RECOGNIZING  HAPPINESS

Quote for Today - August 6, 2011

"It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy."
 
Lucille Ball - Today August 6, 2011 is her 100 birthday

SEE THE MIRACLES 

SURROUNDING YOU

Quote for Today - August 5, 2011

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."

Siddhartha Gautama ca. 563 to ca. 483 B.C. The Buddha -

Flower on top - taken in Vienna, Austia, August 8, 2010

ANGER TAKES ENERGY!

August  4,  2011

Quote for Today

"Anybody can become angry - that is easy. To be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, in the right way - now that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."

Aristotle [384 BC - 322 BC], Nicomachean Ethics, Book ii, chapter 9.

On top: Roman alabaster copy of a Greek bronze original of Aristotle by Lysippus around 330 BC

MAYA

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 18th Wednesday in Ordinary Time is, “Maya.”

As you all know, one of the meanings of the Sanskrit word, “Maya” is, “Illusion.” “Ma” is the Sanskrit word for “not” and “Ya” is the Sanskrit word for “that”. I believe they have other meanings as well. I am not a linguist.

Yet from what I investigated, “maya” means “not that”.

Or as we sometimes say to each other: “It’s not what you think it is.”

Sanskrit - the most basic and original of languages gives us these most basic words and ideas.

So a little baby points out, “ya” to what they want: “that”. And if we hand them the wrong color piece of candy or wrong toy, we’ll hear, “maya”. Not that, not that.

SERMON ALLUSIONS AND ILLUSIONS

The preacher preachers allusions - sometimes like impressionistic paintings - with the hope and prayer - images and words and metaphors touch people’s thoughts and memories.

The preacher also better be aware of illusion.

The preacher or teacher is under an illusion - maya - if he or she thinks people remember what they say - or hear what they say - or understand what they are talking about when they are speaking. Illusion!

The preacher forgets that he often doesn’t hear what others are saying - and worse, sometimes he doesn’t care what the other is saying. He wants to get home or somewhere else. And sometimes it all depends on who’s doing the talking.

This should not sound too dramatic. Husbands and wives have heard each other forever - and know what the other is saying or trying to say or not saying - sometimes from word one.

Listeners might listen to us priests or preachers at times to get the first few words so they can say to themselves “Okay what’s he off on today! Okay. Got it. Now back to what I’m talking to myself about right now.”

I do this when I’m listening to a sermon or a talk - or the evening news. You do this. We all do this.

I laugh inwardly at all this, because as priest I hear people confess distractions in prayers. I want to say, “Life is a distraction.” We all have “Monkey Brains” as they say in Hindu thought - with our thoughts jumping and swinging like a bunch of monkeys all over the place.

3 KEY STEPS ABOUT LIFE

Having said all this, I did hear something in a talk a good 20 years ago and it has helped me immensely.

Sister Maureen McCann of the Dallas, Pennsylvania Mercy Sisters said in a talk: “Life is: Illusion, Disillusionment, and Decision.”

Wow did that make sense. People date. People get engaged to marry. People discover months after the honeymoon, that what they saw before the marriage was an illusion. “Boy - girl - was I disillusioned.” Then they have to make a decision about, “What now””.

Life. The car, the house, the job, the trip, the vacation, the meal looked good on the menu - and on and on and on. I have a big hole in one of my socks right now. When I bought them in K-Mart - I never thought that one day, they would become “holy”.

TODAY’S FIRST READING

I said all of the above because that’s what the Israelites discovered - as we heard in today’s first reading: Numbers 13: 1-2, 25 - 14:1, 26-29a, 34-35.

The Israelites grumble, grumble, grumble - because getting into the Promised Land - the land of milk and honey - is not a cake walk. There are giants to conquer and they feel as small as grasshoppers.

Where have we heard that before?

We hear that every day in many ways.

I never promised you a rose garden - but sorry about all the thorns - and the rose petals have started to fall off the roses you gave me yesterday. Life! Life. What an illusion!

SAM  LEVINSON

Sam Levinson loved to say that the Jews of Europe - like all immigrants - were told that the streets of America were paved in gold. When they got here they found out not only were they not gold, they were not even paved and they had to pave them.

What’s with all this grumbling about immigrants - legal and illegal? They are doing what everyone has done who came to America. They are fighting giants - as they are being treated like grasshoppers.

In this year on St. John Neumann, I recently finished reading a big long life of St. John Neumann. - an immigrant who came to the United States and never lost his foreign accent. Now I’m reading a second life of St. John Neumman. He had to discover what all the immigrants to the United States or anywhere discover: where you arrive is not what you think it was going to be. It’s work. It’s lonely. It’s a struggle. It’s a decision to stay or leave.

Life is takes place with three steps or stages: Illusion. Disillusionment. Decision.

CONCLUSION

Does this mean we become cynics or pessimists or depressed?

Hope not!

I have made the decision to know and to say, "This is life! This is funny sometimes. This is realistic. This is reality. Sometimes there are laughs. Sometimes there are tears. This is life."

Tires and rugs and skin and the human body get wrinkled and wear out.

It’s an illusion that we’re going to live and last forever. Some people seem to think that - when they or someone they love gets big time health problems.

I also think all of us have to discover some of this on our own - with our own set of disillusions.

