THE PERIOD
AND
THE QUESTION MARK

Once upon a time a Period and a Question Mark found themselves almost right next to each other. This is rare, but sometimes it happens. They are serving different life sentences.

And sometimes when they meet each other – the result is stress. Sometimes it’s an argument. Sometimes the communication process gets confused or mixed up.

The Period says, “It’s the Question Mark's fault for these mix-ups. Period. That’s it. Question Marks are too open ended – too vague – too unsure of themselves – too liberal. They have to learn how to make decisions – to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Period.”

The Question Mark replies, “Why? Why are you saying that? Why don’t you talk to me and find out why I tend to ask questions?”

The Period answered, “It’s because you don't like the answers. That’s why you keep asking questions. Questions. Questions. Questions. You have to take a stand – be more definitive, more sure of yourself - like me.”

“Well,” says the Question mark, “can’t you see that I’m being true to myself? Can’t you see I’m built like a hook for a reason?”

“Look,” says the Period, “you’re handicapped – going through life with that funny looking hook. Don’t you wish you were nice, basic, simple and clear like me?”

“Wow, Period, you just asked a question. Wow, you can do it. And surprise, I just used 2 periods. And there's a 3rd one. Isn’t it nice when people change and try to understand each other?”

“You're strange," said the Period. “I just don’t understand you. Good bye.”

"Come back? Why are you walking away?" asked the Question Mark. "Are you scared to be with me?"

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2009

THE ABILITY TO SIT STILL

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “The Ability to Sit Still.”

Some folks don’t have any trouble sitting still. In fact, some people know some people who are sitting still too much and they want them to get off their butt and put the garbage out or help with the dishes or get a broom and sweep the kitchen or the garage floor.

Should marriage instructions have a sign: CPNNA?

“Couch Potatoes Need Not Apply.”

This homily is for those who need to slow down - to sit still - to take long looks at life.

TODAY’S FIRST READING

The theme of sitting still hit me when I read the first sentence in today’s first reading. “Elijah went a day’s journey into the desert, until he came to a broom tree and sat beneath it.”

I was trying to find out information about broom trees – and why they are called that. I discovered that the desert broom tree is really a short shrub – yet some of its branches can be 12 feet high. The dictionary indicates it, but I couldn’t find out for sure if they make brooms or just broom handles from these trees.

In the desert any tree – any place to hide – would be very welcome.

Elijah is on the run – and he sees a broom tree and heads for it – and begins begging God to take his life – because he’s fed up with life and running and running – because King Ahab and his wife Jezebel are after him for challenging them.

Running…. Running…. Running …. Ever feel that way?

And he falls asleep and an angel touches him and orders him to get up, eat and drink. And he spots a bread cake and a jug of water. He eats and then falls asleep again and once more the angel touches him and tells him to get up and eat and drink because he has a long journey ahead of him. The reading tell us, “He got up, ate, and drank; then strengthened by that food, he walked forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God, Horeb.” [1 Kings 19:8]

The message of the story is obvious: we need food and drink for the journey.

The purpose of the text is obvious: to connect it with the Gospel readings we have been hearing these 4 weeks – from Chapter 6 of John – how we need the bread of life, Jesus, to eat and be nourished by on the journey of life.

The message of the story is obvious: sometimes we want to end it all because everything is catching up on us.

Run…. Run…. Run….

BROOM TREE RETREAT HOUSES

I’ve never been to a retreat center with the name, “Broom Tree Retreat House,” but I know they have them around our world – for pastors and for those who need a good rest. They get their name and hope from today's story about Elijah on the run.

I did spend 22 years of my life in Retreat Houses: San Alfonso Retreat House West End, N.J; St. Alphonsus Retreat House Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, and Mount St. Alphonsus Retreat House, Esopus, New York. They were all named after the Redemptorist Founder, St. Alphonsus, whose statue is up here at St. Mary’s.

In those 3 places I saw thousands of people come for a break - for rest, for an escape.

I saw lots of people calming down – and just sitting looking out at the ocean, looking at trees, looking at a river or the hills in the distance.

