Back!

From time to time I have absolutely nothing good to say. That is not the most pleasant self-discovery, but it is the truth nonetheless. During those periods of grrrrrr-nature, I refrain from blogging. While I know some of you enjoy it when I blog in a grrrrr-nature, I do not.

Some major Saints came and went without my comment, but they've been coming and going long before I started blogging. My spiritual life has been one of confusion, being humbled, and a fair amount of desolation. Of course, much of this can be blamed on the upcoming disability hearing, and the slow devolution of my body. The surprising facts of self that this devolution has revealed are not entirely pleasant, pretty, or shareable.

To say that a certain lack of sense of the presence of God has been with me, is to understate the issue. The lesson though is I don't have to sense God's presence to know it is there. "We walk by faith not by sight." I could easily say, I know by faith not by feel. Here is my point: we go along our faith journey happily sensing God, and then WHAM that sense of God is gone. Is your faith weak? If so, you say God has abandoned me. Is your faith strong? If so, you say God I can no longer feel you but I know you are with me.

In my lifetime I've been weak faith for the majority of the time. Since I came to be a part of the Lay Cistercians I have not been weak of faith. In a way it can be said that Cistercian spirituality is the removal of much of the trappings of religion, such as statues, dramatic stained glass windows, etc., and by immersing myself in that kind of spirituality it has freed me from the need to feel God's presence in order to believe that God is with me.

What is the desert but blindly standing in a night of faith, knowing that even in that infinite darkness you are most certainly not alone, not without God, not without the love of Christ, and not without the Saints!

21st Sunday in Oridnary Time

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

I have always found this particular passage poignant. The disappointment of Jesus is thick in the air, even when it is read in church you can feel it. When the entire selection of today's Gospel is read, it reveals even more starkly the deep sadness Jesus felt. Even though he knew that not everyone would be able to handle it, he loved them anyway.

Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe
and the one who would betray him.
And he said,
“For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me
unless it is granted him by my Father.”

It must have broken Jesus heart to have to say those words, because the only reason he came to earth was to bring this very truth to everyone. I don't care that this comes from the Gospel of John, and that John is largely a work of theology, the point is, at some point, in some way, this event occurred and Jesus felt sadness.

We must now ask ourselves, as he asks us, "do you want to leave, too?" Our only option is to cry out to God NO.

You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe
and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Do I believe this? Do you believe this? Does it show in our lives?

May God bring us altogether to everlasting life.

Monday, 20th Week of Ordinary Time

I completely missed out on the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time because when I woke up yesterday the pain in my body said, no way Jose. So, I rested the entire day. There are times when the body says, "if you do X, I will do Y and Z to you." Did I sin by missing Mass? I don't know, but I will confess it at my next confession.

The day taught me some things of value: that even in my weakest and most vulnerable condition, God is present, and loving me. Sheesh, how trite that sounds, but it's the truth, as I lay in my bed without energy and in pain, I knew that God loved me, and that Christ was closer to me than my own skin. Even though Saturday had been a rather big day, I was taken back by the completely fall-apart of Sunday. Of course, there was one mitigating factor.

Every so often the thoracic vertebrae feel as if they are pulling apart from each other. That racks my body and renders me immobile. Only some aggressive massage -- usually provided by an old fashioned, plug in Genie padded massage unit, that might vibrate the earth apart if buried and turned on -- will help me. Saturday night I was lucky to have a friend here who was strong enough to use his hands to stop the spasms and get me moving again.

So yesterday I laid around all day, recovering. Today I went to Mass, and the pain was starting up by the time Mass was over but when the nuns asked "how are you?" all I could say was "I am joyous!"

Yes, joyous. I could be bitter, but there are more than enough bitter people in the world. I have been given the grace to have joy even in my pain, and I thank God for that. In truth, I have learned more about joy since the pain became more severe than I have in my entire life up to this point. Surely I should say something profound about this, but I'll be darned if I can think of anything more profound than what has already been said.