In the meanwhile - I also like to say to myself Thorton Wilder’s words from his 1942 play, The Skin of Our Teeth, “My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate - that’s my philosophy.”

The bummer about that is I always loved that saying and always loved ice cream - and then I got diabetes, Type 2 diabetes is a bummer! Yet I've discovered and decided on sugar free ice cream at times. And in the meantime, there is always peanut butter on rye bread.

WRITE THAT POEM!

Quote for Today - August 3, 2011

"Will you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?"

William Shakespeare [1564-1616], Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Scene 2, 1, 4

P.S. Did anyone ever write you a poem? Do you still have it? Will they find it with your stuff after you die? Have you read it over and over - long after the moment? Have you ever written a sonnet about / for another? What happened next? What has been your greatest compliment? Tell me more.

Photo on top: a gal who posed at the doorway of a shop we went by in Tallin, Estonia in 2009.

SIBLING RIVALRY

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 18th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Sibling Rivalry.”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

When I read today’s first reading from Numbers 12: 1-13, I scratched my head and said, “Now what is this all about?” Next I thought: “No wonder we ignore the first reading for homily consideration at times - because this is too complicated. It’s too early in the morning. Will anyone get anything out of this first reading?”

I read the first reading again. Then I read what the commentaries say about the text. I smiled when I read that a few of them say it’s complicated. It has various threads of thought and experiences that come from various times and sources of Israel’s history. What I found most intriguing was the comment and the text is being used in struggles between two types of prophets in Israel in the 8th century BC - using a story that came down from word of mouth from earlier - from a story from the time of the Exodus - which some date in the 1400’s. [1] So because it’s a mishmash part of the stories about Moses and others, no wonder it’s a head scratcher.

Then a new thought hit me. That's what I am usually hoping for when reading the readings of the day and trying to come up with a short thought for a homily.

The new thought: people at times ask about how to read the Bible. New thought: why not suggest going through the Bible using the issue of Sibling Rivalry?

Someone could go through the Bible - cover to cover - and jot down any and every sibling rivalry story that comes up. Put down character’s names and then the text numbers like: Cain and Abel Genesis 1-16; Abram and Lot Genesis 13: 1-18; Ishmael and Hagar, Genesis 16: 1-16; and on and on and on.

It could be done. And here in Numbers 12: 13 we a sibling rivalry between a brother and a sister with their brother Moses.

SIBLINGS

When I was growing up, if someone asked me how many siblings I had, I would wondering if they were asking about a type of gold fish or a yo yo or what have you. I never heard the word, “Sibling” - so when I began to hear the word, I wasn’t sure just what it meant. Now it’s as common as words like “texting” or “twittering”.

THE RESULTS

By going through the whole Bible and jotting down various sibling rivalries - like the Prodigal Son and his older brother, James and John, and a whole list from the Old Testament - like Joseph and his brothers, we could do some heavy thinking about all this.

One thought would be the question of whether the world is hurting itself by less and less kids in families. What will China be like by only wanting boys and limitings? What will Europe be like by not repopulating itself and then comes the influx of folks from other parts of the world - who are having lots of kids? Kids are expensive. Kids are the stories of life.

The Catholic Church has always stressed the importance of children as the key to marriage and life.

How about listening to therapists and grandmothers and grandfathers and people from big families and people from small families? What’s their take and what’s their experience of where they come from?

Is it important for people to experience family - and their place in a family? Is it important for people to wonder about what it meant to be the oldest of 5 or the youngest of 6 or the middle child of 3 or the only boy of 7 or the only girl of 4 or to have experienced the death of a brother or a sister at an early age - or to get hand me downs - or be in packed bedrooms - or to think mom or dad likes so and so more than me or him or her. Is it important to deal with contrasts and comparisons? What it like to be the Black Sheep of the family - or to have teachers compare us to an older brother or sister - or to be an only child and one visits cousins in abundance from bigger families. What’s it like for an oldest in one family marry the youngest in another family? I’ve heard there are optimum situtations. What about step-children and adopted children - in the family mix?

It’s the stuff of story and it’s the stuff of Bible.

CONCLUSION

So today’s first reading begins with something that happens in various families. It begins this way: “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on the pretext of the marriage he had contracted with a Cushite woman.”

Were they unhappy with their sister-in-law? Were they unhappy with their brother’s choice of a wife? Or was it something else? Jealousy? Comparison? What have you? Then Miriam gets leprosy - a skin disease and turns white. What is that all about? And God is described as angry with Miriam. Does God make us itch and scratch our heads and body when rivalry and messy family stuff is going on?

Scratch the surface of all this. Family stuff is Bible stuff. Family stuff is our stuff. Family stuff is learning stuff.

NOTES

[1] Cf. God Day By Day, Following the Weekday Lectionary, Vol. two, Ordinary Time: Matthew, Marcel Bastin, Ghislain Pinchers, Michel Teheux, page 183; The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, "Numbers", p.85, #28, by Conrad E. L’Heureux.

IT  HURTS

Quote For Today - August 2,  2011

"The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness, than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings."

William Hazlitt [1778-1830], in Works, Volume X, page 324.

Photograph by Ruth Framson of the New York Times, November 2008, showing a girl in Shivpuri, India, suffering from malnutrition which stunts growth.