People need trees to sit under.

People need good chairs to relax in.

People need places to escape to.

THREE QUOTES

I’m sure you’ve all heard the words of Pascal in reference to sitting. It’s in his book, Pensees, or Thoughts, “I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, our inability to sit still in a room.”

Is that true? Think about it: "... all human evil coming from our inability to sit still in a room?"

Lewis Thomas wrote, “We are, perhaps, uniquely among earth’s creatures, the worrying animal. We worry away our lives, fearing the future, discontent with the present, unable to take in the idea of dying, unable to sit still.”

T.S. Eliot in his poem, Ash Wednesday, prays, “Teach us to sit still.”

I’m sure all of us here have a rosary and a Bible. Millions of people around the world every day sit still with worry beads or holy words – and just be – sitting still in prayer with God.

Many people know the words of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”

ANNAPOLIS' HOLY PLACES

Here at St. Mary’s and now at St. John Neumann there is a garden where you can come and sit still and find peace.

Here at St. Mary’s and also St. John Neumann one can come and sit in church – on wooden benches – and just be – just be still.

Hundreds sit in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel down below – sitting still in the presence of Jesus, the Bread of Life – food for the journey – one of the great stresses of St. Alphonsus.

Where are your broom trees? Where are you resting places? Where are your hiding places?

There are 3 or 4 benches at Quiet Waters Park overlooking the South River. I know that because I remember blessing one of those benches - in memory of a husband who was killed by a machine in a factory accident.

With all the water around Annapolis – folks love to just sit on porches – overlooking water – or on rocks or on benches – or on green grass – or what have you – just relaxing – just being who I am.

Where are your broom trees? Where are you places to sit and become quiet?

STETHOSCOPE OR LISTENING DEVICE

We all know what a stereoscope or a listening device is.

If you put a microphone over Elijah’s heart you would have heard the pounding and the panic in him. He was scared for his life.

If we put a microphone over our own heart, what would we hear?

Today’s second reading from Ephesians has a great opening line, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit….” Then we are challenged to decide which sounds to dump and which sounds to keep.

Is this why people might be scared to sit still? They might not like the sounds within them. They might become too loud to listen to.

Ephesians says, “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice.”

I once lived next door to a priest who had a drinking problem. It wasn’t here. It was in one of those retreat houses where I was stationed. And the walls between our rooms were not thick enough. Outside his room – in public – he was always such a gentleman – the priest with a great smile – but I could sometimes hear the sounds from his heart – anger, griping, complaining, whining, heavy duty, “How comes?” – coming through the walls. I tried to get him help. We tried to get him help. He never accepted help. “Ugh!” "Oooh!" Those are two of my inner sounds, "Ugh!" and "Oooh!"

And then Ephesians says the sounds and attitudes one should hear from within one’s walls: kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.”

The title of my homily is “The Ability to Sit Still.”

This week take time at least once and get ye to a broom tree. Sit down under it – at the Mall, on a porch, in a quiet back room, in a garden – and listen to your inner sounds - the state of your soul. Listen to your heart. What's going on in there? What are your sounds?

CONCLUSION

Ooops. Why do we come to Sunday Mass – if not to sit still? Okay it’s tough for kids. Okay, these benches are not that comfortable, but we come here to be, to be restored, to be fed with the bread of life, and then to leave here to get going again and again and again.

Life for most is longer than 40 days and 40 nights - till we get to the mountain of God.

TRANSFIGURATION:

THERE ARE MOMENTS
AND THERE ARE MOMENTS

INTRODUCTION

There are moments
and there are moments.

We spend our lives in the valley,

but we need vacations -

we need mountain moments.

We're always on the run;

we need to stop from time to time

to see the flowers - and to see

all those people and things around us.

Some moments

are transfiguration moments,
when all of creation
and all the people

are seen in a different light.

