The Future is Open

We’ve been on the road with the Fredonia State Blue Devils and though they’ve played hard the young men have come up empty. It’s easy to be proud of a winning team. It’s harder to find the positives in a team that has trouble winning. The State University of New York Athletic Conference is very competitive. Today’s opponent, the Potsdam Bears, were definitely the better team. Fredonia rallied from thirteen down to take a two point lead only to see it disappear and finally lose the game. Our son Devin has only two games left in his senior season and it was tough to console a boy who loves basketball and hates losing. As we watched him board the bus home I said, “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.” I don’t know if that brought any comfort to Devin. I don’t think it did much to assuage my own feelings about the game and the waning season.

Who do I trust? Do I really trust God to bring something postitive out what looks like a big negative? I can’t say that I always find the positive in what looks like big negatives, but I know there is a bigger picture. St. James also counsels that we should welcome the bad things that happen to us along with the good. When I fail to look deeply and contemplatively at what happens to me on a daily basis I miss the opporunity to see God’s hand in it all. I pray for the wisdom to wait on the Lord. Psalm 46:11 admonishes me to “be still and know that I am God.” Help me to be still. Peace.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.” A friend sent me that quote in an email yesterday and it’s truth just jumped out at me. The source of the quote was Mahatma Gandhi, who was no stranger to forgiveness. Gandhi is said to have forgiven the man who shot him before he died. That’s powerful. While dying on the cross, Jesus said, “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” That’s radical forgiveness. I think that’s what we’re called to.

May the Lord give you peace.

A few days ago I came across a picture of a little boy with his arm up on a snow bank. The little boy appeared to be half asleep or perhaps catching a nap on this snow bank. Maybe he had been shoveling, I don’t really know. I do know that the little boy was about five at the time of the photo. It was a picture of me that my father probably took. As I looked at the picture I began to look deeply at the boy and I wanted to talk with him. I really longed to talk again with that little boy who had grown into a man. I wanted to tell him that he was a good little boy. I wanted to tell him that the cares and concerns he had were real but that the passage would be okay.

On the wall in my sacred space is a picture of that boy taken some years later when he was 13. When I look at that young man I want to speak with him too and tell him that I love him. That young man wanted to be a Catholic priest. He wanted to dedicate his life to helping others. That young man attended Mass everyday and was devout about his faith. He was also torn by an emerging sexual and social identity which caused him to question the beliefs and at one point would drive him down the road of the prodigal son. Life wasn’t simple for that young man. He was full of conflict and question.

Looking deeply at myself today I can see the little boy and the adolescent and I can embrace both of them and love them deeply because they are part of who I am today. The more I am able look deeply and to see not only those two boys, but my mother, father, brother, sister, and everyone else the more contented I am.

Everything belongs. Peace.

Today I had to drive 80 miles to attend a technology integrator forum of which I am a member. During my drive east this morning I deliberately didn’t have any radio or noise on. I wanted to hear whatever it is I was supposed to hear from the Creator. Several years ago I began to “fast” from the news. Although I continue to read news sites on the web, I’ve renewed my news fast again. I fasted for a year last time. From October 2004-November 2005 I didn’t watch or listen to any newscasts. I received whatever local/national news from our local Olean Times Herald. If you’ve ever read a small city newspaper you soon realize how little national and international news they contain.

I’m convinced that not listening to the packaged news has allowed me to think freely about a range of topics and to have my ear honed to hear differently. The daily bombardment from Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR etc. can be deafening and can enforce a reality which really only exists for their listeners. If that has become your reality I challenge you to tune out, turn off and listen instead to the silence that surrounds you. Before I left the house this morning it was my intent to take along my Franciscan Crown Rosary and to recite it on my ride to Bath, New York. I forgot to bring the Rosary but instead used my fingers and memory to recite a few decades and to remember some of the people who have reacted to my posts in this blog.

I’ve discovered that it is possible to live a life punctuated by solitude without being a solitary monk in a cloister. Like St. Francis, the world is my cloister. It is possible to live a life where silence is indeed golden. I love people and I love life, but I also love silence and solitude. If you are looking for peace, you can find it in your own kitchen or in your own living room. Peace.

I regret that I didn’t spend much time listening to Coretta Scott King as I did listening to and reading her husband’s work. Nonetheless, as I watch the tribute to her life that is being broadcast on C-Span this evening I am reminded that the Gospel is about non-violence and redemptive suffering that transforms the victim and the perpetrator. I know from my own personal experience that fighting, hitting back, retribution and yes, war of any stripe is doomed to utter failure. There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

This week President Bush has proposed to Congress a budget that includes approximately $437 billion dollars devoted to making war, to killing our brothers and sisters worldwide in an effort to bring peace. We might as well take all that money and burn it in the fire because it will not produce the results intended for it.

