Mangled stucco and concrete – rubble – the remains of the house that was taken down – the house where we used to live: 326 – 62nd Street, Brooklyn, NY. Bulldozed – crumbled – crushed – till it finally gave in - and caved in - making room for the Gowanus Parkway above – now with thousands and thousands of cars and trucks and buses - going though and over where my brother and I played with our cars and lead soldiers. Now our house exists only in the black and white photographs - that slip out of the
old albums – when I page through them – falling out because the scotch tape has lost its stickiness. Ugh .... Age…. But wait - now - in
2020 – in this lost year of the pandemic – I’m grateful that I have time to look at – so many pictures and scenes that I’m realizing are still sticky, sticky, stuck, stuck - in my memory
- when I go back there to the 1940’s and early 50’s.
“If you could turn back the clock,where would you stop?”
Someone
Tuesday, September 22, 2020
September 22, 2020
SOUNDS IN A FULL CHURCH
Benches going up and going down - squeaking up and banging down. People greeting one another …. Others going, “Shush! Shush!” Down deep in the soul roam lots of deeper
sounds: “Help!” – “Thanks!” – “Why?” - “God! God! Where are You?” God the Father just hugs and holds on. God the Son says, “I am with you!” God the Holy Spirit groans sounds that keep sounding around the halls in our heart
“Two
pessimists met at a party. Instead of shaking hands, they shook heads.”
Someone
Monday, September 21, 2020
September 21, 2020
SOUNDS IN A SILENT
CHURCH
Wooden benches adjusting after a customer left 5 minutes ago and went back into the street. A candle in a red glass holder going out after 13 hours of praying for a worrying mother. An ambulance rushing down the street -
taking a dying person to the nearest hospital. The wind trying to get inside the church through a crack in a stain glass window. The opening of a side door for an old man who drops into this silent church every afternoon at 3.
“For those who could use a bit of praise – give it to them. People can’t read their tombstone.”
Someone
GOD,
IT’S NOT FAIR
INTRODUCTION
The title of my
homily is, “God, It’s Not Fair.”
How many times does God hear those 4 words every day?
“God, it’s not fair.”
VARIATIONS GO LIKE THIS
“God, if you think this is funny, it isn’t.”
“Enough’s, enough, O God.”
Or the two word question God and parents always hear:
“How come?”
TODAY’S READINGS
The title of my homily is, “God, It’s Not Fair.”
I think today’s readings can be summed up in those 4
words: “God, it’s not fair.”
We heard in today’s first reading from
Isaiah 55:
“For my
thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
How old do we have to be – to learn that
we think differently from God and God thinks differently than the way we think?
We heard in today’s second reading from
Philippians:
I long to
depart this life and be with Christ,
for that is far better. Yet that I remain in the flesh
is more necessary for your benefit.
We heard in today’s gospel,
“These last ones worked only one
hour,
and you have made them equal to us,
who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’
He said to one of them in reply,
‘My friend, I am not cheating you.
Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?
Take what is yours and go.
What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?
Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?
Are you envious because I am generous?’
Thus, the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
Sometimes things are not fair.
Sometimes you have to laugh.
Sometimes you have to look out prison bars and see stars
– while the person in same cell with you – only sees mud.
A BUNCH OF EXAMPLES
One evening, four of us went to hear Gary Snyder, the poet, speak at
Bard College in upstate New York.
We got there early and got front row seats. Neat.
It was a rather small room and by the time 7:30 arrived
the room was packed with people – many of them standing. Someone came in and
walked to the front – went to the microphone and said, “We’re filled. There are not enough
seats, so could you all go out the door in the back and cross the corridor into
the much bigger room we have there.
The four of us ended up in the back of this second room –
in the corner.
I immediately thought of Jesus words, “The last will be
first, and the first will be last.”
Not fair.
Recently I went to the New Jersey
Motor Vehicle Bureau to switch my driver’s license from Maryland to New Jersey.
The line was around the building and
then back into entrance ramp. I asked someone what time to come in the morning.
I went the next morning at 6:45 and the line was even longer. I asked a guy with a clipboard and a plastic
name tag, “Is everyone of these people here just for their driver’s licenses?
He said, “Yes!” Then he said, “Wait a
minute. How old are you?”
I said, “80.”
He said, “Go to the front of the
line.” And he walked me there. And I wasn’t wearing a priest collar.
If someone did that on
a restaurant line or a Supermarket check out line in this Coronana 19
era – there would be a lot of screaming.
Who said, “Life is fair.”
When my brother died of melanoma –
skin cancer – which he got at 49 and died at 51, his buddy Marty Goldberger did
one of the eulogies. Marty said he got a
letter from his son David who was in Israel for a year. David felt bad he was missing the funeral. He wrote that when he was a little kid he was
once playing ping pong in their house with his dad. My brother shows up and says to David.
“That’s an interesting ping pong paddle you have. Can I see it.” He hands it to
my brother who then says to Marty, “Okay three over for serve.”
David immediately said, “Hey Mr. Costello. That’s not fair.”
My brother standing there ready to
play Marty says, “Kid let me give you your first lesson in life? Who said,
‘Life is fair.”
I think that’s one of the first things
in life that kids say, “It’s not fair.”
It’s one of the first things in life
that kids learn. Life is not fair.
Do mothers instinctively know, “Never
buy a square or rectangular cake with icing?
They only have 4 corner pieces – pieces with double icing. When it come
to kids – and also some adults: Always
buy round cakes if they have icing.
LIFE
101
If nobody died, this earth would be
very crowded.
If nobody died, stock in nursing home
chains would be a good stock.
Life would be boring if everybody saw
the same way.
Baseball stadiums would need cardboard cut outs all the time – if
everyone hit a homerun every time – while at the same time every pitcher
pitched a no hitter – every time.
Unless you’re an only child, family
dynamics wouldn’t work – because someone has to be the oldest and someone has
to be the youngest – and someone has to go to bed earlier than the oldest kid.
Salaries differ and sometimes the
person who is a lazy loaf gets a lot
more money than the workaholic.
There would be no talk shows or
Saturday Night Life or Shakespeare or Parables by Jesus – if every day –
everything was the same.
CONCLUSION - SOLUTIONS
If you want to be a person of peace,
you have to laugh – lots of laughter.
If you want to be a person of peace,
you have to learn patience and acceptance.
If you want to be a person of peace,
you have to become a philosopher.
If you want to be a person of peace,
you have to listen to the fortune cookie wisdom of Jesus: turn the other cheek,
go the extra mile, know that it’s where you live, you get the weather you get,
and some people are better at Algebra and some people play ping pong better
than others, and PS - save some of your questions for the next life.