I owe a special acknowledgment to St. Therese here, for she taught me that pain is not block to joy. I thank her for being my patron. I want to make known that she has assisted me, and recommend her to you, my "dozens" of readers.

Thank you, St. Therese. Thank you Lord Jesus Christ-God.

Friday Night, Eve of the Assumption

I am here again with more meanderings about life and God. Today the Social Security Administration contacted me by mail, alerting me to the time and place of my disability hearing. I did the paper work they wanted and sent it back immediately.

Then I came home and had an anxiety attack. Yes, a good, old fashioned, heart pounding, anxiety attack. The funny thing is I've been anticipating the arrival of this letter for some time so, at long last, it could be written on the calendar: date and time. Then the anxiety attack.

Whenever we have to leave our fate in someone else's hands, whether it is an administrative law judge, or even God, we are our most vulnerable, and least trusting. That got me to thinking about how we suppose and hope that we leave things in God's hands, but do we really? Have I really left my prayers and concerns in the hands of God or do I constantly try to keep tabs on them, just to make sure God doesn't forget.

Age, pain, experience, and life itself has brought me to this point where I am able to see that all that I think I know, is nothing more than a reflection of what I simply do not know. What bothers me here is that I want to trust God more than I seem to do currently. If I'm hesitant to leave my hearing in the hands of God and an administrative court judge, then what else am I hesitant to leave to God?

The implication is -- everything! For a long time I've felt that I do not love God enough. I am easily distracted by too many things, and let them have an unwarranted importance. I pray all the time, help me to love you more, help me to really love you. This wannabe that I feel like upsets me, because I know that love of God is in my life, but it is NOT enough love of God.

Okay, now I'm sure I've stopped making sense. That's all until tomorrow.

May God bring us altogether to everlasting life.

Putting Away Childish Things

Much of the past several months have been spent in learning what the distractions are that prevent me from fully participating in life in God. While that may sound somewhat elevated in tone, the truth is, participating in life in God is the only thing that really matters to me. Naturally, life in God includes family relationships and other people, but at what point is something a distraction? When does a person become a distraction?

Having identified that my angry reaction to the over precise priest as my own deep roots in the Cistercian world view, has helped me to understand that in the future when I encounter overly precise priests I should look beyond it, and not be astonished at it. Another thing that God has helped me see is how important it is that I continue in this reclusive life, and continue to offer intercession for myself, and for the world. There are only a few friends left that cannot understand that when I say no, I am not refusing them, but remaining faithful to who I am. They may come see me, or I may go see them, but there will not be dinner parties, or great big reunions.

This has been a difficult process for some friends, and for others they understood it immediately. God has called me into this solitude for a reason, and my job is to remain open to that calling so that when the reason is revealed, I may be ready to act. During this summer I have been tested on many levels both physical and spiritual, just as the Lord has told me would happen. Yet, I am still here.

Let me say this: I am not a saint. I am not your guru. I am not a holy man. I am only me. Give your thanks to God.

Sunday Morning

Here we are at the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, or as I prefer to call it, the 119th Sunday, because Ordinary Time seems to take an Extraordinary amount of time to get through. There are 34 Ordinary Time Sundays in all, between Epiphany and Lent, and then between Pentecost to Advent I.

As mentioned before, some of the best Mass readings of the year are during Ordinary Time. For example, the second reading today from Ephesians

All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling
must be removed from you, along with all malice.
And be kind to one another, compassionate,
forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.

Those lines contain some extraordinary statements that challenge us at every level of our personality. Georgenz, my faithful commentator, has written that my last few posts have sounded "critical (with a degree of bitterness)." That is undoubtedly true. What also is true is the day to day life of each Christian is one where we must relearn, again and again, to put away "bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling."

