Paper Writing Crunch Time

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day polishing up the paper on what it means to be a Lay Cistercian. Much of today will likely go into it also. The process is a bit like peeling grapes, if you're not careful it will all turn to mush in your hands. Prying out what I believe about the experience of being a Lay Cistercian forces me to be exceedingly clear about it myself. Rather like putting faith into words.

In that same spirit we have to admit it is easier to say the right thing, than it is to do the right thing. That applies to Lay Cistercians, as well. Listening to the voice of vocation is one thing, to give words to that voice is all together different. There is the challenge of the life, and the challenge of the words. The life brings conversion, the words, to be valid, must match, or at least be facing in the same direction.

Another thing to consider is how to make it painfully clear that what I write in the paper is not meant to be THE GREAT and ONLY definition of Lay Cisterican life. As I am finding a vocation as a non-vowed solitary who functions within the Lay Cistercian Community, so my paper is about that very thing.

Anyway, I try to remember than work and life and writing and praying, all must be to one goal. And that's the hardest part.

Vocations

Today is the monthly Vocation day. One day each month all of the hours, and the mass, revolve around the theme of vocations. While the Abbey of Gethsemani is not hurting for vocations, they are for the most part an aging community. Since they don't advertise for men to join, they are utterly dependent upon the Holy Spirit. To be dependent implies a position of weakness, which, of course, recalls II Corinthians 12, where Jesus informs Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Vocations are the life blood of any religious order. You cannot have an order without people to join. People can no longer be compelled to join an order, so survival requires people with a vocation. Yet, vocation is a gift from God. So, we might ask, where did the Trappist vocation go? Why aren't more men and women joining the order? At the same time they must wonder why this upsurge in lay men and women aligning themselves with Lay Cistercian groups.

At one time it was the practice that the oldest child was understood to be a gift to the church. Oldest boys became priests, girls nuns, etc.. Yes, it kept the seminaries full, but it also created a lot of forced vocations. It helped the numbers, but didn't seem to pay much attention to the urgings of God.

Today is the day to pray for vocations. Today is to beg God to move hearts to "come and see." It is also a day for me to consider where in my spiritual journey does my vocation lie. My soul knows for certain, but I'm not trusting enough, I refuse to accept my weakness. Everything in my life so far points to weakness, yet I won't accept it.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Pray for me, brothers and sister
Pray for me, Holy Mother of God
Pray for me, St. Bernard

Back to Gethseamni

It was supposed to be a search for another place for morning mass. That didn't work out so well.

Then it was supposed to be find a parish to do RCIA. That didn't work out so well.

Yesterday I wrote about how the only place I feel at home, and "in the right place," is Gethsemani.

This morning I went to mass at Gethseamni. How wonderful it is to be back again. What did I think I was looking for? How on earth did a search for another mass location go so horribly wrong? The answer has to be in the motivation, but I thought the motivations were exactly those that open this post.

Or were they? Isn't it possible that an increase of pressure from old-self caused friction with renewed-self, and old-self won? Or, could it be that some need in me for a more normalized worship environment, complete with a nosy and petty congregation?

The answer is beyond me at this point, but I will say this: going to mass at Gethsemani is the only way that I shall ever stay true to God. This is how I must worship. And I must go every morning, to the same place, forever. Maybe all I am is a wanna be monk, but it's much more complicated than that. When the greatest mistake of your life was letting a newly formed Order tell you at eighteen that you needed to have some kind of work skill to help support things, and are bascially told to go home, and then get the hell scared out of you at a monastery in New York state when you run across something that can only be described as an Elemental, then ...

Who knows. What I do know is that only at Gethsemani am I truly connected. Why? I don't know.

Pray for me.

Mass Elsewhere

I went to St. Joseph's, here in Bardstown, this morning. It is a lovely church, and the vestments were very nice, but I mixed up the time and arrived late. Also, the music is what I call cha-cha. Perhaps it's littleness in me, being petty, or whatever, but I do not like cha-cha music at mass. Anyway, it left me feeling kinda blah inside. It wasn't the fact they had cha-cha music that made me blah, it was my reaction that did it.

