November 26, 2022 

Reflection

COMPLAINTS   BEGET  COMPLAINTS

Yesterday was June 19, 2008.

We were a parish get together.

A lady read a section from the book The Marian Movement for Priests.  It was by a priest named Father Gobbi. Thousands and thousands were sent through the mail.  

It was fine - in my opinion - till he started to complain about sacrilegious communions.

The reader  finished.

Someone asked, "Any comments?"

A series of comments - complaints were voiced by different ladies at this meeting of this Parish Group. 

We were at Hank and Mary Lee's place.

First comment: "There are people who go to communion who are not Catholics."

Next comment: "There are people who go to communion who have no clue where they are."

"There is a priest in Georgetown who invites everyone to communion."

"There was a little kid who received communion - or went up and took communion and was walking away with the communion in the palm of his hand - and someone said to him, 'You have to eat it.'"

After a series of comments and complaints they asked  my thoughts about all this.

I paused and thought inwardly, "I'm not going here or there."

I said, "There are rules and regulations - guidelines - in the Missalette."

Afterwards - I'm an afterwards thinker - I got thinking, "This is not my experience in giving out communion."

There are pickers - picking communion right out of your hand - definitely different than those who receive Jesus in the palm of their hand - as if in a throne.

There are those who we joke about behind their back: "A few people who made their First Communion today. That might be at a wedding or a funeral."

Sorry to those who want rules announced right before communion!

It's my experience and desire to show respect, sacredness, calm - when receiving the Body of Christ - and I like to pray to and at every person receiving, "The Body of Christ!"

It hit me driving home from that meeting yesterday: Complaints beget complaints. Gripes beget gripes. Negativity brings forth negativity. Niceness begets niceness.

I'm glad I went where I went when I went there.

 November 26,  2022

Saturday Thought for Today

"When you send a clerk on business to  a distant  province, a man of rigid morals is not your best choice."

Ihara Saikaku  (1642-1693)

The Japanese Family Storehouse;

or Millionaires' Gospel, bk. II, chapter 5

 November 25, 2022

Reflection

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

I have been asked at various times about "Speaking in Tongues."

I usually pause when I hear this question.

I hesitate.

I don't use my tongue in answering some questions too quickly.

I wonder if the person asking about speaking in tongues is puzzled about this phenomenon - or whether they think it's funny - weird - crazy - or what have you.

Or maybe the person asking this thinks they have the gift or want this gift or someone they know has this gift.

Maybe they want me to try to praise God for what has happened.

Keep still my tongue.

When I hear about speaking in tongues - two personal experiences- show up in my memory.

The first happened years ago in a Bible Study Week in Mundelein Seminary - that I was at just outside of Chicago. One of the main speakers was Father Joseph Fitzmyer, a world famous expert on the Bible.  He was asked in a Q. and A. session about speaking and praying in tongues.

I didn't tape him - or what have you - but he didn't think what was going on here and there in the church back then - was what was happening today. He was that direct.  He simply said he didn't see what was happening in the Acts of the Apostles to be the same as what was happening in different charismatic groups and individuals today

He was not loud, but to me he was definitive.

The second experience happened in Long Island. Someone invited two of us to a prayer experience.  Someone started speaking in a language that I didn't get.  It was taped.  Then there was a short break. 

Then a man with a tape recorder played that speaking in tongues. He hit the stop button. Then he said, "The Holy Spirit is saying, 'So and so should break up with his wife and move on.'"

I thought to myself, "No way! Let's get out of here!"

We said nothing - but left as soon as this was over.

Surprise.

This morning I'm reading in the Prayer of Christians something from a sermon by St. Anthony of Padua. It went this way, "The man who is filled with the Holy Spirit speaks in different languages. These different  languages are different ways of witnessing to Christ, such as humility, poverty,  patience and obedience;  we speak in those languages  when we reveal in ourselves these virtues to others. Actions speak louder than words - let you words teach and your actions speak.[Page 1470, Volume III.]

