Monday, April 20, 2015

SEEING  THROUGH 
WHAT  WE’RE  SEEING 


INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Monday in the 3rd Week of Easter is, “Seeing Through What We’re Seeing.”

To give credit, where credit belongs, I got the idea for this sermon from a woman named Kathy Coffee, mother of four kids - a speaker and a writer. [1]

In commenting on today’s two readings she talks about Jesus in today’s gospel seeing through the motives of the crowd who are looking for him not because of his signs - but because he gives out food (John 6: 22-29). And in today’s first reading, the crowd will attack Steven - because underneath everything they want to kill anyone who is following Jesus (Acts of the Apostles 6: 8-15).

COMMON EXPERIENCE

It’s a common experience to experience someone who puts up a smoke screen or what have you - simply because their bottom line is to get us.

They think they know our underneath and they don’t like it. Meanwhile their underneath is loaded with mixed motives or fake motives.

At times I’ve met people who want to attack someone’s motives - or what they assume to be another’s motives.  Sometimes they do it with clenched teeth or jaw. Sometimes they do it with a smile.

We see this happening all through the scriptures.

We see this happening all through our lives.

The history of the world seems to be war - when life would be so much better - and sweeter -  if we all worked to be instruments of God’s peace.

A MOUSE IS MIRACLE ENOUGH

In her commentary on today’s readings Kathy Coffee quotes something Walt Whitman said. I have never heard or noticed it before. Whitman said, “a mouse is miracle enough”.

People jump when they see a mouse. Whitman stopped and realized what a miracle a mouse is. I had never thought of that. I get it, because I have been amazed while looking at birds and squirrels. They climb and fly so amazingly.

Toy dogs and cats need batteries. Humans and ducks, cats and dogs, move because they have the miracle of life.

Don’t we pause at times and feel our pulse and know our heart is working - pumping blood and life through our systems.

Miracles surround us.

Miracles abound.

Amazement should resound in us.

Doesn’t that get us to see through what we’re seeing and we see God in the unseen.

I love that quote from Walt Whitman about the mouse.

It’s sort of like the quote I used in my homily yesterday from Mary Ann Evans - better known as George Eliot - who in her famous must read book, Middlemarch, said, “If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”

CONCLUSION: A SUGGESTION

The title of my homily is, “Seeing Through What We’re Seeing.”

As a conclusion here’s a suggestion.

Practice going underneath.

Ask inwardly, “Are you saying what you’re saying or are you saying something else?”

Ask inwardly, “Are you seeing what you’re seeing or are you seeing something else?”

We see this in kids. They want the cookie or the cake or the candy. The rest is staging for the treat.

We see this in adults - but it’s more complex. They are getting back for something we said last week that they didn’t like. They don’t know that’s what they are doing.

Didn’t Jesus say from the cross, “Father forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing”?

We need to practice seeing what’s going on underneath.

To avoid judgment - ask others, “Are you saying what you’re saying or are you saying something else?”

To keep the peace - in a warlike moment - ask, “What are you seeing going on here?”

I see this happening in many interactions in the gospels between Jesus and his adversaries.

I read once about a  little girl who said at the dinner table, “Nobody ever tells me they love me.” 

Her mom said, “Your aunt said she loved you at dinner the other night.”

Pause….

Then the little girl after thinking said,  says, “No she didn’t.”

Silence.

Then she said to her mom,  “When did she tell me that she loved me?”

Her mom answered, “When she said, ‘Don’t eat too fast’”

To be open our eyes - to open our mind - we need to go to the other side of silence and hear the roar of love and amazement that’s going on underneath the bread and the wine and the words of our lives.

So that’s the gist of this homily entitled, “Seeing Through What We’re Seeing” or hearing or doing.”  Amen

NOTES


[1] Page 276, “Unrelenting Graces” by Kathy Coffey, in Give Us This Day, April 2015
April 20, 2015

HAND HELD MIRROR

We see
the other person’s
mannerisms and moodiness.

We see 

the other person's
spots and sins and peculiarities.

We wish
the other person's
behaviors that don't or won't change.

We wish
the other person
would see things the way we see them.

We forget
the other is a mirror
and we're seeing ourselves in them.


© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

Sunday, April 19, 2015


MOTHERHOOD AND APPLE PIE




INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 3rd Sunday after Easter is, “Motherhood and Apple Pie.”

This week - starting with today - is Earth Week and includes Earth Day as well.

Question: does naming a day or a week or a month or a year - for some special cause or occupation -  have any impact?

Translation: does it work?

How about Secretary’s Day or Week,  also labeled “Administrative Professional’s Day or Week?” That day or week takes place in April every year  in the United States. It’s this week - by the way. Are bosses better to their secretaries that day or week? Does that improve life in the office?

