

 

Garrison Keillor said, “A marriage to be happy needs an exterior threat.  New York provides that threat.”
 
Born and bred in New York I didn’t get it. I didn’t like the comment either. Maybe saying that would get a laugh in Minnesota and in every place in the country where Prairie Home Companion was on the radio. Did New Yorkers laugh?  I don’t know.  I didn’t.
 
What hurt me was the first part: “A marriage to be happy needs an exterior threat.”
 
Years ago a guy told me about something that happened in one of our religious communities.  It went something like this.
 
Five guys – who were soloists and odd balls – who really didn’t like each other – came together on one issue.  They didn’t like their new boss. He was appointed to their community and he was a “No no!”  as far as they were concerned.
 
They complained to each other. They decided to go to their bigger boss – the one who made the appointment. They did and in 2 weeks their new boss quit.
 
Actually he was the wrong man for the job.  He could be  imprudent.  He was also too liberal for that community.  The 5 guys stationed there were too “conservative”.
 
I put the word “conservative” in quotes – because they were not true conservatives. They were “againsters”.
 
Whatever ….
 
I also found out that after they got rid of the guy they didn’t like, they all reverted back to their former cantankerous selfish selves.   They went back into their own shells.
 
After that I understood a  bit more why Ronald Reagan won his election.  Make an outsider (the Russians) the bad guys and you get people to back you. Outsiders can unite insiders.
 
After that I understood a bit more company and county and country politics better. If you have internal and local politics, get a scapegoat, bad mouth them, and people will unite with you.
 
However, the internal problem remains.
 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022

Reflection

February  5,  2022

 

Thought for Today

 “I am so washed in the tide of His measureless love that I seem to be below the surface of a sea and cannot touch or see or feel anything around me except its water.”

 

Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)

La Vitta della B. Catherina Fiesca,

Adorna Dama Genouese

 February  4,  2020

ANNE MARIE

 

She was tiny.

 

She was cautious.

 

She was hesitant to open her door to me.  I tried to let her know by phone that I was going to visit her.

 

She finally opened the porch door. I had rung the door bell two times.

 

I was about to give up – but I said to myself, “Hey,  it was a long walk to get here.”

 

She was born in Belgium.  She came to the United States with her husband in 1951.  She saw two wars.  She was born July 28, 1903.

 

Her first husband was a Dutchman.

 

She had a heavy accent: French, Flemish and Dutch.  She knew some German.

 

Her daughter had married a U.S. Military guy and that’s what brought them here.  Everyone wants to see their grandkids.

 

Most of the people I met here in Dayton had 7, 4, 5 kids.

 

There were 2 beds in the living room – close enough for them to reach out and hold hands in the night if they wanted.

 

The bathroom was upstairs.

 

“I go up the stairs each morning. I take my time. I say to Jesus and Mary, “I need your help and they help me.”

 

Faith was everywhere. I spotted an OLPH picture, an infant of Prague, an Immaculate Heart of Mary Statue, and 2 pairs of rosaries.

 

Family pictures were also everywhere. Her daughter had 4 kids and they all had kids and on and on and on.

 

Furniture from Belgium was everywhere.  I asked.

 

I’m glad I waited after the second ring.

 

                            © Andy Costello, Reflections 2022

 February  4,  2022

 

Thought for Today

 

“One should never go against one’s nature.  That is the only sin.”

 

Osho (1931-1990)

Discourses

February 3,  2022

2 OR 3

 

I probably should look it up in some Bible

commentary – but then again I probably won’t.

Psalm 62:12 goes like this, “One thing God said

twice I have heard this:  power belongs to God, and

your’s, O Lord, is kindness; and that you repay

everyone according to their deeds.”

I probably should look it up in some Bible

commentary – but then again I probably won’t.
  

Psalm 62:12 goes like this, “One thing God said

twice I have heard this:  power belongs to God and 

you Lord are kind - and you repay everyone 

according to their deeds.

Is that the 2 or 3 things to look at when it comes to

God?

 

1)   Power,

2)   Kindness,

3)   Judgment.

I don’t know.

Yet it’s a powerful text to consider and pray with.
 

I hear your power every day God. Yet I also hear 

your powerlessness.

 

All I know is I’m in a vastly different and totally

lower place than you, God – when it comes to

power.

I can’t control anything – what others say or do or

how this day will go. I can’t even control myself.
 

Help!
 

So yes – you are God. I am not.
 

Yet, You are so powerless too – giving us freedom 

and creating this world with its infinite changes

totally rolling around all day.

Kindness – that’s different.  We both can do that on

– on a daily basis.

 

And judgment?
 

Yes I guess every night, we face judgment – on

what we are and didn’t do today – whether we

exercised or didn’t exercise – and whether we loved

one another – and as a bottom line  we do have the

power to be kind.
 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022

 

 February 3, 2022

Thought for Today

 

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.”

 

Victor Hugo

February 2.  2022

Reflection 

 February  2,  2022

 

Thought for Today

 

“To love is to suffer, to be loved is to cause suffering.”

 

Comtesse Diane

February 1, 2022

 

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

 

 

Don’t we all wonder at times what they think of us?

 

I know – knowing one person loves me – does an awful lot for less worry about how I am – how I come across.

 

Yet, I can be talking with 15 people at a party and one person says in a fiftienth  of a second, “You look like Spencer Tracy.  Did anyone ever tell you that?”

 

“No,” I answered.

 

Then I jokingly add, “Doctor Kevorkian yes. And the coroner of Honesdale, PA. Yes.  Spencer Tracy. No.”

 

And I meet 15 more people – and 15 days after that – and 15 more life experiences after that – and that one comment sticks about Spencer Tracy.

 

Spencer Tracy? No I don’t look like him.

 

Why?  Why does that comment stick to the inside of my eye lids and I keep looking at it?

 

I know from experience that people always go ga ga over self-tests – that help us know something about ourselves.

 

Why?

 

Is it that I’m always wondering how I’m coming across.

 

Then I read a quote by Groucho Marx, “She’s afraid that if she leaves, she’’ become the life of the party.”

 

Then I remember that’s so like the saying of Oscar Wilde I’ve used in a dozen talks, “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others cause happiness whenever they go.”

 

Uh oh!

 

I guess I’m still not sure of myself.

 

Who cares?

 

I do.

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2022

February  1,  2022

 

Thought for Today

 

“I could not say, I believe. I know!  I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.”

 

Carl Jung

 

January  31, 2022

Reflection

January  31,  2022

 

 Thought for Today

 

INTERESTING  THE CLASSROOM

 
Interesting the classroom where God says,
 
“Forget all that you think you know about Me”
 
That way some real knowledge might dawn.

 

 

Hafiz,

A Year With Hafiz,

translations by Daniel Ladinsky,

page 282

 January 30,  2022

Reflection

January  30,  2022

 

Thought for Today

“Anyone who thinks there aren’t two sides to every argument is probably in one.”

The Cockle Bur