December 9,  2022

Reflection

HONOR  SHAME - SOCIETY

I first heard about Honor-Shame in Society in the Bruce Malina and Rossbach's books on the world of the Mediterranean Basin in the First Century, The term was "Honor Shame Society" or something like that.

It's now 8 to 10 years later and I still really do no understand it.

Jack Kingsbury just came back from a workshop he attended in Minnesota.  He said this topic came up. He said he now understands it. I said, "Well someday you have to explain it to me."

Well, let me try to do that right now for myself.

In a given village, people try to become the elite.  They want to have the better house, the better garden. They want to be the better family.

Some jobs have more prestige than other jobs. The mayor is higher than the garbage collector. The owner of the estate is better than servants at that estate.

Today a degree from Harvard is thought belter than a degree from Appalachian State or Anne Arundel Community College.

When asked, "Where are you going to go to college?" it sounds better if you say, "Princeton" than saying you're going to Delaware State College.

So some cars, salary, degrees, jobs, titles, are pushed as better than others.

That's honor.

Shame is the reverse.   "Oh I never did graduate from high school."

"Shame shame on you."

"I have a skin disease."

"My daughter had a baby out of wedlock."

"Shame shame on you."

"Throw stones at her."

"Jesus ate with sinners. He dined with them."

"That's a no, no.  You just don't do that."

In Philippians 2: 5-11 we hear that Jesus came to become one of us - but he took an even lower place. He became the servant of all.

Is that it?  Does that explain honor-shame in society?

December 9,  2022

Thought for Today

"Late on the third day, at the very moment when at sunset, we were making our way through a herd of hippopotamuses, there flashed upon my mind, unforseen and unsought, the phrase, 'Reverence for Life.'"

Albert Schweitzer [1875-1963]

Out of My Life and Thought [1949]

 December 8,  2022

Thought for Today

'Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking.  The one is the shadow of the other."

Carl Gustav Jung [1873-1961]

From Psychological Reflections: A Jung Anthology [1953] 

page 87, vol 7, The Psychology of the Unconscious, [1943]

 December 7,  2022

Reflection

BEING EVANGELIZED BY THE POOR

For the last 30, 40, 50 years, I've been hearing the phrase, "Being evangelized by the poor."

For the last 15 to 20 years I've tried at times - not professionally - to understand what that phrase means - but I still don't.

The poor beggar ... the drug addict ... those who seem lost to me - I don't know how to learn from them or to figure out what they are saying?

At times I hear people saying we ought to bring Larry the Loser in to give us a talk "Put Homeless Harry in the pulpit."  I sense they don't understand what being taught by the poor means - so they joke about the whole idea.

I know that Jesus fed the poor and healed the rejected - and spent time with the non accepted.

I know that Jesus praised the lady who who donated her 2 coins to the poor - and Jesus said she gave more than all the rest.

I know we're not supposed to get caught up in the rat race for success - or money - or to be in first place, but ....

And at times I get to the conclusion that I am poor - stupid - and I need too admit I am poor.

When I see someone in the nursing  home dribbling, or moaning, and tied down - I don't ask  their economic status - just that they know the love of God and others for them.

I have to be open to them and aware of them and love them.

I am poor and don't know what to do - other than to love - while at the same time I can know what I am going through, but I have not heard the story - what others are going through.

 December 8, 2022

Reflection

REDEMPTION

You would think being a Redemptorist since 1960 - growing up in a Redemptorist parish - going to Redemptorist seminaries - hearing Redemptorist sermons on Redemption, I would know what Redemption means.

But here is is July 24, 2008 - still pondering  - Thursday after the feast of the Most Holy Redeemer - that I chose redemption as the final reflection in this book.

What is the heart of the matter when it comes to understanding redemption?

First answer: I am not God.

That means I have an end coming.

Will that mean that's the end of me?

If I want to get beyond death, that means I need a Redeemer.

I  need a Messiah, a Savior, God who can wake me up on the other side of death.  I need someone to take me across the sea of death. I need someone who will call to me with breakfast on the beach - in the morning of  Resurrection.

Up till my death I thought at times I could go it alone - without God, without religion, without others, but just like I needed parents to get started, I need someone greater than myself to start again after I end.

At 68 I faced the death question

At 58 I didn't face it as much.

At 48 I was more into the here and now.

At 38, it was all work.

At 20 Jesus did come to me - in prayer - late into many , many nights - in Esopus, New York, slowly and gradually. I was realizing Jesus was the one I could connect with - for life.

At some point in my early 20's, I heard St. Alphonsus' words, "The meaning of life, the whole ball of wax, is the practice of the love of Jesus Christ."

That was it.After that I needed to remember: "I know my Redmerlives."

The Redemptorists, besides St. Alphonsus, F.X. Durwell and Paul Hitz, helped me to get to know Jesus Christ.

Bottom line: I am not alone. I will not be alone forever.  Jesus will always be here, now and always with and waiting for me.

 December 7,  2022

Thought for Today

"A man lives not  only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously,  the life of his epoch and his contemporaries."

Thomas Mann [1875-1955]

The Magic Mountain [1924]

Chapter 2

 December 6, 2022

Thought for Today

"Autobiographies ought to begin with Chapter Two."

Ellery Sedgwick [1872-1960]

The Happy Profession [1946] Chapter 1