February  20,  2021

 

Thought for the Day

 

“And that taught me you can’t have anything,  you can’t have anything at all.  Because desire just cheats you.  It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room  It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it – but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you’ve got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone.”

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

February  19,  2921

THE  ROSARY

CONNECTING  US  

TO LIFE’S MOMENTS

 

Life: filled with mysteries,

experiences – like beads

on a rosary, like pearls

on a neckless, like drops

of blood on the ground.

 

Life: announcements, visits,

births, presentations, findings,

crosses, and all those moments

that lead us to Calvary – our

death – then to the great beyond.

 

Life: lots of other mysteries,

that transfigure us, that bring us

the Spirit: baptisms, weddings

Masses – moments to ponder what

Mary went through – we too. Amen.

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

February  19,  2021

Thought for the Day

“It is in the thirties that we want friends.  In the forties we know they won’t save us any more than love did.”

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 February 18,  2021

INTIMIDATION  OR  UPGRADE?

  

Where does the ugly in us come from?
Is it the  residue of lingering put downs –
from unhappy others, from family members –
from teachers – or rock throwers – or jealous others?
 
Was it spread on us – like slabs of butter –
from moments when we longed for some love –
or some recognition – and we picked up patterns
of criticism – without knowing what was happening?
 
Dare we rise above the intimidation of others
to make ourselves feel better that we feel we are.
Do we need to know Christ still walks down roads
and into crowds for upgrades – never intimidation.

 

 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021

February  18,  2021

Thought for the Day

"Mostly,  we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth.  We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and moving that it doesn't seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled din just that way ever before.  Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories - each time in a new disguise - maybe ten times,  maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen." 

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

THE  MEANING  OF  

ASH  WEDNESDAY

 

I am dust and into dust I shall return.

I am dust and dust is everywhere.

I am floating dust – in the air – in the sunlight and the shadows - in an empty silent old afternoon room.

I am Genesis 3: 19.

I am dirt, mud, clay,  molded into me in my mother’s womb – and the Spirit of God – the Breath of God – has been breathed into me.

I am earth.

I am squeezed together substance, flesh, called me.

I am a kicker in my mother’s womb.

I am pounds.

I am increase.

I am leakage.

I am skin.

I am body.

I am scars.

I am dandruff.

I am size.

I am wrinkles.

I’m bathroom.

I am pain and aches,

I am hurts.

I am burnt.

I am ashes

I am dust blown around this room called earth.

I am taken up into plants, ground, becoming well grounded.

I become wheat, squash, corn, salad.

I am milk, water.

I am beauty.

I am youth.

I am middle-aged trying by God to make it.

I am aging.

I am slippage slipping.

I’m flash.

I am delight.

I am crumble, crumble little star.

I’m the me that God and my mom and dad have created.

I am bread.

I am wine.

I am cross and I’m nailed to it – more or less – from time to time.

I am death – hoping in Christ to bring me into Easter Resurrection.

I am since my conception and birth, a forever in God’s mind.

Today this Wednesday  I’m being told I am dust and into dust I shall return. Amen.

 February 17, 2021

ASH  WEDNESDAY  EXERCISE

Take your finger and rub it on a
window ledge or venetian blinds.

If  you're ultra neat look for some dust

in a unchecked, unvisited, tiny corner. 

Look at your finger and see the dust
and say, “This might be part of me.”
 
Shed skin, flaked me, just a tiny bit
of little old me – rubbed off me. “Me?”
 
Yes, remember you are dust and
into dust you shall return.  “Woooo!”
 

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2021