I believe that the president, a self described Christian, firmly believes that he is doing good. I pray that President has a spiritual awakening and trims the money wasted on war and instead spend it on projects and causes that will truly bring peace. Bono in a recent speech at the National Prayer Breakfast asked that we spend 1% of our federal budget on ending poverty and AIDS. Spending $437 million dollars radically reducing poverty would do more to bring an end to war and terror on this planet than any of the proposed weapons systems in this year’s federal budget. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.” As a true disciple of non-violence and a real witness for peace, the Mahatma knew that ending poverty is paramount to ending violence.

Pope Paul VI said, “If you want peace work for justice.” The biblical understanding of the word justice is fidelity to the demands of a relationship. We have a relationship to our brothers and sisters on this planet and unless and until we begin to address the needs of that relationship we will have war and strife and no amount of bombs, planes and guns will fulfill the demands of our relationship to our brothers and sisters.

I pray for an awakening for our leaders. I hope you will pray also. We must stop feeding our fears and start feeding our brothers. Only when our brothers and sisters are no longer hungry will we have peace.
In Jesus’ only description of the Last Judgement to be found in the Gospel, we have the standard by which we will be judged. “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me. ‘Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

I just wrote to my members of Congress asking them to reject the
president’s budget and craft a federal government spending plan that
recognizes that more military spending will not bring the U.S. more security at
home or abroad. I hope you’ll join me.

Click on this URL to take action now
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/2/?a=8461016&i=1234

Peace.

“Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds,”– James 1:2-4. In a culture where losing is considered unacceptable this missive from the Book of St. James is very unsettling. We’ve been attending a lot of basketball games lately and more often than not our son’s team has been on the losing end. Over the four seasons that Devin has been a member of the Fredonia State Varsity his team has faced trial after trial. Eighteen months ago one of their key players dropped dead while getting ready for school one day. Last year the rest of the team dedicated their season and their spare time to collecting for a memorial to “Buck” as he was affectionately called. Mark Buckenmeyer came into our lives about two years ago. He was an easy going young man who was very soft spoken. He transferred to Fredonia following a successful career at Genesee Community College. He was a young man who wanted to be a math teacher.

At last night’s game a member of the home crowd at Thiel College pulled me aside and asked why the young men wore number “44” on their warmups in addition to their own number. I told him about Mark’s tragic death and how this was one of the ways his teammates had elected to honor his memory. Frequently I forget that these games aren’t about me or even about Devin. They’re a celebration of basketball and life. I’m sure the Buckenmeyers would love to have Mark back for one more game win or lose.

This weekend the young men will travel to Plattsburgh State and Potsdam State. They will be difficult opponents. The young men will face trials of many kinds on the hardwood. We’ll be there to enjoy their play and their lives and to remember Buck.

Peace.

Today at Mass during Fr. Lou’s homily he stated something like the greater we love something or someone the greater we suffer. That can have a negative connotation as in the more I love and/or horde material things the more I will fret about their disappearance. That’s not what I’m talking about here. I often worry a lot about my son and daughter. I think that is common with almost any parent. Some parents might handle it better. Some might deny it, but most would agree that children are a great source of concern and well they should be. I love both our children and when they’re out of our sight as they are now away at college I am concerned for their welfare.

In our culture we’re almost conditioned to avoid suffering. We have medicine and counseling that allow us to hide from suffering. But it would seem upon reflection that great suffering can be a great blessing and if I look at it from a different perspective. The Holy Father’s recent encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est”, seems to carry a similar message. The deeper my conversion as a follower of Jesus, the deeper my love, and therefore the deeper my suffering when encountering that which conflicts with the vision of God’s love for us all. The greater my capacity for love, the greater my compassion and also the greater my tendency to suffer. Being a devoted follower of Christ means then that I am his hands, his ears, his eyes, his feet and his heart. I cannot suffer but what he suffers. He cannot suffer but what I suffer. We are one with him.

The greater then my connection to Christ the greater my capacity to suffer. That is a blessing, perhaps the greatest blessing I could have. Peace.