Perhaps I was wrong to even try to go somewhere else for worship, daily or Sunday. Maybe the fit I feel at Gethsemani is as good as it can ever get? The gas usage, while no longer in force, mixed with the attempts on my part to find a place here in town to go to mass, baked up a nasty cake of just plain old not going to mass. I hate that. Something is wrong, and it can't be the whole world, it has to be me. Parish life has never been a good fit for me. I've never felt at home in a parish.

There's another thing to consider. Why, if I feel at home at Gethsemani, do I not just go back to Gethsemani? Part of the answer has to do with my discernment about whether or not I want to convert to the Roman Church. To do that I have to go through the RCIA process, which means joining a parish, which means I have to go through a sacred path in a context which I never intend to be in again.

I am monastic. There, it's said. If I am not daily in the monastic setting, I vary and veer, waffle and dodge. I'm fed up with the whole process, and can only pray that by returning to what prior discernment has shown me is where I belong, that I may once again thrive.

Pray for me all who might read this.
Pray for me Holy Mother of God.

Saturday and An Angry Response

Well, I had my first anonymous comment on the blog. Yesterday's post must have upset someone somewhere because "anonymous" was upset with my slamming of Ameriplan and pyramid schemes. What is funny to me is I am called to task for not giving names and titles and quotations, yet "Anonymous" didn't bother with a name or email address. Now why is that? I thought about removing the comment of Mr/Ms Anonymous, but I've decided to let it stand. It shows how defensive people are about their pet rip-off schemes.

I have made a decision. What's important in this blog is spirituality, not business. I wrote two times about business, and that is enough. It's not really the point of the blog, nor of my life! Now, it's very early on a Saturday morning so I'm going back to bed. lol

Friday and I'm Back

Hello world, what a week this has been. I started out giving tentative agreement to work for Ameriplan then immediately got curious about what the reality of Discount Medical Cards are all about. That prompted an investigation into all things relating to DMC or discount medical cards. The more I studied, the less I liked Ameriplan. Why? It's a pyramid. The moment the kit came in the mail, I knew it.

With my growing aversion to Ameriplan was an increasing passion about DMC's in general. What are they? Do they work? Which ones are the best? Are they regulated, and if so, how? Most important of all how does this fit into my spiritual goals?

Spiritually speaking, work is an important part of life. It touches on obedience and service. Work has to be honest. The single most important part of a life lived with any integrity is that the work we do be honest. And, if you sell something, then you had better sell something honest. Also, it must, must, must be something that betters lives in some tangible way.

During the past week I have studied State Attorney Generals' websites, Medicare/Medicaid websites, every discount medical card imaginable websites, and sites that review cards and make comparisons. I read a paper published by the Kaiser Family Foundation on the subject of discount services in health, made a dozen or more phone calls to as many different companies or agencies. In short, I am on a mission.

Sometimes you pray for something, and when the answer comes it's not what you expected. I didn't expect to develop a passion for helping the working poor have access to at least some form of discount for health services. After a quick trip to the Nelson County Free Clinic, run in a vacant public housing apartment, I found that all the people who were there had jobs, but no insurance of any kind. Two of them work at the Kroger just up the street from me.

The real discovery for me this week is that I do have a passion for affordable health. No, discounts are not insurance, and you have to pay at the time of service, but for heaven sake, and I do mean heaven's sake, a discount helps. Is that not a type of spiritually fulfilling work? Helping those who need help, and as a by product, help myself.

The blog suffered because I did nothing else this week except educate myself to overflowing. Now, I'm heading out for the rest of the day, just to see the light.

Holy God
Holy and Mighty
Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us.

Yet more

After writing the previous post today, it seemed right to go into some of the thoughts, feelings, that went on today. I didn't want to go to mass. Lucky I remembered that if I'm not sick, or prevented, I'm going, and I went on to mass. All morning it sat on my mind, that question of "what's with this not wanting to go?"

On my way to mass I let myself ease down mentally. The whole apple cart is overturned by a single apple that moves too fast down the stack of apples. It causes an avalanche, and the cart eventually turns over...because...the driver tries to stop it, just making it worse. So, when I get excited, it's like an apple rolling down a carefully stacked cart. It causes an avalanche.

