June 27, 2015

OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP

I like that word, “perpetual” -

as in being there to help -

always. When scared, notice

little kids automatically turn -

and run to their moms and dads

for perpetual help - even when

their right sandal is falling off.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

June 26, 2015

SHORT LIST

I’ve heard about short lists,

long lists and bucket lists.

Under short lists, I could write,

born, lived and died,

or walked, ran, and needed a cane,

or listened, learned, and spoke,

or what, where and don’t know why,

or thanks, no thanks and thanks,

or liked, loved, and lost,

or found peace finally,

or me, others, and God.

© Andrew Costello, Reflections 2015

June 25, 2015

DOUBTS

I doubt it -  when  someone  says 

they have no doubts - or even

stronger: they never had a doubt.

Hey, there’s energy in doubts.

They get us to communicate - to ask -

to hesitate - to pause so as to know

more. They get us to do research.

They get us to realize we’re not God.

And did God doubt that we should

have been created in the first place?  (1)

Doubts can get us to say, “I doubt that!”

Do we sometimes have to move, act on,

risk, take chances - walk in the dark - all

the while - doubting if we shouldn’t wait?

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

Note: (1) Genesis 6:6

June 24, 2015

HOT AIR BALLOON

They tell me I’m full of hot air.
Do they mean - that I tend

to exaggerate - to inflate myself

and my stories - to try to become

bigger than everyone else?

To soar above the crowds?

Ooops! I confess. They’re right.
But notice that I'm laughing, because

what goes up must come down!

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

PARKING  PLACES,  

SEATS  IN  CHURCHES, 

HEY  I  HAVE THE MIKE 
AND  THERE’S  ONLY 

SO MUCH SPACE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 12 Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Parking Places, Seats in Churches, Hey  I Have the Microphone and There’s Only So Much Space.”

It’s easy to say “I love you.” It’s easy to think we’re a good neighbor. It’s easy to think we’re smooth when it comes to being a Christian.

That is till the tire hits the road …. That is till someone takes our parking place…. That is till we’re trying to get into a crowded elevator or  train or bus or bathroom or our favorite seat in church…. That is till we move from words, thinking, talk or theory to reality…. That is till someone gets to microphone and won’t shut up.

TODAY’S READINGS

Today’s first reading triggered this thought.  The author of this section of Genesis 13: 2, 5-18 - is telling us that there were quarrels between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and those of Lot’s. There’s only so much grazing land.

What happens when two herdsmen want the same land to graze their flock?

Abram offers a compromise,  “Let’s not fight. If you want to go to the left, I’ll go to the right and vice versa.”

The history of the world is land grab - and the best land at that.

In today’s gospel - Matthew 7: 6, 12-14 - Jesus tells us his way is the narrow way. If you go the other way, it’s wider - but it will lead to destruction.

EVERY DAY

If we are alert, sharp, we’ll see the reality of thinking of others, every day.

In yesterday’s New York Times, in the Metropolitan Diary section, there is a real story about a volunteer in a Manhattan public school. She had to deal with a little boy and a little girl who were fighting over the same book.  Each claimed that they “Had it first.” Watch this same scene playing out in every playground.

The volunteer said she didn’t know what to do - till she said to the little boy, “How about ladies first?” 

Surprise! 

It worked. 

The volunteer writes that she felt good about how she handled the crisis, till, as she wrote, she had a horrible thought: "Had I just sat back the feminist movement for 50 years.”

I think of a little poem story by Carl Sandburg,

"Get off my land! 
- How come, your land? 
My father gave it to me. 
- How did he get it? 
He fought for it. 
- Well, I’ll fight you for it!"

MOVING TOWARDS A CONCLUSION

Each day we have the opportunity to be peace makers, space makers, to be like Abram - who becomes Abraham in a different language and different land place. If you want to settle your family at this picnic table, go for it. If you want to settle over there, go for it. So too the beach at Ocean City - that is if the space is open and available.

