June 20, 2015

LONG WALKS AND LONG TALKS

Fathers and sons need to take long walks,

long talks - down dirt roads - or along the

water - talking about deep things - hopes

for the young - rememberings and regrets

for the old.  They need to do this - and do

this on a regular basis. Did Joseph and Jesus

do this? I don’t know. Did Adam and Cain do

this? I don’t know. All I know is that I regret

I didn’t do this enough with my dad - yet we

went to the park every Sunday afternoon

to give my mom a break. But I did do this

with my older brother - not walks - but long

talks in the front seats of cars - while just

driving along going nowhere - doing this up

to the year he died of cancer at 51 - way too

early - but glad we did. That’s something I

never regretted. Long talks help us get in

touch with what has been and what will be.

(c) Andy Costello, Reflections, Anonymous

June 19, 2015

JIGSAW PUZZLE

My life, a 500, 750, 1000,

a 1500 piece puzzle. I need

the box, the picture, to tell

me what I’m doing. Frame

first, then to sort the colors,

then easy sections first: an

orange or a child with a kite,

clouds, and an old man with

a cane. Then frustration - but

in time slowly constructing

and connecting and building

bridges with the interlocking

pieces of my life. Sometimes

I was sure a piece or two

were missing and a few times

there I had the wrong cover -

and the wrong picture and I

had to figure out life without

knowing what it was all about.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

June 18, 2015

AN ITCH

An itch gets us to scratch our back, 
to move and maneuver our hand - 
to use our finger tips to  bring relief - 
to twist and turn to ease discomfort ....

An itch on the skin of our soul gets 

us to ask, to dig, to move towards

anywhere someone points us towards 
so that we find a possible solution....

An itch triggers more -  to take a risk,

to try something new, and then relax

with an answer or an insight in hand.

An itch - every itch - especially the inner
ones - get us to realize we're closer
to answers at times - but then again
an uneasiness appears with the next 
itch -  till finally - well sometimes - 

as Augustine discovered, the Itch

is called the Son - who brings us

to the Father. Scratch, scratch!

The More is there. The More is near. 
The More is here - and then comes 
a new Itch. God is always beyond 
the next tap on our shoulder, the 
next scratch on our back. Itch. Itch.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

June 17, 2015

HIDDEN

99% of each day, each life, each moment,
is hidden. So Lord, help me to see the best
of that 1% that I do notice. Help me to see
the work behind my life, work and family.  
Remind me to connect - if but a second at
the toll bridge - to the collector. After all,
isn't that the reason I decided not to use
E-ZPass. And Lord, help me by my 1 % to
make life an E-ZPass to at least one person
whom I'll probably won't notice this day. Amen.

 © Andy Costello, Reflections 2014

Painting on Top: The Good Samaritan
bu William Small, 1899
Found in Leicester Art and Museum Service

June 16, 2015

THE WHISPERERS

Sitting on Table 10, I saw a gal sitting on

Table 8 - cup her left hand over her mouth -

and whisper with a slightly bent body - 

to the gal sitting right next to her.

A lady walking by stopped at Table 9. She

bent over to whisper something to a man 

sitting there all alone as his wife was

on the dance floor with some other man.

Then the first whisperer - the one on 

Table 8 - whispered again to the lady

next to her - this time laughing and 

pointing at the guy on Table 9 who was

just tapped on the shoulder by so and so.

Then the whisperer on Table 8 spotted me 

on Table 10 whispering about her with cupped hand to the person on my right with a slight

point of hand - as I was laughing and telling 

about what I was seeing going on over there.

Moral of the story: Sometimes banquets

have nothing to do with the food.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

Painting: Dance at Le Moulin
de la Galette [1876]
Auguste Renoir, 
Musee d'Orsay, Paris

WHEN  FORGIVING, 

THE   KEY  PERSON  
 TO FOCUS ON IS ________?

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 11^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “When Forgiving, the Key Person to Focus on Is?”

In today’s gospel Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….”

WHEN IT COMES TO FORGIVENESS, WHOM TO FORGIVE?

Up till I was 60 or so, I accepted Jesus’ teaching about loving one’s enemies, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, because Jesus said so to do so. Then when I began to listen, really listen, to people who were having family problems - or person problems -  with certain behaviors going on, I began to realize the heart of what Jesus was getting at.

