Thoughts on the world of open source
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into instant flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.–Albert Schweitzer
How many times has your light been rekindled and who and what are the events that have rekindled that flame. The walk of faith is not a constant. It is instead like the ebb and flow of the tides. Peace.
The following came to me from a weekly reflection from Every Church a Peace Church.
To whom much as been given much shall be required. Luke 12:48
The political ads flicker endlessly on our television screens. Most appeal to our sense of justice and decency. Leaders often come to power by professing their faith in God and their commitment to high moral standards. One powerful leader explained his understanding of his duties in the following quotes.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people….
It matters not whether these weapons of ours are humane: if they gain us our freedom, they are justified before our conscience and before our God.
Perhaps many Americans would vote for such a politician. After all, he says he is a Christian and wants to protect our freedoms. This religious politician was Adolf Hitler and these are excerpts are from speeches in Munich (April 12, 1922 and Aug 1,1923 respectively)
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“We can know God easily so long as we do not feel it necessary to define Him.” Once having grasped this truth I began to see how natural knowing God became. The difficulty of the forced, of the artificial, of the mere assent to what other people say, of which the Caucasian to his credit is always impatient, seemed by degrees to melt away from me. No longer defining God I no longer tried to know Him in senses obviously impossible. I ceased trying to imagine Him. Seeing Him as infinite, eternal, changeless, formless because transcending form, and indescribable because transcending words and thoughts, I could give myself up to finding Him in the ways in which He would naturally be revealed to me.”–Basil King, “Conquest of Fear” (1921)
This book was given to me over twenty years ago when it was out of print. A friend who’s been dead nearly twenty-one years first told me of this book and he gave me one of his last copies. As I read, “Jesus Today” by Albert Nolan last week I was struck by many of the similarities between Nolan’s work and Basil King’s work. Then too there are parallels with Meister Eckhart and other mystics. “Conguest of Fear” is a classic that was first published 85 years ago. It’s wisdom and insight are timeless. I have read it again and again over the last twenty years. You can read it online at Project Gutenberg or you can buy it at Amazon.com
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My Dad and Grandfather had lots of expressions and I’m indebted to them. They were the koans of my youth. One of them came to play again today after speaking with a colleague about some of our peers and whether they could master a simple operation. Gramps used to say, “some people are so dumb that they couldn’t pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the heel.” That sums up what I was thinking about some of these folks today. Some folks really are dumb and some are “dumb like a fox”, another sage simile.
Andrew Sullivan, some guy from the “Log Cabin Republicans, and two ministers are on the Larry King Show tonight discussing among other things the impact of the Foley Scandal on “purging” homosexuals from the Republican party. It must be near an election because the Republicans are attempting to divide the electorate with litmus tests and divisive issues. I don’t think a person’s sexual orientation has any bearing on whether you can or cannot do your job. I’m with former President Carter who said that nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus mention anything about homosexuals. I had to check it out for myself, but he’s right, it ain’t there. Jesus had a lot to say about being rich and a lot to say about the poor. He talked about peace and about turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies 77 times but nothing about sexual orientation. You’d never know it to hear some of the ministers of his gospel. You’d think sexual orientation had something to do with being a Christian. Oh, I know the church says it does, but the church also says war is “just” in certain circumstances. Jesus is pretty clear on that one and “just” isn’t part of the vocabulary. It seems that some of the folks who came after Jesus got politics, government and Jesus’ message and put them together in an attempt to control a certain portion of the electorate. You don’t suppose that sort of thing is still happening today?
There’s a line in St. Matthew’s Gospel most of these folks miss and that is, “You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
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May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being–Apache Blessing
I got this today from Gratefulness.org. It was just what I needed. I began my day running four miles on the track behind the school I work at. It was a beautiful morning and I like the contemplative setting of running just before dawn. It is the time of day during which some monastics begin their days also. Running is spiritual. A bit cathartic, a bit contemplative, it is time for prayer and reflection. It is a quiet time that I need and crave. I much prefer to run in the low light of the pre-dawn than the artificial light of the indoor track in a nearby gymnasium. I really can’t explain why I prefer the darkness to the light at that time of day. I find a peace that surpasses understanding. As I ran I encountered one other soul on the track. I know that she is the pastor a local church. As I run past her I wonder is she praying also and for what. Are we both praying for peace. Will there be peace? Does anyone really care? News today of 69 dead American soldiers in Iraq this month. News last week of 655,000 dead Iraqis as a result of the illegal American invasion and occupation of Iraq. In the mail comes “Catholic Worker” with a headline proclaiming “U.S. War Against Iraq is a Mortal Sin.” My mind is full of all these thoughts and through them all comes “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners, now and at that hour of our death. Amen”. Will the intercession of this Woman Clothed with the Sun bring peace to our world? Ave Maria, gratia plena. Peace.
