November 5, 2022

EXIT  SIGNS

We need exit signs - indications of where to go when we want to leave.

It's nice to know yawns work.

Watching watches work.

When we want to leave a party, we know words work. "Well, I have to get up early tomorrow morning. Thanks for a wonderful evening together."

People shoot out of churches and ball games - after communion - or after the 7th inning.

Then there are the exit signs before death - wrinkles, squinting, loss of breath, losing my hearing - aches and pains - there is going to be an end to all this.

My brother always liked to park his car - in the back - or off to the side - of a movie theater,  Why? Well after the movie - he'd rush to the side exit door - while most people headed for the front door.  And he made an early exit from life - cancer at 51.

EXIT signs.

We want to know when the sermon or the story is going to end.

Peter Jennings asked General Tommy Franks when we were going into Iraq. He answered: "Two questions I ask: Do we have enough soldiers to win the war - and do we have enough soldiers to keep the peace?"

Did anyone ask: "Do we have an exit strategy?"

When we have time to ponder life do we ever ask, "How many entrances in life, do we wish we never made?"

How about the question: "Any wrong exits?"

"The party's over."  Sometimes to hear that is good news; sometimes it's bad news."

What are the entrance signs to getting married?

What are the exit signs for ending a marriage?

What are the exit signs of life?

Maybe the exit signs we ought to looking for are the ones that say, "Rest area ahead."

 

 November 5, 2022

Thought for Today

"Guided by my heritage of a love of beauty and a respect for strength - in search of my mother's garden, I found my own."

Alice Walker

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens [1974]

 November 4, 2022

Reflection

THE CREATOR

I'm sitting there praying - sort of spaced out.

It's early Monday morning.

I'm looking at the ceiling - where it comes to an edge - where it meets a wall - and then a floor and then I see that the work is excellent - and some of what I see is connected to people.

I picture the people who did this work a long time ago.

It just didn't happen.

Then it overwhelms me - that is - everything in front of me - above me - around me - under me - all was created - by others - other than me.

Then there is the universe.

In fact, there is nothing I made - trees,  cloth, nails, plaster, plastic, paper, flowers, nothing ....

Then it hits me - a question, "How could anyone be an atheist- - a word that begins with and A. It's the privative alpha - signifying without - followed by the word "theos" - the Greek word for God.

Joseph Oppitz - our philosophy professor - way back in college when we were studying metaphysics - had said, "The best argument for the existence of God - is the existential argument."

He added, "Everything that is in existence is in existence by either itself or something else is keeping it in existence."

I know I'm not keeping myself in existence.

Therefore something else is doing that.

That something is a Power.

Some call that power, "God!"

That power - God - the Higher Power - is keeping the whole of existence in existence.

What that power, that God, is like - that's another story.

Whether Christ is God - that's another story.

Now, how things, are created, that is where people use computers, paper and pens, and they start writing - they start figuring - they start trying to get to the bottom of things.

So no wonder a good name for God is "The Creator" or the "Higher Power that keeps all that  exists, in Existence."

I prefer to call God, "I am" and pause with and before and in front of all things - and say, "Okay, next!"

 November 4,  2022

Thought for Today

"Me want cookie!"

Sesaame Street,

Spoken by Cookie Monster

 nOVEMBER 3, 2022

Reflection

LITURGICAL  NAZI'S

I almost used the phrase, "Liturgical Nazi" in a sermon.

Good move that I didn't because that might have hit someone the wrong way.

Good move because when speaking from the pulpit, the people in front of the speaker, don't have the opportunity to speak up and ask for clarification.

The word "Nazi" or the image it could provoke is that of storm troopers breaking through one's door.

People could be grabbed and pushed into a truck - never to be seen again.

People don't go to church to be hassled or provoked.

Yet I have experienced - the so called "liturgical police" at times. It's not that often after a church service but this happens at times.

I've said "you" instead of "thou" in the Hail Mary - not expecting to get criticized for doing that - without realizing I was doing just that.

When I heard that the pope wanted to change some of the words in the Our Father prayer, I said to myself, "That should be interesting."

I'm sure someone would say,  "You can't change the words "hallowed" to "holy" or "art"' to "are" in the Our Father.

If you read the Douai or the King James Bible - you'll notice "thou" and "thy" a lot. Yet the New American Bible moved to "you" and "your".

Where it really hits home is at the Mass. People want priests to say and to pray it by the book.

Yet we were told to pray with variety in mind at times.

Catholic TV shows sometimes make comments about "liberal" behaviors.

I guess the bottom line for some people is, "We want uniformity and conformity."

I'm glad there are so many options in celebrating the Sacred Liturgy.

I went to Mass every week day - all through Catholic grammar school. It was the same Mass - the same readings - the same black fiddle back vestments.  It was the same music in Latin.

So it was wonderful waking up in the Catholic Church in my lifetime - with an updated Mass.  Wonderful. If someone wants the old way - I just smile and inwardly pray,  "Come Holy Spirit."

 November 3, 2022

Thought for Today

"These palms are greater than Versailles,                      for no man made them."

Derek Walcott,

Names (1976)

 November 2, 2022

Reflection

ADVENT  THEMES

Preparing for Christmas has a lot more energy than preparing for any other special day of the year.

It still has it - in spite of comments - in spite of these other feast days for people who are not Christian - that have been highlighted lately.

Here in the northern hemisphere - in the northern part of the northern hemisphere - darker, colder days certainly become a theme for talking, feeling and realizing.

Waiting is a major theme - waiting to see family - waiting for Christmas cards - waiting for gifts  - waiting in line.

Gifts - giving - trying to find a special gift that will lift the mind and heart of those we love certainly is a theme and a reality.

Lights certainly are part of the scene - lights in windows - lights in trees - lighting up wreaths - houses with long strings of lights.

Decorations are part of the scene and the season.

Pins - women wearing tiny replicas of wreathes and candles certainly enter the story.  Nice.

I like - or better what hits me each Advent is to do a whole book on Advent - a short book - on words beginning with  W.

Would I have enough material?

Waiting, watching, wanting, way, wisdom, we, whole, wreathe ....

That's what I have now  - sitting here on December 19, 2007.

It looks like that book of Advent themes won't be done this year. If I get to it, will I come up with enough words beginning with W?

[It's now November 2, 2022 - and I still haven't done this.  Surprise I am going to give 3 talks covering 3 themes beginning with W - in St. Mary's Annapolis, Maryland in early December.]

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