Am I always always able to avoid those things listed in Ephesians? No. Are they permanent parts of me? No. Do they occasionally invade my life? Yes. One thing I do claim is being able to forgive. Many seem to have lost that ability. I get white hot mad, then it cools off in about as long as it took me to get mad, then I'm ready to forgive and forget, even if I'm the aggrieved party. Why? Because "forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."

In Ordinary Time I learn that I, personally, am ordinary, not special, not a saint, and not even particularly holy. That is not a surprise to me, but it seems to be for some people. So if you have some over exalted opinion of me, I wish to disabuse you of any such thoughts. I am a sinner who tries to walk in the way of Christ. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. Never do I quit. When I fall down, I get up and keep going.

Back At It

Dear one and all, as much as you might have hoped I'd hung up the keyboard, I am still here to share my blithering with you about things of God. I want to start by saying that I am overjoyed to report that yesterday the usual boring priest came back, and Oh! how happy I was to see him. He celebrated Mass, not an opera with him as star.

I've been reflecting on my reaction to the Preciousness of the other day, and wondering why it bothered me so much, especially when you take into account there is nothing I love quite so much as a Solemnity at Gethsemani Abbey! My conclusion is the edicts form the early Cistercian Fathers that gold vestments, excessive ritual, etc. had no place in Cistercian Liturgy.

The vestment the priest wore the other day must have been something he brought with him, or had been made for him, because it was everything that the Cistercian Rite rejects. I have to admit I feel better knowing that my visceral reaction had more to do with my spirituality than with the Roman Rite. Trust me, when they get solemn out at the Abbey they put out enough incense to cause weather patterns in the church, but they are never prissy about it! They wear the right color, but no embroidery. And for heaven sake, no gold thread!

It's occurred to me just now that one is the spirit of contemplation, while the other is in the spirit of perfectionism. I leave it to you, my thousands of readers, to decide which is which.

May God lead us altogether to everlasting life.

Distrubing Liturgical Trends

This is a brief rant about the Mass I attended today. The priest was a perfectly normal guy, but the way he did Mass was the most sissy thing I have ever seen. Is this what the traditionalists want? A Mass that is so prissy it would gag a maggot? I fear for the liturgical trends if this is what the seminaries are turning out.

In that case, why not have the gay priests? I mean come on, most gay men are far more masculine than that prissy Mass I heard today. Or do the seminaries want the honor of turning perfectly decent guys into priests who suddenly become prissy when they put on a vestment and stand before an altar? Or is it another way of saying "we like our priests prissy and in the closet?"

Either way, it sucks.

Hard Day for Louisville

I sat here in Bardstown and watched 6 inches of rain fall on Louisville in an hour. I have family in Louisville and friends all over the city. The images coming over the news flamed fears for all of them. It was amazing. Then another storm came through about 2:45 and hit us in Bardstown. Torrential rain and winds about 60 mph.

This is freaky weather, considering the days over ninety degrees this summer can be counted on both hands...I think you'd need both hands. My friend, a physicist said, global warming. I said, it is what it is. While I'm not thrilled with the changes our seasons seem to be undergoing, I find that continued faith in God is enough to prevent me from going over the edge and screaming Armageddon is upon us!

I have nothing really to share except that the concern for family and friends caused me to think of other cities that have undergone considerably worse disasters. New Orleans, for instance. Just seeing my alma mater go under water disturbed me, what must those displaced by a hurricane that put their entire city under 30 feet of water feel like? We are simply incapable of imagining the stress, fear, and outright grief those people must have suffered.

Or the people of Italy, every time the earth shakes down an entire village, or city. We say oh, how sad, but our compassion and interest are shriveled by our utter lack of contact with nature. We can't even be sure when the season is right for fresh tomatoes. Everything is mass produced, plasticized, and sanitized to the point that we don't know a mush melon from a water melon from a cantaloupe!

So a storm stalls out over a major metropolitan area, drops half a foot of rain in an hour, and reminds us that "Oh yeah, we live on a planet we didn't make."