 November 25, 2022

Friday  Thought for Today

"How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist?  You need God in order to be. and God needs you - for that is the meaning of your life."

Martin Buber

I and Thou [1923]

HAPPY

THANKSGIVING

FROM

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

November 24, 2022

Reflection 

"Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise.  A sentence should contain no unnecessary words; a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.  This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or  that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

William Strunk, Jr.

The Elements of Style [19180,

chapter 2, sec. 13.

 November 24, 2022

Thursday - Thanksgiving Thought for Today

"Beggar  that I am, I am even poor in thanks."

Shakespeare

Hamlet Act II, ii, 286

 November 23, 2022

Reflection

RAIN

Rain ....

Praised and prayed for ... cursed and rain from ... rain.

The United States landed a "lander" on Mars - about two or three weeks ago. 

Today is June 6, 2008.

The hope - one hope - is to see if there is ice on Mars - because if there is ice - there's water - and if there is water - there is a possibility of starting a colony there.

Rain ....

What would happen if there was a planet out there filled with water - an if water - it rains there.

Rain ....

It rained here the other day - and heavy - and more rain is expected  during the next few days.

Trees were knocked  down in Virginia and Maryland. Electrical power lines fell - and our Eucharistic Chapel was flooded a bit.

Rain ....

I like rain.

I like it better than snow.

Snow is tough on driving.

Both flow down into the aqua filters - where vast deposits of water - sit under carpet earth.

I like soft rain - especially soft, spring rain.

I like the clean feeling it gives to earth, bushes, and trees.

It cleans sidewalks.

I like the sound it makes on the roof and air conditioning units.

I like to see it splashing into windows.

Rain....

Now Noah, tell us your thoughts about rain?

November 23, 2022

Wednesday - Thought for Today 

"The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.  That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free."

Helen Keller [1880-1968]

The Story of My Life [1902], chap. 3

 November 22, 2022

Reflection

BOOKS  I BOUGHT 

AND  NEVER  READ

There are books I bought and never read.

I spot them at times on my book shelves.

The book looked good at the  time.

 November 22, 2022

Tuesday - Thought for Today

"Snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, father westward, softly falling into the dark multinous Shannon waves.  It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.  It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

James Joyce [1882-1941]

Dubliners, The Dead

 November 21,  2022

Reflection

APPEARANCE VS. REALITY

There is appearance and there is reality.

Sometimes they match.

Sometimes when they don't seem to match; uproar happens.

Appearance is a reality.

 November 21, 2022

Monday - Thought for Today

"Lonely people talking to each other can make each other lonelier."

Lillian Hellman [1905-1984]

The Autumn Garden [1951] Act I

November 20, 2022

Reflection 

I DID

What's a man - or a woman - to do when their spouse has died - not physically - but emotionally?

What's woman a man to do when their spouse refuses to talk about it to each other - or to a counselor?

 November 20, 2022

Sunday - Thought for Today

"There comes a time in every man's life and  I've had many of them."

Casey Stengel  [c, 1890 - 1975]

Remark

 November 19,  2022

Reflection``

IRELAND

I'm about to take a trip to Ireland.

For starters  - here we're sitting on the tarmac tonight. Aer Lingus - the take off - talking - reading - sleeping - waking up in the morning - to see the green - fields down there - out our airbus windows.

Ireland....

Coming home to the place where I could have been born - if mom and dad stayed there - married there -  like their brother and sister did - over there.

If they stayed there, would there be a me?

Life.  Mystery. Where we come from. Where we are. How we got to be who and where we are from.

Ah sweet mystery of life ....

We're here....

First: the bus ride - looking out the windows - with American eyes - inner sights as well - and the questions - the what if's, the what might have beens ....

Are there answers to what if's - other than the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life."

Are their poems other than,"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...."? No one can take both roads.

Am I asking everybody''s questions? Does everyone wonder about roads - the roads I took and the different roads I never took.