I moved from acting out of experience - and not just authority.

For starters, when it comes to forgiveness, the key person is me.

The key issue is what not forgiving does to me - or to anyone who refuses to believe.

The key issue is what  is happening to me - when I become angry, bitter,  frustrated.

I can become sour.  I can become arthritic of soul.  I can have hurt in my hands and my wrists and then my lower arms, because my fists are often tight - with anger. So too my jaw - and then my face when a smile slips off my face.

Not good stuff.

THE CROSS

I think some more realizations came when I thought about Jesus saying while on the cross, “Father forgive him because he doesn’t know what he is doing.”

I wasn’t realizing when I wasn’t forgiving.

Then I realized the non-forgivers  can’t shut up about someone who hurt them  - whom they hate - whom they think is getting away with murder.

Then I realized what Nelson Mandela did - he forgave. For years I figured South Africa was going to go up in flames. Surprise. Mandela got out of prison on Robin Island. And there wasn’t a blood bath in the southern tip of Africa - like a Ritz Cracker dipped into a  bowl of tomato soup. Through the years - perhaps because of the smaller number of whites to blacks - because of the injustice, apartheid, anger, and seeing the running of crowds and police and the pushing for freedom, and all that - I expected more blood.

Then we all saw the black and white  race struggle in our south - and in our cities - in the north and south, east and west. We saw the and the riots and the fire hoses and angry dogs and police with sticks. We heard and read about and experienced the shooting of Martin Luther King

Then I saw the movie: Gandhi. 

Reflecting on all that - seeing all that - I got glimpses of what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek.

Rocks - thrown - in both directions - bring broken windows and bloody faces.

CONCLUSION

Then I heard someone say that forgiveness is at the core of Christ.

If we forgive others, if we drop the complaints, we lighten our spirit - and we fly better.

And surprise, not only are we helped when we forgive, so too others.

GOING  THE  EXTRA  MILE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 11^th Monday in Ordinary Time is, “Going The Extra Mile.”

Sometimes we wonder and we ask where a saying comes from.

For example, I’ve often wondered where “Pushing the envelope” came from.

FROM THE BIBLE

Surprise! Many sayings come from the Bible. Check them out - like Jesus’ comment, “Putting your two cents in.”

We have too well used sayings in today’s gospel: “Turn the other cheek!” and “Go the extra mile.”

I assume that part of the  reason why is because preachers would take a comment from the Bible and use it in a Sunday sermon and folks would repeat them in doing life.

GOOD WORKER

Employers often would tell their workers, “Go the extra mile if you want to grow our business. The extras make the difference.

I love the saying, “Go the extra mile, it’s never crowded.”

THE WHOLE 9 YARDS.

Most agree that going the extra mile comes from Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In a way it’s like the saying, “the Whole 9 yards.”

However, when it comes to the saying, “The whole 9 yards”  -  there is no common agreement about its origins.

It could refer to cloth or sails or machine gun bullets.  It could be the same as the saying about the whole ball of the whole enchilada or it could refer to the size of something in yards:  the size of graves,  kilts, or bridal veils.

Whatever, when it comes to serving, loving, giving, hopefully all of us will give the whole 9 yards and then some. That giving the extra comes from Jesus in how we measure pouring out grace and love in forgiving and loving one another.

HIDDEN

The part I like in all this is the secret side of love.

That too is from Jesus - that we don’t do to be noticed - but to make the other’s day.

I think that was the secret reason for the secret success of the Random Acts of Kindness Movement from a few years back.

I heard an example in a sermon way, way back when we were in the seminary about doing things in secret.

A Redemptorist - who became our rector major - talked about a Redemptorist brother who was an excellent carpenter.  He was asked to make a telephone booth - and where it was to be put. Nobody would notice the back - or one of the sides so the priest in charge said, “Don’t worry about the back or the left size, nobody will ever see them.”

However, this brother who made the telephone booth made the back and side which nobody would see - the same as the sides that would be seen. Whenever I spotted that phone booth I would remember that story about it. When I got stationed back in that place years later, I noticed that it was moved out from where it was - and now everyone could see that all 3 sides and all 3 sides were well carpentered.

CONCLUSION

So too our lives - going the extra mile or giving the whole 9 yards makes a difference - especially to ourselves - because it helps our soul grow more generously and that will show up in all our life situations.