OCTOBER 26,  2022

Reflection

WHERE IS  GOD?

He asked, "Where is God?"

He asked a dozen times, "Where is God in all this.  Why doesn't God help me?  Why doesn't God change things? Why doesn't God do something?"

He said, "I prayed."

He said out loud the prayer he says to God every morning.

His chemical unbalance in his brain was a problem.

The psychiatrist said, "There are 100,000 people in the United States who are not helped by drugs."

He smoked.

Anxiety, high anxiety, crossing and uncrossing his legs, itching, lots of itching - all were part of his patterns.

He would make phone calls during our hour together. He would be polite. He'd say, "I'm trying to reach a lawyer.

He would go to a movie.  He would sit there without really seeing it. He would go back and forth to see that movie.  He saw one movie 16 times.

He'd ask, "Where is God in alll this?"

He was out of his job - his own company - on disability.

He was thin and nervous.

He'd say, "I have no reason to live/ Why doesn't God take me?"

He walks 2 hours a day.

I didn't know what to say.

I once said, "God cries!"

But I once also said, "God laughs."

He got a call to go see a kick ball game that night.

He said, "I'm not a spectator."

I asked, "Is God a spectator?"

I mentioned that Jesus healed and helped some cripples. He helped them walk again.

He replied, "But where is God for me, here and now?"

I  remained quiet. I didn't know what to say.

But I sat there and prayed and prayed, "Where are you  God? Where are You? What do you have to say?"

 October 26, 2022

Thought for Today

"There is a wonderful, simple conversation encoded in all poems worthy of the name: 'You've felt this too, haven't you?'"

Carol Rumens, Brangle, no, 3, 1999

 October 25, 2022

CHILD  PSYCHIATRIST

 

It took him two years to become a child psychiatrist.

 

Oh - after college he went to 10 more years of school and studies and research – first to become a medical doctor – then to become a psychiatrist – then to focus on child psychiatry – but he couldn’t get a grasp on just what to do – when it came to kids who had down deep deadingly patterns.

 

Silence and staring – with little seeing – seemed to be their scenarios.

 

A sentence in a lecture by a world famous psychiatrist triggered his choice of being and choosing to be and to work with kids – as a psychiatrist.

 

The sentence: “The bigger the problem, the earlier the problem.”

 

He felt so helpless trying to help some little kids who couldn’t or wouldn’t cry – kids who could hardly speak – kids would couldn’t play games.

 

He brought into his hospital ward grandmothers – teenage girls and boys – other kids – to be and to play with these kids -  but some kids had deep, deep what seemed like undiggable problems – especially a few kids who had no interaction with anyone really for their first 3 years of life.

 

Then one day this child psychiatrist was in church and the gospel was read.

 

Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like?”

 

Then Jesus in his unknowability said, “To what can I compare it – this dream of God the Father for all?”

 

Then for some reason Jesus took a tiny mustard seed – planted it in his garden – watered it – and then watched it grow – watched it become a large bush and the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.

 

Did he do this – learn this from Joseph – or someone in the neighborhood?

 

Then one day he watched a woman take some wheat flour – some yeast  - some water and watched a whole batch of dough become leavened – become bread. Then she baked it. Delicious taste. Delicious scent. Delicious mind and heart changer. Give us this day our daily bread.

 

Was it Mary – his mother - whom he watched doing this?  

 

The child psychiatrist said, “Eureka! I got it!”

 

He  got pots and earth. He started a small garden - in the back of the building. He got mustard seeds – watermelon seeds – flower seeds - and he and the kids became amateur farmers.

 

He went to a small kitchen in their building and got the necessaries to make bread. He and the kids then became amateur bakers.

 

It worked. Slowly the kids were healed.  The psychiatrist as well.

 

[Mass for Tuesday 30^th Week of the Year]

 October 25, 2022

Reflection

RAIN

Rain - needed, necessary, noticed.

Rain - a nuisance but prayed for when it is not falling - and the fields are turning brown and green is what we want.

Rain - keeping the windshield wiper makers in business.

Rain - too much when our roofs leak and floods fill our downtown areas and our basements with an inch of water.

Rain - too much when people spend too much time in the basement of their minds - feeling deep blue damp feelings - dwelling too much on the  past - on mistakes - disasters - sins.

Rain - too much - especially when our homes and our buildings are screaming to the skies - "Enough!"

Rain - enjoyable to walk in and dance in - when it's summer and we're in love.

Rain - what they wish would happen on other planets.

Rain - without it, we would not be here.

Rain - sinking down to our roots - into our earth - helping trees, flowers, wheat and weeds to grow.

Rain - the soft constant rain of Ireland - keeping it green - and giving Irish comedians somethin to make jokes about.

Rain - if the ocean/ earth/ lakes are 75% water - expect rain.

Rain - giving weather forecasters something to report about  - and pessimists something to complain about.

Rain - something we have a love-hate relationship with - but something that better be around for a long, long time.

Oct 25

October 25, 2022

Thought for Today 

"Poetry makes some kind of claim of honesty. If, at a party, I say I'm a poet, people have a hard time responding, almost as if I'd said I'm a priest."

Tobias Hill, The Independent, August 9, 2006

 October 24,  2022

Reflection

MORALE

Morale is an issue around here.

Morale is an issue around everywhere.

Morale is an aftertaste - a result of a feeling - a pervading atmosphere - that slides and sifts and shifts  into a womb - and a room - and a mind - into a person - a group - because of what happened - as well as what is happening around here.

Is being an optimist - or a pessimist - genetic?

Is it the result of nature or nurture?

Morale is the temperature in a room.

Morale is the issue behind and underneath the regular question: "Is everything all right?"

Morale is the question we want answers to - when we are evaluating another - or a marriage - or a team - a classroom or a situation.

"How you feeling?"

"How's it going?"

"How are you doing?"

"What's up?

"What's happening?"

There are some people who can take the temperature better than others.

There are some people who don't seem to care about team spirit - or morale - and they affect the morale or the spirit of the group.

Behind morale in  a person is the ability to have a sense of others - to know there are different ways to skin a cat - that it takes work - to really listen to another or others - as well as oneself.

Behind morale is the ability to accept pluralism - as well as unwanted expectations.

What were my mom and dad like?

Who influenced and formed me?  

What were they like?

Tell me your stories.

 October 24, 2022

Thought for Today

"When people don't want to come, nothing will stop them."

Sol Hurok