Sunday, January 17, 2010


“MARRIAGE:
FILL THE JARS WITH….”


INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Marriage: Fill the Jars With….”

In today’s gospel [John2:1-11], Jesus tells the servants at the wedding, “Fill the jars with water.” And we know the rest of the story. We’ve heard the story of Jesus’ miracle of turning water into wine at Cana at Sunday Masses as well as many a wedding.

GREGORY PIERCE

Gregory Pierce, a businessman, a publisher, community organizer, husband and father, said, “Preach about work and relationships. Those two places are where most people spend most of their time.” (1)

So when I read this gospel, the obvious thought was, “Say something about marriage.”

THIS GOSPEL

When I do a wedding I ask the couple to pick the 3 readings. I like it when they pick the story of the wedding feast of Cana – but most of the time they don’t.

So here’s my chance. I have a chance to say a positive thing as well as a scary thing about marriage that I would not say at a wedding.

As the wedding song goes, “We’ve only just begun / White lace and promises / A kiss of hope and we’re on our way.”

BLINK

I was talking to a guy in the parish recently at his and his wife’s 25th wedding anniversary. Being guys we talked about work. He told me one of his jobs was interviewing people who might be interested in being part of a franchise. Listening to what he did reminded me of something I had to do years earlier – figure people out. I mentioned to him something that a counselor told me years ago. “I was trained to listen to my belly. When I shake someone’s hand and welcome them for their first session – I jot down in my brain – what my belly is saying at that exact moment.” I then told this guy in the parish about a seminarian that I was dealing with. He was tough stuff. And as my hand was shaking his hand for the first time, my belly said, ‘Sick!’”

I said to myself, “Uh oh!”

I was aware of all the warnings: Jesus’ messages about not judging… I knew about the sayings, “You can’t tell a book by its cover.” “Before judging someone you have to walk a mile their moccasins.”

Then this guy who was celebrating his 25th anniversary said one word to me, “Blink.” Then he added: “Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink.”

I had seen the title on the best seller list, but I hadn’t read it – nor did I have a clue about what it was all about.

So I bought it with a gift certificate I got for Christmas.

Blink.

It’s easy reading.

And as I read I realized why this guy in the parish told me about the book.

Blink is all about that first moment – that gut reaction – or gut instinct.

Be aware of it.

BLINK – YOU’RE MARRIED

Now here is the scary stuff – the challenging stuff – the nervous stuff.

I am aware that some of you are not married – or are married – or you are divorced – or your spouse has died.

But let me get back to Gregory Pierce of Chicago’s comment: talk about relationships and work.

Well, in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, he talks about a psychologist, John Gottman, who works in a clinic near Washington University in Washington State – and he has filmed and studied over 3,000 couples. And Blink says that Gottman and his team can predict whether a marriage is going to work or not 95 % of the time by just studying a 60 minute tape of the couple – and 90% of the time by just looking at a tape of 15 minutes of a couple talking and being with each other.

That’s quite a statement!

The couple sit in two chairs on a platform – which measures their body movements – and shifts in their chairs. They have wires and things connected to their hands and ears, etc. And there is a video camera taking pictures of each of them the whole time.

One exercise is to have a couple wired up and with cameras rolling –they are asked to talk together just 15 minutes about a recent source of conflict they’ve had with each other.

The team and the machines measure 20 different emotions – disgust, contempt, anger, defensiveness, whining, sadness, stonewalling, neutral, etc.

Afterwards Gottman and his team study the film. They study facial expressions, heart rate, movement, shifting, sweating, temperature, and they put everything into a complex mathematical code.

John Gottman, the Washington State psychologist, has written a book, The Mathematics of Divorce. I don’t intend to buy that book, but I’m glad I bought and am reading Blink.

John Gottman said he can sit at a restaurant and watch a couple at another restaurant and figure out the state of that marriage.

I found myself saying, “Is he married? If he is, how is the state of his marriage? If he was in a restaurant with his wife, would he be looking at her or concentrating on the next table? How would that make his wife feel?”

He’s been doing this marriage research for over 15 years with machines and cameras.

He has found out – now here comes the tie in I’m going to make with today’s gospel – that if he focuses on what he calls the Four Horsemen: defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism and contempt, he will come up with what he wants to know.

And if he had to pick one of the four, it would be contempt.

Gottman considers this the single most important sign that a marriage is in trouble.

Listen to this excerpt from the book: “You would think that criticism would be the worse,” Gottman says, “because criticism is a global condemnation of a person’s character. Yet contempt is qualitatively different from criticism. With criticism I might say to my wife, ‘You never listen, you are really selfish and insensitive.’ Well, she’s going to respond defensively to that. That’s not very good for our problem solving and interaction. But if I speak from a superior plane, that’s far more damaging, and contempt is any statement made from a higher level. A lot of the time it’s an insult” ‘You’re a b…. You’re s….’ It’s trying to put that person on a lower plane than you. It’s hierarchical.”

Contempt!

I said to myself I have to do a lot of homework on what contempt means.

I would assume that’s what a good book does. It challenges us with one good insight – at least one good question.

That last word in Gottman’s comment that I quoted hit me, the word, “hierarchical”. Here I am up here in a pulpit – above you. What kind of body language do I give off? Do people turn off priests in a blink?

The only sure body language sign I spot in church is the look at the watch – sometimes done quite dramatically. I also know that watches for some have disappeared and folks tell time with their cell phones. Is that why people look down from time to time?

Could they video and then do a study of the faces and body language of people at Mass?