I think I've thought myself into a hole. May God bring us altogether to ever lasting life.

Sunday Night

Do you ever look back at events in your life and think, what was I thinking? Sure, we all do for those distant past events, but I'm talking about events of three weeks ago, or three months ago?

We like to think that we are completely in charge of our lives, mature enough to make the right decision with reasonable consistency, only to discover that in reality, we are not. It has nothing to do with maturity, really, it's our inability to chose with the mind of Christ working within us. I find that when I ask myself "what was I thinking?" the answer is, "YOU were thinking."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that we should all make the decision of green cookie or red cookie, or this hallway, or that staircase with the mind of Christ, but there are certainly enough situations where the mind of Christ is the best we can use to stay out of trouble. It is the decisions we make involving other people that require the mind of Christ. How will I respond to this situation? How should I represent myself to these people? What is the most compassionate way to behave in this situation? All of those questions require...nay, demand, the mind of Christ.

As much as I love to talk about keeping the mind of Christ within us by merely keeping Christ in mind, I fail to do it about 40% of the time. That's a pretty high percentage for someone who is supposed to be making progress in the spiritual life. Yet, as a friend today said, "we peel back false self, and we will never finish, because there is always more." Another way of saying that is we sin, and sin again, because we are human and fragile creatures. The best we can do is aim at a higher rate than 40% remembering to keep the mind of Christ in my mind.

LCG Group Time Again

Tomorrow is the meeting of the Sunday group of Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani. That's all I'll say about that. Well, not really, because it serves as the groundwork upon which I intend to build the grand edifice of my blog entry. (Don't you feel special)

So far this week I have been to the disability doctor; had a false self revealed to me, with all the painful skin ripping involved in such self revelations; and have made the decision to NOT have the $300.00 pain shots on the 6th, because if I do, then we won't eat. I made the decision to go ahead and offer all of the pain to God as a form of intercession, for all those who suffer and have no hope of help of any kind. Also, I have come close to throwing my hands in the air and saying forget it to everything I'm involved in, which, admittedly, isn't much, but, God isn't allowing that, and I'm much too stubborn to do it anyway. And, I don't want to, it just felt that way.

I am living by faith, because my future looks pretty darn bleak. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? If so, then why aren't more people doing it? Even in my worst sin days, and boy there were some doozies in my past, I still lived by faith that even then God loved me, and would rescue me. The most painful thing of all is I don't dare reveal one half of my spiritual life to anyone or they will certainly lock me up as a great loony toon.

So, I am alone. Alone in a world made up of words. Words and more words. Logos=word. Logos=Word=Christ. The problem is the room I'm sitting in doesn't feel much like heaven, or hell really, and my faith is all I have left. People think I'm too dramatic, others think I'm the last great DangerQueer, some think that I'm just lazy, and others think I just live off my mother.

Logos=Word=Christ. The realization has been slow in coming, but it dawning upon me at long last, that what people think does not matter in the least. Your approval of me, my blog, my Words, doesn't matter. I want you to like me, my blog, and my words, but it doesn't matter. When I look around me, I see people who are chasing something they can't even put a name on. They can't say, "this is my goal." Why? Because the chase is all they know! And their goals all have something to do with money.

Words have meaning. We should be careful how we use them. If the Big Bang, and yes that's how I think God got the creation ball rolling, was started with a Word, then baby, words have power!

Tomorrow I will go and spend a lot of words trying to lead people to an understanding of what it is to be a Lay Cistercian, and I'm not convinced I even know what I'm talking about, or that they know why they are there. So why do I go? Why do they come? FAITH. Faith is a word we use a lot and fail to penetrate with our mind and heart. Faith is a state of being that is described by a word.

This is all starting to get circular, but I want people to understand at least one thing: life is worth living. Okay, two things: live by your FAITH.

May God bring us all to everlasting life. Amen.