Why did this avalanche very nearly occur? Because suddenly I had to ingest a great deal of training in consumer driven health care. That's a lot of stuff. It took up a great deal of time, and time is yet to be spent studying. And I'm deeply excited about it all.

Excitement is the problem. I can no longer jump on my excitement boat, Number 7, and tear off into La-La Land. God is the center. I can say God is in charge, but we all know that we ourselves can let the subtle voice of God be glossed over by the ripples of life-work-family-fear-blahblah blah. God is in charge so long as I keep my eyes directly focused on God. Can I work and do that? OF course.

When you pray for something and it comes, then you are forced to take responsibility for the gift. If morning mass at Gethsemani is the tool to focus my eyes and my responsibility, keeping it ever in my mind, then so be it. I love to go out there, but it does eat gas and require very early rising. It's hard to work and do that, because sometimes I'll be working until 10pm. So, on those days I'll go to Nazareth, or St. Joseph's. But, it is the discipline of the drive, and the expense, that makes going to Gethsemani not only a joy, but an acceptable sacrifice.

Lots and Lots

Well, here I am writing again, after a few days away from the blog. A lot has gone on since I last wrote. First of all I found an opportunity to work and make some money. Certainly enough to cover gas to Gethsemani for morning mass. I debated whether or not to talk about the work on here at all, as it isn't strictly spiritual. However, the timing of the work, and the nature of the work, make it fit for spiritual reflection.

It's work at home. I can do the entire thing on the phone, or I can go out and talk about it in person. We are all leery of work-at-home schemes so I spent a great deal of time checking this out, found it to be legitimate, and signed up. It's called AmeriPlan, and it's a discount medical card. That's all that I need to say about what it is.

The spiritual side is that while I have trouble standing more than 20 minutes at a time, most places will not hire me. That I am missing a front tooth is enough to prevent most places form hiring me. I prayed to God, Jesus, and the Virgin for help and guidance. My self respect was plunging. Never in my life did I have trouble finding a job. If I went out looking for a job I usually had one within two days.

Then an email came from the only work-at-home site I trust. The timing of the opportunity is what convinces me that this is an answer to prayer. With this came a renewed vigor in my self esteem, and a renewed commitment to God. I could wax eloquent for a long time about all this, but I'm limiting myself because today I get to go see my oldest great nephew. Gavin is his name, and he's almost three years old. What a joy!

Glory to God! Amen

Trying New Mass Location

Today the sun is shining, the mist is burning off quickly, and I am going to attend mass at Nazareth, which is basically right across the highway from my house. The Sisters of Charity Nazareth motherhouse and novitiate is less then half a mile from my front door. They have a lovely campus that's worth a lingering visit. Yes, they have a daily mass, but it is at 10:50 each morning. What an odd time for a daily mass.

This is all part of my efforts to save some money on gas by finding somewhere else to attend daily mass. Mass at Gethsemani will be at least one weekday, and always on Sunday. Another reason I'm doing this is to find a place where I might be comfortable enough to go through RCIA. However, that is in the future. It is very important to me to find a place for morning mass, otherwise my day simply does not go right. If the day isn't somehow touched by the Eucharist, it's a ruined day for me.

An update on Bernard. I have created another blog for all things Bernardian, but I'm not ready to unveil it quite yet. Since this project has taken on a life of its own, I want to take the time to set up the blog with all the appropriate links and study tools that are available online, or by purchase elsewhere. At this time I am considering the project to be work in the sense that I am committed to it.

Mass at St. Joseph's

Today I went to St. Joseph's Proto-Cathedral here in Bardstown for their 6:30 mass. I've grown so used to the Trappist liturgy that it was almost shocking to be at mass with thirty other people, and all the lights on. The whole thing took right at twenty minutes, which I'm sure is for people on their way to work. On the financial side, it was much easier on gasoline consumption.