So I have to ask myself: What signals and messages do I give off? What are the inner thoughts I have down deep inside me? And then the big question: is there any contempt in this big jar called “me”?

There’s a lot more – and in a second or two you’ll be giving me signals, “Enough already.” And then, “Boring!” or “Interesting.” Whatever. So I would recommend the book called, “Blink.”

THE GOSPEL

I would say the challenge is to bring oneself to Jesus in deep prayer and face with him what’s inside me.

Like water becoming wine, we need to change contempt into humility. Better work with Jesus to change contempt into humility – to change vinegar into wine. Tough stuff.

CONCLUSION: TODAY’S SECOND READING

I also think today’s second reading [1 Corinthians 12: 4-11] would really help. A couple, a family, a job site, each individual has to realize I have only so many gifts and I have so many weaknesses – and others have so many strengths and gifts – as well as weaknesses – so we better together if we expect the marriage, the family, the work place to work.





Painting on top, Marriage Feast At Cana by Juan de Flandes, 1465-1519. It was painted in 1500. It is oil on wood. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

(1) Gregory F.A. Pierce, Spirituality at Work, 10 Ways to Balance Your Life on the Job, Loyola Press, Chicago, 2001.


(2) Malcolm Gladwell, Blink, The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, New York, Boston, London, 2005

WALK TOGETHER
HAND IN HAND


Quote of the Day: - January 17, 2010


“Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. 
It takes place every day.”


Albert Camus [1913-1960], The Fall

Saturday, January 16, 2010

SOIL  SELF  DESTRUCTION 




Quote of the Day - January 16,  2010




“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”




Franklin D. Roosevelt [1882-1945], letter to state governors, February 26, 1937

Thursday, January 14, 2010

SHUSH!  
I AM THINKING




Quote of the Day: January 14,  2010




“Life consists in what a man [or woman] is thinking of all day.”




Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882], Journals, 1847

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

UNORIGINAL  SINS



Quote of the Day: January  13,  2010


“Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.”


Khalil Gibran [1893-1931], Sand and Foam, 1927







Tuesday, January 12, 2010

THOMAS MERTON'S TAKE 
ON DISCOVERING  GOD




Quote of the Day - January  12,  2010

“Our discovery of God is, in a way,
God’s discovery of us.
We cannot go to heaven to find Him
because we have no way of knowing
where heaven is or what it is.
He comes down from heaven and finds us.
He looks at us
from the depths of His own infinite actuality,
which is everywhere,
and His seeing us
gives us a superior reality
in which we also discover Him.
We only know Him
in so far as we are known by Him,
and our contemplation of Him
is a participation of His contemplation of Himself.”



Thomas Merton, [1915-1968], Seeds of Contemplation.

Picture "borrowed" off a Thomas Merton web site.

Monday, January 11, 2010


A HOMILY ON “DIGS”

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily is, “Digs!”

The question I want to ask is, “Do we do digs?”

FIRST READING


Today’s first reading from the first chapter of the First Book of Samuel triggered this question.

A man with the interesting name of Elkanah had two wives: Peninnah and Hannah.

Peninnah had sons and daughters by him; Hannah was childless.

The story teller is a good story teller – because he implies as well as makes it very clear that Elkanan favored Hannah over Peninnah.

Was being upset at not being the favorite the reason why Peninnah made digs at Hannah? The text uses the word “rival”.

The story teller makes it clear that Elkanan understands the situation – especially when Hannah refuses to eat – but just weeps. And you can hear him say to Hannah, the question that ends today’s first reading, “Hannah, why do you weep, and why do you refuse to eat? Why do you grieve? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

Great story!

It can trigger lots of stuff – the stuff of story telling.

What does it trigger in you?

DIGS

Well it triggered in me the question of digs.

Would anyone with lots of kids dig those who don’t have kids?

Would those who wear a size 4 dress dig those who wear a size 16 dress?

Would those who went to college dig those who have a G.E.D.?

Do tall people make digs at short people?

Do males do this to females?

Do so called, “Liberals” make digs at so called, “Conservatives” and vice versa?

What about skin color?

What about nationality?

What about size of house, car, salary?

What about accomplishments of kids?

What is the difference between digs and healthy pride and wanting to share good news?

UNSPOKEN DIGS

Then there are all of the above – but kept within – the so called sin of “Judging others”.


A few questions: Do our inner digs about others slip out on our face or the tone of our words or what have you – and we don’t even know it? Does unconscious speak to unconscious loud and as real as if we were aware of it? Is communication 90% unconscious?

If any of that is true, uh oh? Maybe this is some of what Jesus had reflected upon when he gives us this inner stuff in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew: inner murder, inner adultery, inner hell, inner logs, inner fasting, inner prayer, inner thorns and thistles, figs and fruit, one's inner house being built on rock or sand.

SELF DIGS

Then I began to think about self digs, self attacks, self stabbings - doing all this stuff to ourselves.

Do we keep on digging into our inadequacies?

I'm assuming this is background stuff on the issues of inner comparisons and envy – the things that can eat us up.

CONCLUSION

Today’s gospel can wake us up – and shake us up.

It’s time to hear the call of Jesus and stop tossing our nets to catch stuff that doesn’t give life – and follow Jesus and fill our nets with the stuff that gives life.





This is a first draft homily for the First Monday in Ordinary Time, January 11, 2010. The readings are 1 Samuel 1:1-8 and Mark 1: 14-20. A couple of people asked me if I was going to put this on my blog. I haven't been putting weekday homilies on this - but when asked, I sometimes do.