I'm sure these questions are louder and clearer after the death of loved ones - or divorce from broken ones.

Is this the origen of the word, "Interesting" - when it is said long and slow and has a pondering overtone.

Ireland - I'm saying to myself - if I was born here - I'd be speaking Gaelic.  If born here[ would I have become a priest?  If born here, would I be the youngest or would I even be?

I'll find answers to some of my questions as I go down different roads - especially the roads of Galway.

Ooops! I still need to unpack so much.

November 19, 2022 

Saturday - Thought for Today

"If only we could know what was going on in a baby's mind while observing him in action we would  certainly understand everything there is to psychology."

Jean Piaget [1896-1980]

La Premiere Aunee de l'Efant [1927]

 November 18, 2022

Reflection

ANNAPOLIS

Circles: Church Circle, State Circle, and the downtown circle that I'm not sure if it has a name - at the bottom of Main Street.

Restaurants: Cafe Normandy, McGarvey's, Galway Bay, Picola Roma, Chick and Ruth's ....

Gardens: St. Mary's, Paca House, ....

Red bricks: Lots of red bricks.

Churches: St. Mary's, St. Anne's, The Presbyterian Church, so man more - once you get out of the downtown area.

Naval Academy: with its youth and its uniforms....

St. John's College: with its Great Books history ....

Benches: the Seelos Bench at St. Mary's, key benches around town to give the weary walker a break....

People: Buckwheat, the Mayor, the Governor, the Speaker of the House, visitors, the Traffic Control people giving tickets and citations....

Shops T-shirt shops, Storm Brother's Ice Cream, trinket and souvenir shops ....

Alleys: guick sneak throughs to the next street....

Annapolis: 17 of the best years of my life....

 NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Thought for Today

"I hear America sing singing, the varied carols I hear."

Walt Whitman

I Hear America Singing

 November 17. 2022

Reflection

SELF  DESTRUCTION

People self-destruct.

Some do it slowly; some to it quickly; some do it dramatically.

When Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York State got caught with prostitutes, the press articles and TV commentators voiced various theories.

For example, "He wanted to get caught."

Someone else said, "People in high places think they are exempt from being caught. So it's a  power question."

Others said, "It's all connected and it's complicated.  It's being the son of a powerful father."

Others added, "What was he thinking or not thinking? Is he stupid?"

As priest - as male - as human - as me - I know we all do stupid things.  We self-destruct.

We don't get enough sleep - and we'e dragging ourselves like an overweight suitcasre.

Then we resolve not to do stupid again.

But we do.

Expet deja vu.

Expect more stupidity.

Expect repeat performances.

We overeat. We over indulge. We over mess up.

We want to be rational - but our inners can be more than an electrical system.  We have snakes, owls, and sharks in our deep  waters.  Probably an octopus or two as well.

St. Paul in Romans tried to get his hand on all this,  He said, "We don't do what we said we were going to do and vice versa, we do what we don't want to do."

St. Augustine - reading and reflecting on what Paul said - realized Paul was speaking my reality.

Don't we all?

Don't we all mess up and we ddon't know why.

It's the onging struggle of resolution vs. stupidity - sin and grace - recovery and fall - Genesis and Exodus.

"Father forgive me, I don't know what I am doing?"

 November 17, 2022

Thought for Today

"All the intelligence and talent in the world can't make a singer.  The voice is a wild thing.  It can't be bred in captivity."

Willa Cather, 

The Song of the Lark, 1915

 November 16, 2022

Reflection

YOU HAD ME WHEN ....

Once more, in the movie, As Good As It Gets, Holly Hunter says the line she said to Melvin, "You had me when...."

Then he loses her with his return comment .... as he puts his foot in his mouth.

The message she gives is: "You should have stopped then and there."

In relationships I see this going on at times.

A person says something and they are our friend for life - or the opposite happens - a person says or does something and we give up on them for life.