Photographers sometimes
show us something
we’ve seen a thousand times,
but didn’t see:
the beauty of a leaf, its veins,
the yellow green of a grape,
the red of watermelon,
a smile,
the pink tongue of a dog,
the hands of a baby,
a tiny, tiny, tiny bug

walking on the page of a book

we haven’t picked up in years,
the eye, the hair of a wife of 3 months

or 300 months or 600 months,
the ocean, a dolphin jumping,
or a kid on a skateboard

going down a summer sidewalk

as we drive by in a car.

Okay, there are disfiguration moments,
beer cans dropped willy nilly in the church parking lot,
a teenager mocking another teenager,
graffiti, a cold shoulder or cold spaghetti.

Jesus tried to stop disfiguration moments.
Jesus pointed to transfiguration moments.

Listen to him.
Listen to Our Father.
You too and the person next to you

are beloved sons and daughters.
It’s nice to hear that.
It’s nice to see that.

There are moments and there are moments.

Mountain moments are great,
but life is lived in the valley.

Andy Costello, Reflections, 2009

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

There are two kinds of people: those who see wheat and those who see weeds? * What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who say, “Hail world, full of grace!” and those who say, “Hail world, full of sin.” What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: optimists and pessimists – you know the metaphors – glasses of water – half full or half empty? - or big gift boxes with straw in them – horse or horse manure? ** What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who see light and those who see darkness. What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those with face muscles that proclaim a smile and those whose faces scream a scowl. What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who sing, “Ode to Joy” or those who sing, “Dies Irae?”*** What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who give and those who take, those who bend and those who won’t budge. What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who say they’re right and you’re wrong and those who say, “Let’s talk.” What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who celebrate life, sky dive, skate board, get out on the dance floor and those who sit there saying, “Crazy kids!” What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who always have that top button, buttoned, and those who loosen their collar – open those buttons and relax. What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who stand up in church and pray, “Thank God I’m not like the rest of people, greedy, unfair, adulterers – especially that I’m not like the person back there. I fast two times a week; I tithe on all I get”; while in the meanwhile the other person in the back, hesitant, and with eyes down cast says, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” **** What’s your take? What do you see?

There are two kinds of people: those who say, “How come Jesus is in communion with that person? How come Jesus eats with sinners and dines with them?”; and those who think and say what Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.”***** What’s your take? What do you see?

There are four kinds of people: (1) those who are hard headed and hard hearted. They are like the dirt road – nothing grows on them; (2) those who are shallow ground – the Word grows on them, but soon withers for lack of roots; (3) those who are good soil and the Word gets growing in them, but they have too many other things going and growing in their lives and the Word gets choked; and (4) those who are good soil and the Word grows in them – producing thirty, sixty and a hundredfold.****** What’s your take? What do you see?

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2009

* Cf. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

** The reference is to the story of two twin boys - one of whom was an optimist and the other who was a pessimist. Their parents bought them a pony - and it came in a big cardboard box with straw in it. Upon arrival, the father put the pony in the fenced-in backyard. When the boys came home from school they saw the big box: one saw horse manure and the other seeing the staw screamed, "Great. We got a pony!"

** Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schiller (1786) set to music by various musicians. I have in ear the composition by Ludwig van Beethoven.; Dies Irae - perhaps by Thomas of Celano - also set to music by many musicians.


*** Cf. Luke 18:9-14


**** Cf. Luke 15; Matthew 9:9:9-13; 1 Timothy 1: 12-17; Amos 5:21.


***** Cf. Mark 4:1-20; Matthew 13:1-23; Luke 8:4-15.

IS THAT RIGHT?

The problem with knowing
is that it can prevent us from knowing.

What?

The problem with knowing
is that it can prevent us from growing.

What?

Well, if we think we’re right,
we might not think we could be wrong
and we miss what another is trying to tell us.

What?

Or then we might not make the effort
to find out if there is something we’re missing
or if there is more to know about
what we think we know.

What?

Like there might be another continent out there
waiting to be discovered or what we think
is India is really America.

What?

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2009

THAT EMPTY FEELING

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “That Empty Feeling.”

Every once and a while “That Empty Feeling” hits us.