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Today at Mass at Mt. Irenaeus we emerged to full canonical status as a fraternity in the Secular Franciscan Order. Holy Peace Chapel was filled to overflowing with Secular Franciscans from a number of fraternities in Western and Central New York State. Emotions were at flood tide as we remembered those who had helped us initiate, trudge and complete this journey to full canonical status. This is not a destination but merely a step on our journey as Franciscans. Nonetheless, there was a lot of rejoicing for those present. Our spiritual assistant, Fr. Lou McCormick, OFM was the celebrant and homilist today. Bill Heinz, Secular Franciscan Minister of Kateri Tekawitha Region was on hand to complete the process. He read a proclamation at Mass following a special ceremony witnessed by all present that established us as the St. Irenaeus Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order. Following Mass we had brunch with an incredible array of food brought by Franciscans and our guests from all over our area.
In the photo you can see our group along with the Friar community of Holy Peace Friary at Mt. Irenaeus. We all wore a white carnation on our lapels in honor of Jeanne Stopha, SFO who has gone to live permanently with the Lord and who was an original member of the fraternity. Peace.
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In 1944, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s mother took him from Siberia to Moscow. They were among those who witnessed a procession of twenty-thousand German war prisoners marching through the streets of Moscow:
The pavements swarmed with onlookers, cordoned off by soldiers and police. The crowd was mostly women — Russian women with hands roughened by hard work, lips untouched by lipstick, and with thin hunched shoulders which had borne half of the burden of the war. Every one of them must have had a father or a husband, a brother or a son killed by the Germans. They gazed with hatred in the direction from which the column was to appear.
At last we saw it. The generals marched at the head, massive chins stuck out, lips folded disdainfully, their whole demeanor meant to show superiority over their plebian victors.
“They smell of perfume, the bastards,” someone in the crowd said with hatred. The women were clenching their fists. The soldiers and policemen had all they could do to hold them back.
All at once something happened to them. They saw German soldiers, thin, unshaven, wearing dirty blood-stained bandages, hobbling on crutches or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades; the soldiers walked with their heads down. The street became dead silent — the only sound was the shuffling of boots and the thumping of crutches.
Then I saw an elderly women in broken-down boots push herself forward and touch a policeman’s shoulder, saying, “Let me through.” There must have been something about her that made him step aside. She went up to the column, took from inside her coat something wrapped in a colored handkerchief and unfolded it. It was a crust of black bread. She pushed it awkwardly into the pocket of a soldier, so exhausted that he was tottering on his feet. And now from every side women were running toward the soldiers, pushing into their hands bread, cigarettes, whatever they had. The soldiers were no longer enemies. They were people.
– A Precocious Autobiography, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Collins, London
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I made a mistake in judgement today and further complicated it by not communicating with fellow Secular Franciscans. I had originally promised to bring a platter of Subway sub sandwiches to Mount Irenaeus for a luncheon today. There was a communication error and I was the one at fault. I hope that I can make up for it tomorrow by appearing with a platter of subs. Earlier this week I received a box containing four cakes prepared by the Trappists at Genesee Abbey at Piffard, New York. I had sent the brothers $20 in the mail for cakes I had taken on an earlier visit when I had no money. Instead of receiving the money and crediting me, they took this as a new order and sent me four more loaves of this delicious blueberry and chocolate chip whiskey cakes. Tomorrow following the formal canonical recognition of the St. Irenaeus Fraternity at Mt. Irenaeus, Franciscans and our guests will benefit from my mistakes and the monk’s mistakes. I am reminded of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, “all things work together for good to them that love God.”
Today is the 34th anniversary of my graduation from Great Lakes Naval Training Center. I was in the 13th Battalion and we graduated in at 1300 hours on the 13th of October in 1972. I was a draftee who joined the United States Navy rather than take my chances in the jungles of Vietnam. I entered as a Hospital Recruit or E-1. There is only one thing lower than a recruit we were told in boot camp and that was whale dung and that is on the bottom of the ocean. Those times were formative in my journey. I chose to serve as a Hospital Corpsman because then as now I believed in the sanctity of all life. I was against the Vietnam War as I oppose the current misadventure in Iraq, but since my country called, I served. I’m proud of my record of service and I salute others of my generation and those of other generations who have chosen to serve as well.
I think all soldiers and sailors abhor war. It is only the politicians and the slackers who are war’s cheerleaders. They thump their chests and give speeches at great distance from recruiting stations and nowhere near harm’s way. Yesterday I attended the wake of one of my childhood friends. We were in Boy Scouts together. He made Eagle Scout. I left as a Life Scout. I talked to his brothers at the funeral home yesterday. We were all veterans. Veterans of the Boys Scouts and the Armed Forces of the United States of America. We grew up in the shadow of the Berlin Crisis and the War in Vietnam. Military service was something that all young men contemplated back then. It was either conscription or enlistment. There were some rich kids, children of congressmen and athletes who avoided military service, but most young men got to serve in one capacity or other. John and I both enlisted although in different branches of the military. He served in Vietnam, I served stateside. The older I get the more I think back to those days and what they mean to me today. In memory of John and all the veterans and victims of all wars I dedicate this Youtube video of Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra. It’s one of my favorites and it was produced in 1974. I can recall listening to it while on active duty and in the years after my release. I’ve always liked the melody. It is a such a rich piece and it evokes memories of my active military service.
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