July 9, 2022

ACCEPTANCE

I find myself saying to people, "Try praying for the grace to accept  that you can't accept some reality."

A boss is driving us crazy. We can't quit our job - and we feel ugly with so many negative feelings bouncing around in our belly about him.

These ugly feelings make us feel guilty. We inwardly say, "I shouldn't feel this way." We think, "I should be a better Christian. I should be able to forgive this person. I should be able to carry this cross."

But when we can't. we can get a double whammy - then a triple whammy: the inability to forgive, accept, and be patient with this person.

Compound feelings pound us like ongoing traffic or pounding waves hitting our beach.

What to do?

Obviously, the first step is to call, "Time out."

Get off the basketball court for a while. Breathe! Have a coach point out what's happening. Have a coach suggest something new to do.

The coach might simply suggest accepting everything that's happening - inside and out.

I might simply say, "Okay - oh this is what a traffic jam looks like. I can't get out of this right now."

The literature on dysfunctional people, situations, or families point out that dysfunctional people get us to become more dysfunctional. They can mess us up.

The thing to do is to watch the whole game as if you're sitting in the stands as well as if you're in the game.

Once we do that, laughter can happen, Acceptance can happen.

Solutions, no.

Acceptance, yes.

 July 9, 2022

"If I'm more of an influence to your son as a rapper than you are as a father ... you have to look at yourself as a parent."

Ice Cube,

American rap musician

to Mike Sager in Rolling Stone, 

October 4, 1990

 July 8, 2013

Reflection

REALITY

If you deny reality, reality will deny you!

I found myself thinking that during Mass today.

Realities: muscles, others, sin, grace, God.

The thought hit me after reading an article in the op-ed section of the New York Times.  The article was about the Taliban destroying a statue of the Buddha in  Afganistan.

Karen Armstrong said that a few Islamic leaders accepted other religions - and they talked about a guy who didn''t and in time it came back to destoying the Islamics in India. 

 I guess dictatorships  fall because they are denying the reality of other peoples minds and hearts.

I guess the person who neglects his spouse, children, health, etc. will end up experiencing brokenness.

Reality has a way of really happening to us if we deny it.  

Reality will eventually bite us in the ass.

 July 8, 2022

Thought for Today

"There's only one real sin, and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but the second best."

Doris Lessing (1919-2013)

The Golden Notebook (1962)

 July 7, 2022

Reflection

TURNING ON THE LIGHTS

One of the interesting moments in life is sitting in a room with soft lighting or just enough lighting. Then someone walks in and puts on the lights full blast.

Larry Murphy did that every morning. Six or seven of us would be at breakfast in our dining room and he would walk in - and loud the lights - saying, "Let's put some light on the subject?"

And all 7 of us would chant, "No! Oh no!"

Some people's eyes are comfortable with natural light.

Shouldn't we have the right to have natural light some. Let those who don't like soft light - those who don't like "darkness" - grin and bear it at least 25% of the time,

Ugh! It seems that those who like full blast light all the time - always think they are in the right with the lights.

I guess this is the way life works.

I guess I would feel a bit better about all this, if the person who is going to put the on the lights would ask once in a while, "Is it all right if I could put some more light on?"

And we moles and mice in the dark got our way once in a while.

 July 7, 2022

Thought for the Day 

"Beware of the man whose God is in the skies."

George Bernhard Shaw

Man and Superman (1903)

'Maxims: Religion

 July 6, 2022

TWO SCENES

As priest, I look out at a church full of children. They are at a kids' Mass here.

I see possibilities. I see futures. I see dreams. I see the love of parents. I see an investment. I see specialness - uniqueness - and even more: now that people are having less children - kids are being held as more more special.

Then I hear or see in the news a story about the slaughter of 120 people: men, women, children- in some village in East Timor or in Kosovo - or Bosnia - somewhere - and I cry. Kids killed before their dreams can be realized.

The specialness of life - the value of life in one place - and the apparent cheapness - in some other place.

Then I remember scenes - a third scene - the kid who never dreams - but who lives till 85 or 90.

What about me?  What were my childhood dreams? What did I want to be? What did I want to do? Are they still energizing me?

I had two dreams as a kid: to be a priest   in Brazil  and to write. 

I never got to Brazil.  My classmates yes . Me no.

My destiny as priest has been here in the United States.

I also dreamed of writing. It has been  realized.

However the dream of making it as a writer - better than I have - is still there - is still here.

More.  

I need to do more writing.

Sentence by sentence the book is written.

Step by step the dream is realized.