Answer: each of us has to know - look - and ask ourselves: “Does a special day or week have any impact on us? Do we treat others - mom, dad, secretary, whoever -  whenever  a special day, week or month is declared for them to be noticed - appreciated - and thanked?”

BUCKMINSTER FULLER AND BATHROOMS

At least 30 or 40 years ago I was watching TV and Buckminster Fuller was being interviewed. I knew he was an architect and an engineer - but I didn’t know about his way of thinking. I didn’t know his attitude towards earth and our universe. He’s the guy who called our earth, “Spaceship Earth.”

During the interview he began talking about public bathrooms and how messy and ugly they can be. He said that he tries to leave a bathroom cleaner and neater - than when he walked into one.

I heard that message loud and clear and I have tried to do that ever since. With just that simple message, he preached a better sermon than I could for Earth Day or Earth Week. 

Does that challenge or impact you? 

I’m sure in our lifetime we’ve seen many messy bathrooms along the highways of life - especially in gas stations. “Hey, I had to go.”

What’s a bathroom in a spaceship like? Type into Google that question and you’ll see a picture of a $50,000 dollar toilet that’s on exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum.


If one is messy, there would be very few to blame on an space station.

How about the next person who uses a bathroom in a 757 airplane after we just finished?  They are small and hard to go in - while flying in the friendly skies.

How well am I taking care of Spaceship Earth - while I’m on earth or in the skies above it?

Will all the stuff spoken and written about earth today and this week have an impact on this earth - Mother Earth.

TITLE OF MY HOMILY

Once more the title of my homily is, “Motherhood and Apple Pie.”

I’m reading and hearing that our Pope Francis - is coming out with a key letter on the earth - and ecology -  in a month or two or three.

I’ve heard people po po all this earth stuff - as nonsense - as political stuff. I’ve heard people make fun of tree huggers - and all that.

The Catholic Church is stereotyped as off on abortion - and we’re mocked for that at times. I’m happy to see in the last bunch of years - prolife issues including all of life issue - from A to Z, from abortion to zoology,  from the ecology to the environment to capital punishment to war to the air and the oceans - health - cancer - etc. etc. etc. - all of life.

Awareness can lead to action - and hopefully more and more people will take action to make our air - our waters - our bodies - our spirits - our inlook and our outlook - healthy and heavenly.

What’s your take on all this? Does it sound like “motherhood and apple pie?”

Translation: it's a cliche. It's soft. It's blabber.

BAPTISM

I did a baptism yesterday - Saturday -  at 1 PM - another at 6 PM  - and had another this afternoon at 3 PM - and I had a wedding yesterday at 3 PM. These are life moments, sacred moments  - babies and brides and bridegrooms - motherhood and fatherhood - moments. We hope the best for all.

In the baptismal ceremony the deacon or priest baptizing the baby - puts oil on her or his forehead - and rubs it in. While doing this this new born person is being called - anointed - to become prophets, priests and kings.  If the baby is a girl, I add prophetess, priestess and queen.

During these baptisms I think about all that’s going on here: with skin, life, oil, water, words, gestures - symbols - etc. etc. etc. All are used.

Take prophets: we are all called to be prophets. It means to call out - speak out - against unfairness. When I see someone drop a soda can or a wrapper,  I sometimes yell out - “Hey - [whistle] - you dropped something.” I have the can or wrapper in hand and I try to hand it back to the person who dropped stuff on our living room floor - the sidewalks of our world. I’ve only done that while wearing a t-shirt or jeans.  Most people reject my prophecy - but sometimes I surprise them and they take their garbage back.

I like to see kids having fun with skateboards, but I hate to see skate boarders damaging property. For example I’ve seen them trying to jump with their skate boards onto the head of the Alex Haley statue in downtown Annapolis. 

So I don’t dislike skateboarding because a kid might break their head or leg. I should. I worry about their possible defacing  the bronze skin of Alex Haley and the bronze kids listening to him at the edge of the water where slaves came into Annapolis.


Speaking up is the call to be a prophet. We’re also called to be priests - all of us - to treat all as sacred - to thank God for all the good around us.

Years ago I was reading the works and words of the French Jesuit priest, Teilhard de Chardin. Some theologians in Rome and around the world wanted his theology condemned. It wasn’t. Some wanted him silenced. He kept writing. 


He died on Easter Sunday - 1955 in New York City. 

His grave is in Poughkeepsie NY - right on the grounds of the Culinary Institute of America. I stood at this grave at least 1 dozen times and thanked him for his insights and impressions and challenges about our world. I noticed that Pope Benedict praised him in various words - and that helped change people’s take on him.