I hate to think that money matters and conserving gasoline plays such a large part in where I go to morning mass, but it has to be that way. While the liturgy was the same at St. Joe's, the atmosphere was completely different. It reminded me that my religion is not totally a private affair. That's what appeals to me at Gethsemani is how private one can feel, and how dark the church is. Mass for monks, and mass for laity have a very different character, by necessity. I prefer the mass for monks. Still, I must respect the resources at my disposal.

My birthday present arrived yesterday. On Loving God arrived from Cistercian Publications, a translation with about 100 pages of commentary. I ordered it to have a copy of the book, and to see what other, more scholarly, people have made of Bernard. Today I start reading. Hopefully it will make my commentaries on Bernard a little easier to write.

I ask for prayers for Bryan and Heather Sherwood. Heather's grandmother died Sunday morning.

Food-Eating-Feeding-Community

When the Lay Cistercian group meets on the first Sunday of December, we're going to eat together. It's really brought to mind the subject of food, and eating. Have you ever thought about how so often Jesus is reported in the gospels as on his way to dinner, coming from dinner, or eating dinner. Eating with people was, and to some extent still is, part of the domain of intimacy. People are picky about with whom they eat. The Pharisees' certainly were. They had surrounded food and eating with a lot of extra rules and practices. Perhaps in the beginning the idea was to help foster piety, the rota of washings, etc., lost devotional meaning, and became a tool of exclusion.

Jesus was in constant trouble with people for eating with a diverse and scandalous group of people. What must it have been like to eat dinner with Jesus, as he was? What did those lepers and other "disgusting" people get out of having Jesus eat with them?

Community. What else could it have been? The gospels do not report his having healed them necessarily, although we may assume that he did heal many of them. We are told he ate with people from all strata of society. And, isn't community itself sometimes a kind of healing? Perhaps my local LCG will learn from eating together that it isn't whether or not we get together more than once a month, or any other method of inducing more contact between us, but instead learn that the common meal is vivid evidence of thriving community. The mere effort of bringing the food is sacramental in some way.

Maybe we get too hung up in thinking that community has to be frequent. That isn't the case. From the large view, community exists between every living thing on the planet; the Church is a community, although wide spread; and so on down through the parish to the LCG that meet at the Abbey on the first Sunday of the month.

So, by as simple an act as bringing a cassarole, we will enact part of the mystery of faith. How? By remembering that Jesus was busy with dinner and eating and feeding throughout his entire public ministry, as well as every day of his human life. By sitting down together and remembering that as we do, he once did, and we remember Him as we do it. "Where two or three gather in my name, I'm there also."

Today's gospel is again Jesus invited to dinner in the home of a leading Pharisee. Yesterday at the meeting of the Lay Cistercian group we talked about community, and what that community might look like for our group. We left with a decision that at our next meeting we will bring some food so that after mass we might all eat together. In light of today's gospel, I think it's a wonderful idea.

Some of Jesus' most interesting statements are made when a dinner guest. Eating together is more than taking food, it is a ritual of community. The Eucharist was instituted in the context of a meal. One of the definitions of Agape is "a religious meal shared as a sign of love and fellowship." While it might be impractical for our group to meet more often than once a month, our community can only benefit from sharing a meal together.

In the gospels Jesus is frequently shown at dinner or on his way to dinner, or even worrying about what the few thousand people listening to him were going to have for dinner. Food was very important to Jesus. This is an interesting article I found. I hope you enjoy it.

Good Heavens, I'm old.

Old is a state of mind, a condition of body, and an attitude. We are in control of at least one of the three, from time to time. State of mind for some people is not something they can control. Others have difficulty with the body, again, something like leukemia, that they can do not control. Attitude, unless afflicted in some way, is entirely in our control.

My body is 49 years old, but that part of me that I'm used to calling me is about the same age as I've always been. Yes, that's a confused statement. Yet, it does explain that sense of being surprised at our own age, because we don't feel any older; in our minds, our hearts, what have you. That I call the presence of self. There have been times in my life when that sense of me-ness got buried under the rubble of whatever drama du jour was going on at the time. And that, my friends, is where mindfulness of God can save the day.