When we were studying the Jungian Personality Types - one of the personality traits for those who have a strong suit when it comes to operating out of or functioning with feelings, it's that when they have doubts, they become absolute doubts.

Those who function out of thinking can have intellectual doubts and the person they have doubts about can recover more easily.

Being a feeler type, I resonated with this.

If I have doubts about another, I am not logical about them. My gut sends the signal: "Avoid this person!"

It's not logical.  It could be their beard or their tattoos or something they say or do or what have you.

We know cultures who know this stuff with the repetition of the old saying: "Fool me once, it's not my fault.  Fool me twice, it is my fault."

There is the same message with dogs peeing on our leg. It's that second time....

So folks have doubts about others - just as the have gut feelings about this person - as being a good one.

The stuff of life is in the meetings after a mistake in a relationship - or not being blind after a commitment.

 November 16, 2022

Thought for Today

"It can be rather devastating for a writer to finish a book and have nothing in the pot on the back of the stove."

Rita Dove, 

The Writer's Chronicle, 

October-November 2005

 

TINY  TATOO

 

Once upon a time there was a short guy named Tommy.  He tried to get into the Army, but he wasn’t accepted, He was too short.  He tried the Navy, no luck as well. Likewise the Air Force and the Coast Guard. Nope.

 

All through grammar school and high school the Military Service was his hope. It was his dream.  No luck. Tough – especially because he was picked on all through his grammar school and high school days for being so short. Too short – too picked on – too often.

 

What to do with his life? He didn’t know.

 

One hot summer day – sitting on a bus in Cincinnati, Ohio – 22 years of age – it hit him – what he was to do with his life.  He looked at the left hand of the person sitting  right next to him on that bus. The guy had this really neat tattoo – on his left hand. It was of a blue bird – a beautiful blue bird.

 

“Wow,”  Tommy said to the guy next to him. “That’s a neat tattoo.”

 

The guy – his name was Albert – said, “Thanks!” Then Albert added another “Thanks” and said, “Sometimes people make nasty comments about my bird tattoo – but I like it. Glad you do, too. Thanks again.”

 

Tommy thought about that moment – and it led to the rest of his life. He did the research and found a Tattoo School in New Orleans – one of the best in the United States. In  6 months he was an apprentice – and in two years he had his own place. He chose Chicago – lots of people – lots of people who had a high percentage of tattoos.

And in 10 years he became one of best tattoo artists in the United States tattoo world  -  doing all kinds of tattoos.

 

Tommy – because he was short – also came up with a unique tattoo – and this is how he really became famous. Little People – especially Little People - from all over the United States  flew to Chicago to get his special tattoo.  They saw it mentioned in Tattoo Magazines. I bet you didn’t know there are 2 main tattoo mags. There are also 4 Little People’s Magazines

 

The tattoo – you’re not going to believe this – I didn’t think it was true at first either – but this special tattoo was mostly words – and a tiny tree with a tiny blue bird - and you’re also not going to believe where people got this tattoo – or only where Tommy would tattoo it: on the bottom of a person’s left foot big toe. He picked the left foot because he got his idea of becoming a tattoo artist having met Albert on that Cincinnati bus – with his tattoo of a blue bird on his left hand.

 

The words he would tattoo on the bottom of big toes were words he came up with from his favorite character in the Bible – Zacchaeus – the patron saint of small people. The words were: “Remember Zacchaeus – shorter – smarter – than all the rest. He climbed a tree and he saw Jesus best.”

 

In the magazine articles about Tommy - people read about Tommy’s instructions to the short people who came to get this tattoo.   Whenever someone starts making fun or making comments about your smallness, sit them down. Take off your left sock and your left shoe and tell them to read what they see on the bottom of your left big toe.”

 

Then say, “Luke 19:1-10”. Then Tommy added: “Guarantee:  they’ll never forget what they saw and they’ll never pick on short people again.”

 November 15, 2022

Reflection

"I'M FINISHED 

WITH THIS GUY. NEXT!"