 July 6, 2022

Thought for Today

                "The trouble

with being best man is, 

you don't get a chance 

to prove it."

Les A. Murray - Australian Poet

 July 5, 2022

Reflection

TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE

There are two types of people: those who like lists of types of people and those who don't.

Down through the years I've been collecting different statements of types of people. So I have a decent collection.

Here is a new one: there are two types of people - those who think their salvation is outside themselves and those who think their salvation is within.

Of course things are never apples or oranges. The juice from the trees of life is always a mixture.

Some people think there is a diet out there that is going to solve their weight problem.

So they go on this diet - or that diet - try this - try that - in hopes of taking off all that weight.

So we wonder about types of clothes, cars, others. If I get a new suit or car, will others see me as better than I am? If I make a new move, will I look smarter? Is there another person out there who will save me and clear up my life issues?

So should I buy planning books on how to pack lightly, or how to be slim and trim, so I'll be the perfect him or her to others?

Then there are those who know the solution is within.  They grab Jesus' words - like "The kingdom of heaven is within." or "Why do you see the speck in another's eye and you don't  see the plank in your eye?"

Or they realize they have the Pharisee's problem. It's causing havoc in me. I have a stink within. I'm decaying as a person.

Obviously, Jesus came from the outside, yet maybe Bethlehem is within - in the stinking stable of my soul.

Come Lord Jesus! Come Shepherd! Come King.

Help me keep typing - especially myself.

Ooops. Hello Lord Jesus. I'm finally home.

 July 5, 2022

Thought for Today

"Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests,

I'll dig with it."

Seamus Heany

 July 4, 2022

Reflection

COMMUNICATION

What is communication?

It's listening - watching - coming up with questions - scenarios - figuring.

What is communication?

It's realizing I'm only 1 person with my figurings - if I even do that - and another is another person with their experiences and figurings.

It's time - taking time - not jumping to conclusions. 

It's walking in my own shoes and then another's shoes for the same mile and then many more,

It's finally actually listening to another - to find out if they know and can spell out where they are coming from.

What is communication?

It's entering into the mystery of God - God's creation purposes - God's likeness - in reaching out to the second person - and in the process discovering a spirit of love can exist between people.

What is communication?

It's receiving another person in Holy Communion - especially after they have suffered and died - and their body has been broken by people who have betrayed them for 30 pieces of  silver - more or less.

What is communication?

It's being silent - in the darkness of a long weekend - or a long year - or a long life - and then still reaching out to the other person - and discovering the stone has been rolled away - and the other person starts rising before us and we want to hold onto them.

Communication is resurrection and new life.

 July 4, 2022

Thought for Today

"Westerners have aggressive problem-solving minds; Africans experience people."

Kevin Kaunda [1924-2021]

 July 3, 2022

Reflection

FEW BASIC IDEAS

There is a saying I read or heard a long time ago, "There are only a few basic ideas, but think of the metaphors.'

For starters, that's a basic idea. And I guess the metaphors would be, "History repeats itself." "Deja vu all over again." "Wait a minute, I've been here before."

But what hits me is the making of a list of the basic ideas,

Mortimer Adler's group at the University of Chicago came up with the Basic Books Program - if that's what it's called. They came up with a 2 or 3 volume set of books with the name, "Syntopicon" - or something like that.

They give topics like Marriage, War, Peace. Next come the subdivisions.

Zane Grey said all his books have one topic: "The good guys get bad - and the bad guys get good." [Did he really say that?]

Let me see if I can come up with 10 basic ideas.

1) The Golden Rule. Put it positive: Do to others what you would want to happen to you. Put it in the negative: don't do to others what you wouldn't want to happen to you.

2) Youth: what a waste to waste.

3) In our old age, we see where are parents were right - or what they were tying to do.

4) There are 7 Capital Sins - and we have to deal with all 7 more or less.

5) Sex is around 24/7 more or less - and if you don't see it coming - boom.

6) Land! Buy land!

7) At the end of our life - looking back - we won't regret if we didn't spend enough time at work - but we will regret if we missed making time for our family.

8) Listening - we don't do enough of that one.

9) Do it right - not because someone might be watching  - but because it is right.

10) Death is always sitting there waiting.

 July 3, 2022

Thought for Today

"The voice of the people is the voice of God."

Early 15th century saying. Cf. Alcuin [735-804] who said, "Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit."  "And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the rightousness of the crowd is always very close to madness."

Alexander Pope wrote, "The people's voice is odd, / It is, and it is not, the voice of God."