It might be after a funeral and we’re driving or flying home. We’re quiet. We’re thinking, feeling, wondering and worrying about the unfinished business of life.

Or it might be after a vacation and all it did was rain – or it didn’t meet our expectations – or something went wrong within family dynamics.

It might be after a third job interview and we don’t get the job – and we told at least three people we were sure we were going to get it.

It might be our kid messes up or drops out of the family or school or a relationship – in which there is a kid and they aren’t married.

It might be a wedding we’re attending – and our marriage ended in disaster and divorce – and we just feel so all alone – and we tried dating a bunch of times – but nothing really worked – and we have the feeling, “I don’t want to be here” – and the music from a few dances – were two of our old songs – and they sound so sour or ugly or “Ugh!”

EFS
I’m saying everyone here has EFS at times. You probably never heard of EFS – especially because I made it up last night. It’s the Empty Feeling Syndrome. It’s specific – particular – unique – to each of us. We know the feeling when it’s us. When someone else is describing that they are going through this – we might say “Yeah, I know the feeling!” but they know and we know – we don’t know the particular stuff in each other’s inner room.

That empty feeling irritates us or itches us the most, when the other seems more interested in something else - like a piece of gossip or how good the coffee is – or that there are donuts in room such and such and hurry if you want to get one.

The title of my homily is, “That Empty Feeling.”

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s first reading has the whole Israelite community grumbling against Moses and Aaron. That would do it. That might give us that the empty feeling syndrome.

They are whining and complaining, grumbling and griping, about being in the desert – far from home – nowhere near the so called, “Promised Land” that Moses promised. The food was horrible. Biblical scholars usually write that manna was some dried “goo” from the tamarisk tree – which the desert people to this day call “man hu”. Translation: “What is this?”

So food would do it – especially when we put together a meal and everyone is complaining about the food – or we picked the restaurant or it’s our restaurant.

Harsh words or a tough letter – like Paul’s words in today’s second reading could do it.

Being corrected – having someone unmask our motives – in public would do it – like Jesus does in today’s gospel.

THAT FILLED FEELING

Maybe a better way to get our hands on “That Empty Feeling” is to talk a bit about that filled feeling. When do we feel filled – or fulfilled?

25th and 50th Anniversaries certainly would do it.

Even a 37th wedding anniversary might do it. I’m sitting there last evening at a wedding reception – and the couple sitting to my left – better the gal two seats away to my left says over the empty chair that her husband just left to go to the bathroom or to get a beer – “Before you leave, would you give my husband and me a blessing? Two days from now is our 37 wedding anniversary.” I said “Sure.”

So after he returned – but before I left to come back home to work on this homily – I said to both of them, “Can I give you a wedding blessing?”

The wife, quickly explained to her husband why I asked that, and he goes, “Oh good – great!” Sitting there – they pressed into each other – side to side – and they were holding hands and I said a few words of blessing – and at a pause, he whispers, “Pray that we have 37 more years at least.” And that’s what I prayed for – that they have 37 more years at least.

They unhuddled and both had tears and as I got, up she got up and said, “I have to give you a hug!” And I got a nice hug and I gave the husband one as well.

I would think they were having a filled feeling evening – up from Virginia – at the wedding of a good friend’s daughter – and I assume they renewed their marriage vows to each other in church – perhaps because I said that would be one of the hopes of our couple getting married, Katie and John, that everyone here in church would renew their wedding vows and marriage as a result of being at this wedding.

I would think we feel filled seeing our kids on stage – in a football uniform – or ballerina tutu – or getting straight A’s – or seeing grandkids in similar situations in person or in pictures.

I would think we would get that filled feeling when we unload all those plastic crates and cardboard boxes of our kid – who is just starting college and we drive them to that college and she is on the 9th floor – and you can’t get the elevator when 700 kids are arriving at the same moment at that dorm building and we have to make the 14 stair trips up to the 9th floor to her room with her stuff – but we did it.

