Category: Spiritual

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Morning thoughts

St. Peter’s in Rome Italy

A year ago when I snapped this picture I felt the presence of a loving force for good in my life. One year later after almost two months of quarantine and thousands of deaths I’ve begun to question that presence and the effectiveness of prayer. Daily the death toll increases and our ability to shield ourselves from its destructiveness is very limited. Some of our leaders like Governor Cuomo seem very qualified and caring but our national leadership is grossly incompetent and riddled with cronyism.

Where is God? I told a friend yesterday that I had increasing doubts of the existence of God. Where was God at Auschwitz? Twelve million people were slaughtered by the Nazis and God didn’t stop that. I do believe in good. Doing good helps me to move forward. Doing good helps others too. Is God in the good we do for each other? Maybe. Governor Cuomo is doing good. The frontline first responders are doing good. The essential workers are doing good. What motivates some to do good and others to do nothing or work against the good.

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A new direction

The word Christian is meaningless. It has become so because of all the charlatans who have taken it as a mantle. We need a new word to describe followers of Jesus. Following Jesus is much different than worshipping him. Following implies living as he did among the outcasts and dregs of society. In the United States the word Christian implies selective and exclusive adherence to so called conservative worldview. Conservative in the United States implies connection to the Republican Party which means you denigrate the poor and marginalized. Conservative here means love of wealth, power and enfranchisement. That’s not following what Jesus taught. That’s diametrically the opposed to the gospel.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,

Luke 4:18

What is good news to the poor? Are you part of the good news? Are you proclaiming this message?

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The Blessings of Solitude

There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude. In this time of social distancing it is easy to become lonely and there are many folks who no doubt are starved for human contact. Fortunately I am not alone in this time. I am walking four or five miles each day and frequently praying the rosary during those walks. I’ve long been a person drawn to contemplation and this is a time that can foster that. The rosary aids my contemplation and so does the silence that surrounds me on most of these walks. My life has become almost monastic. The following quote by Thomas Merton invited me to think about the gift of life and the gift of solitude and how during this time of social distancing and quarantine we are moving closer to contemplative life.

“When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.”

― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Maybe we’ll emerge from this pandemic a changed society. At least we can hope so.

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Making America Better

“Yes, America was always terribly flawed—but it was never this.

It was never steered by something this openly malicious, this intentionally cruel, this unapologetically ignorant.
It was never led by such a toxic cocktail of arrogance and incompetence.
It was never consistently trying to be harmful to itself.”

John Pavlovitz – Make America Better

Source: Make America Better

John has provided a concise roadmap to a better America. Clearly we are a work in progress as was always the case. We have always had growing pains. In the past three and half years we have seen the worst America can offer.  We can do better and we will.

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Earth Day 2020

We can no longer exploit the resources of this earth—the trees, the water, and other natural resources—without any care for coming generations. Common sense tells us that unless we change, we won’t survive. This Earth Day let’s resolve to live in harmony with nature.

Dalai Lama

Maybe this pandemic has a silver lining. Maybe it forces us to realize that we can’t continue to exploit the planet. Our existential crisis has to be a point of reflection for all of us. The age of fossil fuels must end but that’s not all that we need to change. What must we change and how must we live are no longer ideals they have become essential questions.

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Exposing hypocrisy

John Pavlovitz writes with the passion of a prophet and the article shared on his Twitter feed this morning is spot on. He exposes the hypocrisy of those who call themselves “pro-life” while pissing on the rights of those who are trying desperately to avert the worst of this pandemic.

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Under His Wings

I found myself walking near my favorite pond again tonight. I’m fortunate to live nearby and it’s very calm and peaceful here. There are nearby woods and trails and generally an area that invites solitude and reflection. Tonight while approaching the pond I spotted a bald eagle sitting atop one of the many tall trees that surround the pond. It’s the first bald eagle I’ve seen in the wild. I didn’t get very close before he took off and flew north to a more secluded area. I wish I would have been quicker and gotten a picture of him. Seeing the eagle reminded me of Michael Joncas’ hymn, “On Eagles Wings,” which is one of my favorites. Michael’s hymn is beautiful and is based on Psalm 91. I’ve thought of the song often in this pandemic. I hope you enjoy it.

“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. [I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

Psalm 91:1-6

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A New Order Emerges

“Teilhard prophetically anticipated that human evolution would not take place without sideways forces of resistance and devolution, but he also saw that we would reach a decisive point of choosing either to evolve or to annihilate. We can destroy this world and ourselves in the process. We have the power to do so both in the form of weapons of mass destruction and the weapons of anger and hate.”

— A Hunger for Wholeness: Soul, Space, and Transcendence by Ilia Delio, OSF

The coronavirus maybe the agent of a new order. We can see the older order driven by fear, so called free market capitalism, xenophobia and ignorance flailing madly about trying to preserve the status quo in which the ultra-rich have benefitted. Covid-19 is deadly and only those who heed the directives to shelter in place are going to avoid its ravages. Maybe even those of us who are wearing masks, physically distancing, washing our hands religiously are still in danger.

I don’t think we are ever going back to the “way it was.” This pandemic is a prophetic moment and a warning. What happens in our community can have a global impact. We can chose to evolve or annihilate. The established order wants to maintain what was but that will never be and they are fighting tooth and nail to hold on. There is a new order emerging and who knows exactly how it will manifest. We are evolving. How will that order manifest?

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The Spirit of the Lord

“Jesus called his disciples to create a new transformed Earth, a kindom of equality and inclusivity, where all men and women could live together in justice, mercy, and peace. His consciousness of the whole evoked a genuine revolution in cosmic and social relations.”

— A Hunger for Wholeness: Soul, Space, and Transcendence by Ilia Delio, OSF

Contrast this spirit with what we are witnessing around us each day as those on the margins suffer most from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is just one more example of why we don’t deserve to be called a Christian nation or even a moral nation. To their credit many of our states and nation’s governors are doing their best to bridge the gap. Nonetheless folks are falling through the cracks in a nation where money is valued more than people. The paycheck protection program is one more shining example of how our leaders bail out Wall Street and stick it to Main Street. The funding is already depleted. Contrast our own national priorities with those other nations around the globe who are putting their citizens first.

Some politicians are calling for the establishment of universal basic income for all citizens. Not surprisingly some say this would incentivize the less fortunate to stay home and not seek work. These politicians have lifetime pensions which are their own universal basic income and not the $2,000 dollars a month that’s being proposed but salary and benefits in excess of $174,000 per year.

We always have lots of money to bail out Wall Street or start another war but nothing for the poor souls in our midst. These are the folks who call themselves conservative and cloak their greed in patriotism and pseudo-religious trappings.

‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Matthew 15:8