It’s simply a variation of sayings in the Sermon on the Mount: turn the other cheek or go the extra mile, follow the Golden Rule. Hey, if a person wants to sit in an aisle seat in church, step over them, or move in. They might have a small bladder or are expecting a phone call from their daughter who is expecting a baby any minute in Arkansas.

Or as the heart doctor in California, who teaches about lowering blood pressure puts it. If you see 3 lines in the bank, choose the longest one. Then when you get to the front of that line, go back and get on the longest line again. While doing that, see how many names of your high school graduation class you can remember or memorize a poem. 

June 23, 2015

CATHEDRAL HOPPING

At Chartres Cathedral I met a gal

who was Cathedral hopping. She

smiled as she said, “Well I used to

be bar hopping - but I’m enjoying

this a lot more. “So far,” she said,

“here in France I’ve done some

of the great Gothic Cathedrals:

Notre Dame in Paris, as well as

the cathedrals in Nantes, Tours,

Amiens, Bourges, and Rheims.

Today and tomorrow: it’s Chartres.

Last summer I was in England

and saw the Gothic Cathedrals

in Lincoln, Salisbury, Ely, and there

was one other. Can’t remember it

now. It’s in my notes here.

And I have the rest of the world

for the future - especially Germany.”

I stood there amazed wondering

about her note pads and her

drawings. Wow - stand at bars

and you’ll meet people. Stand

in the back of cathedrals and

surprise I met someone who

was interested in something I

never would have expected:

Gothic cathedrals reaching

towards God - reaching towards

the infinite - bringing folks
into the cathedral within.

© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015

PROJECTING ONTO 

AND 

JUDGING OTHERS 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday in the 12th Week in Ordinary Time is, “Projecting Onto and Judging Others.”

When I read today’s gospel from the Sermon on the Mount - Matthew 7: 1-5 - when Jesus says, “Stop judging” - I thought: “Preach about judging.”

Then Jesus talks about noticing splinters in another’s eye and missing the big wooden beam in our own eye - I thought about how often we project onto others our motivations and our assumptions as a way of avoiding looking in the mirror or looking at oneself.

Needing to think about these issues I entitled my short homily, 

Then I entitled my homily,  “Projecting Onto and Judging Others.”

JUDGING

First a comment about judging.

We judge all the time. It’s normal.

When I took the Myers-Briggs Test about different personality types - I found out that according to Carl Jung - some people are more judgmental than others. Some people are more perceptive than others.

The test uses the letter P to label those who tend to be perceptive and J for  those who tend to be more judgmental at first.

The J walks into a church or a room or a house and says, “This is a beautiful church or this is an ugly house or this is wrong color for this room.

The P says, “Interesting colors.” Or “I wonder about the stained glass windows in this church. They are different. There has to be a back story."

Jung would hold that we don't choose to be one more than the other or what have you.

I was taught that it’s the second instance that counts.

So those who confess being judgers are off the hook on the first count.

It’s the second instance that counts. So if we judge another spontaneously, we need to say, “I don’t know this or that about so and so - and then do what Jesus said, “Stop judging.”

PROJECTIONS

We can do the same with our projections about others.

Everyone knows what a projector is - it’s a machine that projects a light on a wall. If we put a slide or a film in front of that light - it shoots that picture onto the wall or screen.

So we project onto others motives, reasons, why a person is doing what they are doing.

Surprise - we project our films - those inside our mind and experience - onto another.

Key word: “OUR” - as in our motives, our reasons, whereas the other person has their own films, their own intents - not ours.

Us males are doing this all the time. How about the ladies. We’re watching a pretty girl walk down the street and we see a man looking at her as she walks by. If they are like me,  we assume he too is looking at her the way we are looking at her.

That's first instance. However,if we talk to each other, if we are in communion with another person, if we really communicate with each other, we might find out that the other person is looking  - maybe even squinting - at the lady walking down the  street - because he's wondering if it's a girl he once dated in high school.  

CONCLUSION

In both instances, the stress in this homily is that we do some rethinking, rejudging, saying to ourselves, "I don’t know." It’s in second thoughts, where we can stop judging others and stop throwing stones at others.