I would assume we get that filled feeling – sitting on a screened porch. It’s night. We’re on vacation. We sit there listening to a thousand insect orchestra in live surround sound. Or it’s night and we’re at a beach house and we can hear the ocean a block away. Wave after wave after wave is pounding the shore. The surf is hitting the sand – and nobody – nobody – nobody is on a cell phone or watching television – but all are enjoying each other - sharing old stories as well as the night and its sounds.

I would assume we get that filled feeling when we’re at Mass and the music is just right – and / or we’re going down the aisle behind a kid in a dad’s arms and the dad receives communion and the kid says, “I want some too daddy. I want some too.” And we say to ourselves, "What a wonderful distraction. What a wonderful moment!"

I would assume it would come from a second honeymoon – or a couple getting some space when the kids are away at summer camp – or when a couple are 23 years married and still holding hands or hugging or smooching – and the kids see them kissing – and the kids are wondering – how come our parents are different from other parents. And the parents – overhear their kids' wonderings – and they hold each other longer that night.

THAT FILLED FEELING – THAT EMPTY FEELING

We are not cars. We don’t have a gauge on our wrist that says, “Full \\\ /// Empty."

We know how much energy is in our tank!

We know when we’re running on empty. We know the empty echo of sin – the wanting to “escape” feeling when we just spent 10 minutes in a pack - meowing catty gossip – and it went too far – and we tore another person apart - and all afternoon we can't stand the aftertaste.

We also know when we’re full to the brim – when our tank has just been topped off with goodness. And goodness, when it spills over, can be explosive. Don’t we love a summer evening moment – walking with family or friends and we see an ice cream place and we get two scoops and the cone starts leaking – and we love the taste of lick – the taste of butter almond or rum raisin ice cream – and we try to lick our chin or fingers and we’re laughing with and at each other?

SUMMARY

That Empty Feeling – as well as it’s opposite, That Full Feeling, – is the theme that I thought of as I read today’s readings – especially today’s gospel. These 4 Sundays – every 3rd year, the year we use the Gospel of Mark for Sunday readings – we switch over to this 6th chapter of John for reflection.

It’s a wonderful chapter to read slowly. It is well developed. It has many nuances. It gets at this question of the human hunger and thirst for food, for meaning, for life. It gets at the question of being empty or being full.

It talks about food, but it obviously has Eucharistic overtones and undertones.

One of the things I hear when someone tells me they have an addiction – whether its food, drink, pornography, or what have you, it’s that they have a down deep empty feeling – and they want to feed it. They often say, “I feel there’s a hole here inside my soul.”

“Feed me. Feed me. Feed me.”

The difference between social drinking and addictive drinking is pain. I remember hearing a famous - as well as classic, Alcoholics Anonymous talk – on tape – by a guy named Clarence X – who said the one identifiable item in the stories of alcoholics is that we take booze as medicine.

Addicts will tell you there is never enough alcohol, never enough food, never enough sex, to medicate that pain, to fill up the hole that person feels is in their soul.

And the first step in AA and in 12 step programs is to admit I’m powerless over my addiction – but there is a power than can help – God – my higher power.

If you haven’t read Augustine’s Confessions for a while, dust it off, and hear him say all this a thousand times better than I said some of this. Hear his words, better his prayers, his confessions to God, “You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

So that’s why we are here in church, at this meeting, at this gathering place, at this Mass. That’s why we hunger for the bread of life. We want to be in communion with Christ and all his brothers and sisters here in his midst. Here we discover Christ more and more and he brings us more and more into communion with His Father and the Spirit of love between them and us. Amen.

WHY NOT?

“Do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Stop asking `Why?’”

“Why?”

“Well, it annoys me!”

“Oh! Thanks for telling me that. I didn’t know
it annoyed you.”

“It does and you do it every time.”

“I do?”

“Yes, you do, and it’s getting to me.”

“Why?”

“There. You just did it again.”

“Ooops! I’m sorry.”

“I bet you half the time
you don’t realize you’re doing it.”

“Well, … come to think about it, I don’t –
but let me ask you a question, ‘Do
you have any ideas why I do it.’”

“Well … no, but why are you asking me?”

“Why not?”

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2009