When I say Mass and I lift up the host at the consecration I often think of a moment in Teilhard de Chardan’s life when he was in a desert in China and he had no bread - so at one sunrise he stood there and grabbed the rising sun and held it up and offered all the planet - all the earth back to God who created it all. You can find this in his book: The Mass of All the World.

Listen to these words from that book, “Since once again, Lord — though this time not in the forests of the Aisne but in the steppes of Asia — I have neither bread, nor wine, nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and sufferings of the world.

Over there, on the horizon, the sun has just touched with light the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles, and once again begins its fearful travail. I will place on my paten, O God, the harvest to be won by this renewal of labour. Into my chalice I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits.

My paten and my chalice are the depths of a soul laid widely open to all the forces which in a moment will rise up from every corner of the earth and converge upon the Spirit. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of all those whom the light is now awakening to the new day.

So we’re called to prophets and priests - prophetesses and priestesses

We’re called from our baptism to also be queens and kings of all the earth.

Kings and Queens - this kingdom - this earth is ours - and all of us are called to be the type of kings and queens of this kingdom that Jesus called us to be - servants. Give us this bread on earth our daily bread  as it is in heaven.

POETS

The poets get this and April is Poetry Month.

I love the prayer and the poem, God’s World by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Listen to how she begins her poem.



GOD’S WORLD

By Edna St. 
Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour!   That gaunt crag
To crush!   To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

I also love a line in the poem Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

I am a part of all that I have met”

We are part of all that we have met.

Our mom ate the fruits and vegetables, meat and potatoes, apple pie and peanut butter of the earth while forming us.

I am part of all that I have met.

Stand next to a person who is downwind and is smoking.

Go by a house whose front yard is spring perfect - or it's a junkyard. Get in touch with how the good, the bad and the ugly impact us.

I am part of all that I breathe, see, hear, taste, and touch.

APPLE PIE

Carl Sagan - scientist - who could be rather poetic, wrote the following words in Cosmos: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

If you get that, you get, you see the connection - the communion - of all with all.

A motorcycle at 2 AM    wakes us up and connects us with the driver, the noise, the whole of life.

A piece of apple pie can do the same - connecting us with the maker - Maker with a big M - meaning God - and maker with a  small  “m” - its maker and baker.

An apple pie can put a smile on our face - can get us to ask for a second piece. It can put a smile on our mother’s face - seeing our face -  and God’s face as well - and  we sit there at table enjoying communion with each other - not rushing away from the table and into the night like people rushing out of church - missing a chance to connect with folks here in closing prayers and some words as we head for our cars.

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Motherhood and Apple Pie.”

This week is earth week. Look around.

Become silent and listen and let me close with these words of George Eliot from her novel, Middlemarch.

“If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.”
April 19, 2015

NOT FOLLOWING MY SCRIPT

Life never seems to want
to follow my script.

Life is mixed messages.
Life is ambiguity

Life is a “Yes” that ends up
being a “No” without telling me.

Okay, life is green leaves in summer
and broken brown leaves in the fall.

This I know: I expect a safe trip.
I don’t expect a crazy car crash.

I don’t like losing my job.
I don’t like being misunderstood.

I didn’t like the unexpected death
or cancer and she’s only 29.

I don’t like the bad guy converting
and the good guy falling.

I don’t like changes in the script
especially when I wrote it. 


© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

Saturday, April 18, 2015

April 18, 2015

THOUGHT POLICE

There’s the food police - watching,
commenting on what people are eating.

There’s the clothing police - watching,
checking out what people are wearing.

There’s the thought police - watching,
listening to what people are saying,
writing, preaching - ready with rocks
in hand, Letters to Editors in mind
or to authorities, heresy hunters,
wanting to nail to the nearest cross
those who think differently.
Uh oh! I better be careful. I better
not offend the thought police.


© Andy Costello Reflections, 2015

Friday, April 17, 2015

April 17, 2015

LUCKY MOVE    

She wanted to tell me
her life story - so I dropped
in to see her. I listened.
I heard her. I saw her
smile as she spoke. A week
later she died. Was that
the same smile I was looking
at as I was looking at
her face in the casket?


© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

Thursday, April 16, 2015

April 16, 2015



BIRDS




                                                            E
                                                  A    K
                                            T  
                                                                          A        
                                                                         L  O  
                                                                                  O 
                                 E                                                    K
                  A       H   
                     T  T
                      
                                        B           S
                                           I     D
                                              R

                                                                          R
                                                  O                  I
                                                        F          A
                                                             T   E
                                                                H






© Andy Costello, Reflections, 2015