In the movie, My Cousin Vinny, Vinny the Lawyer scores a knockout with a witness,  He then says. "I'm finished with this guy. Next!"

For some reason that scene and that line stays with me.

We meet someone - and upon further examination - we say to ourselves, "I'm finished with this guy. Next!"

It happens in conversations, relationships, dealings, what have you, with each other.

Did Jesus ever wonder about The Rich Young Man who walked away - or the crowd who walked away from him in Chapter Six of John - when he said, "I am the living bread."

People who date each other sometimes say, "Good bye" to each other.

People are fired from their jobs.

People switch doctors.

People switch insurance agents, churches, and barbers.

However, sometimes the opposite happens. People are unable to say, "Good bye."

Another question: "At  times and in some situations are we ethically allowed to say, "Goodbye. I'm finished with you?"

Another question: "Should we say "Goodbye!" in certain circumstances - like abuse?"

Sometimes and in some situations people won't forgive others - when they ought to say - what Jesus said on the cross, "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."

They don't.

Sometimes people put other people in hell - isolating and cutting them off from communion with others.

Solitary confinement - "the Hole" - "the Box" - are horrible places to put others.

I don't believe God ever says, "I'm finished with this gal - or this guy."

November 15, 2022

Thought for Today

"Metrical poetry is ultimately allied to song, and I like the connection.  Free verse is ultimately allied to conversation, and I like that connection too.  Not too many people can mix the two."

 

Thomas Gunn,

The Paris Review,

Summer 1995 

 November 14,  2022

Reflections

LIAM

Two nights ago I was channel hoping on our TV.

I caught a movie called, "Liam."

Never heard of it - nor did I recognize any of the actors in it.

It looked like it was taking place in Northern England in the 1930's.  I'm not sure about that.  I'll have to look it up on Google.

Mass has the priest's back to the people.  Communion is received on the tongue at the altar rail.

Liam is a little boy moving towards his First Communion. This meant: also moving towards his First Confession.

He and some boys are looking at a big heavy enormous art book.  It's kept on a shelf in their classrooms. They spot a painting of two naked women.

Recently he had seen his mom naked by accident. 

The little boy was discovering differences.

The boys teacher - the girls were kept in another room - spots the commotion by the boys with the art book.  

She brings in Father Ryan - a fierce force - to read the riot act to the boys. They have seen him in action - in the pulpit - a roaring fire of words.

Should I try to get this movie and how it on a priests' retreat?

 November 14, 2022

Thought for Today

"The poet has a peculiar duty: he has to create other poets.  We cannot let talent die without waking."

James Liddy,

Studies 85, no, 340

P.S. Write that poem. 

Write that book.

Get me off the hook!

 November 13, 2022

Reflection

MONDAY MORNINGS

There's something about Monday mornings.

I've read a few times that most heart attacks happen on Monday mornings - early - before people are off to work.

If that's true - and - reported heart attacks can be tabulated - it gives a glimpse into Monday mornings.

Tomorrow morning is Monday morning - uh oh.

There's that first Monday morning after a two week vacation with the kids at the beach. We have  to get back into the regular grind of life.

There's that first Monday morning on a new job - what are our thoughts?

Friday afternoons have that "Phew!" in them - as we look forward to the weekend. 

Do Monday mornings have a special sound?

Are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays different?

Sabbath is necessary.

Are there cultures - or were there cultures where folks worked 7 days a week - without vacations - without breaks?

Do or did slave masters - or tyrants know people need a break?

It was Monday morning - March 31, 2008 when I first wrote this.   I had neglected doing any writing into this note book in the weeks that followed.

[Today is November 13, 2022]

 November 13, 2022

Thought for Today

"By day poets masquerade as mere mortals: insurance clerks, teachers, librarians.  But by night they prowl like panthers, seizing words on the run and crunching raw emotion."

Unattributed

The Times, September 4, 2006