Those times of separation from God--always a self imposed thing--come about as a result of forgetting that what happens and how you feel about it, is not the primary thing in your life. It does happen. Things and events begin to pile up, occupying the mind, and soon you're forgetting to say your prayers. Something was going on that prevented the enactment of prayer that is to define your daily life.

Fr. Michael's words in his paper on formation take on a very real, and serious meaning. "When the spiritual journey gets rough, prayer is often the first thing to suffer; and yet isn't it at this moment that we are most in need of divine help and mercy? God asks us sooner or later just how serious we are about the journey."

At this point the wheels of steady conversion grind on toward my goal.

So, as a man of 49 years, I restate for my self that
I believe in the saving power of Christ Jesus, Son of God.
I believe that the Trinity is greater than all creation.
I believe that God vivifies all things.
I believe that in the Eucharist Jesus Christ is fully present, body and blood, soul and divinity.
I believe that God will see me, and all of us together, into his kingdom.
I believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary intercedes for us.

Friday November 3

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 49 years old. Growing older doesn't bother me at all. For someone who wasn't sure he would live to see 30, 49 is a great age to reach. My only wish is that I was a more holy man. Alas, I am just me and that's all I can claim.

This morning while reading Arts and Letters Daily I came across this article. It's interesting because it challenges the efforts of science of reducing every human experience to measurement. It also points out how science and religion are not the same thing. In my own belief I see no problem with science. God never said that if we measured things we would find Him. God also never said that just beacuse we measure things we dishonor Him.


Today's mass readings are interesting, especially the gospel where Jesus asks if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. Jesus confronted the established religion with putting more faith in the rituals than in God. Modern Christian churches of every denomination are guilty of the same thing.

Cold Cold Cold

I got up this morning and it was 28 outside. That is cold, as far as I'm concerned. I have friends who live in Minnesota, and they laugh when I complain about the cold here, but cold is cold. You can freeze to death in 28 degrees just as easily as in -28 degrees.

The natural world is an image of the power of God. Certainly not an original thought, it does help me to keep in mind that no matter how I feel, the image of God is all around me. The debate between creation/evolution doesn't interest me in the least. I don't see the problem with both at the same time. We measure time by seconds, minutes, and hours. God is not bound by our conceptions of time. Neither is God bound by our thoughts on how creation was accomplished. Bottom line is I don't care in the least. Creation is. God is.

Last night I dreamed that Fr. Elias was with me all day. I have no idea what it was about, except he told me interesting things. I think he was mad, but who knows. Dreams are such vaporous things. We are everything in our own dreams. The setting, the people, every detail is produced by the mind. In that light I realize the Fr. Elias was in my dream because I respect him a great deal. Who better then to show up in my dream to accuse me?

A follow up to yesterday's post. Today is a revived commitment to my spiritual life, and a determination to pray daily for ability to resist that temptation when it comes again, as it surely will.

Falling, and Getting Up Again

I fell before a temptation. Since this blog is not of a confessional nature, I'll simply say that I feel grief over my lack of staying power. I had been beset by this temptation probably fifteen times since the spring, and this is the first time I fell to it, so there is some small comfort in that. There are two ways of looking at this: give up, or get back up and keep going.

A year ago I would have fallen and stayed down wallowing in the grief and feelings of worthlessness. The first option simply isn't a good way to go. I am a human, and just like other humans, I take a wrong step. Sure, over time the guilt would fade, and life would go on as ever, but the end result would be a self imposed gap between God and me. The second option is the best. Acknowledge the fault, repent and confess it, then keep right on going toward the goal.

It wasn't even a mortal sin, but at this point even the slightest fall feels mortal. Still, I'm in a good frame of mind about this. The wonderful thing about the Christian religion is that the love of God is so much greater than our power to sin. The greatest sin would be to neither get up, nor keep myself before the presence of God. Another wonderful part is how good I feel today for having gotten back up to face God.

I hope the tone of this entry isn't negative, because I see in this a marvelous action of grace today. Now I know how to keep myself alert to this particular temptation, to watch for it without falling into it. Lucky for us our God is a good God, and one who saves. God lifts us out of the pit of sin, and keeps us from the swamp of despair.

Thanks be to God!