One of the facets of my life that I’ve written very little about is my business, DGW Enterprises. I’ve been in a couple of businesses in the last 14 years. In both of these businesses I’ve had the opportunity to practice spiritual principles. One of those principles is thinking of other people first. The world of technology and computers to be more specific has become increasingly complex. A close personal friend and I began a partnership in 1992. Our goal was to provide affordable technology solutions to small businesses and individuals in our immediate geographic area. At that time many of the established businesses were sticking it to consumers and we sought to change that by finding affordable solutions and providing them at aggressive pricing for our customers. We were able to do that for a number of years until outfits like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and vendors like Tiger-Direct were eating our lunch. I was blessed to have a partner who like myself was more interested in doing a job well than in making tons of money. We helped a lot of local businesses, private individuals and non-profits. Our partnership ended but not our friendship.

About four or five years ago I decided to “re-invent myself” and to provide a web design and programming business. Since many people continued to come to me for advice on hardware and software I also decided to become a consultant in those areas. During that period of time I began to use Linux. I started with Red Hat, moved to Mandrake, then back to Red Hat, then Fedora and Ubuntu. In the course of all this I experimented with dozens of open source software applications. I began to see and to believe that I could save businesses, non-profits and individuals time and money using open source software and Linux in particular. It’s been a lot of fun to share my passion for open source with my growing and evolving customer base. At first most people just can’t believe that an operating system that is free can be any good. Many can’t believe that software like OpenOffice and Firefox are free and that major corporations are using them.

In the last ten years of my life I’ve done a lot of consulting for ministries. Most ministries don’t have tons of money yet by the same token most of them have websites and have grown to require email. Most ministries can’t afford to buy office productivity solutions retailing in the $350-$400 range. Open Source software has been a boon to folks like this and in many ways I think of the open source community as being similar to the Book of Acts where the new converts to Christianity shared what they had with the community. Penguin in the Pew by Donald Parris is a great book available in PDF format that helps to explain the advantages of open source software to non-profits.

Today I worked with three of my customers. Each customer had unique needs and in each case I was able to help them. Being of service to others is my goal and seeing customers faces light up when I solve their problem is a blessing in itself. My last customer of the day was a gentleman who had twice before been victimized by spyware infestations on a Windows 98 machine. A couple of weeks ago I loaned him a computer that I had in stock. The computer is a Celeron 1.1 ghz machine with 512 mb RAM. I loaded it with Centos Linux configured it’s modem and my neighbor/customer has been reading email and enjoying the internet without the menace of spyware and viruses. Today I installed a Hewlett-Packard inkjet for him and he’s very happy that everything works.

If you’re an individual who’s gotten tired of fighting viruses and or spyware then maybe your computer should be running Linux. There are some good books and lots of websites to help you over the learning curve.

All about Linux

Fedora for Dummies

Ubuntu-Linux for human beings

Happy and safe surfing. Peace.

I was reading Sister Joan Chittister’s column in the National Catholic Reporter today. I also read a link about how Cindy Sheehan and some other lady were put out of the president’s state of the union address on Tuesday night. I read earlier in the week about some citizen in New York State who will soon stand trial for wearing an anti-war t-shirt in a shopping mall near Albany, New York. This all got me to thinking and contemplating what it means to me. I am opposed to all war. I have been ever since I can remember. I first gave all this a lot of thought when I was an early teen. It doesn’t seem to me that anyone who reads the Gospels could support war. I don’t see anything in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John that endorses or condones war, killing or injuring people. It just doesn’t make any sense at any level of discussion for me.

If you have to be “pro-war” to be patriotic in the United States today then I don’t fit. Don’t you find it wierd that the same folks who make such a big deal about abortion are in favor of capital punishment and war? Do these folks ever listen to themselves?

“Do I ever feel angry? Of course I do. Who doesn’t? There are seeds of violence in everyone I guess, but how do I act on them. I’m opposed to the war on every ground I can think of, but I still love our president, all our leaders, and all our troops and even our enemies because that is what I am called to do. Everyone is a child of God, made in the image and likeness of the most high.”Why the hell can’t we take sides it would be so much easier? Us and them, with us and againt us are not Gospel options. I’ve been hurt really bad a number of times in my life, but violence never solved any of those hurts. Forgiving my enemy healed them all. Peace.

Lots of thoughts today as I fast and prepare for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Having to drink the awful bowel wash makes me grateful that this is not a daily routine. I’ve voluntarily fasted in the past for a number of reasons. At one time I fasted at least once a week as part of a regular prayer routine. I was very devout in the observance of those fasts. I had a friend who was on a juice fast that lasted 40 or 50 days. I’ve read about Gandhi’s legendary fasts. Fasting can be cathartic. My fast today is strictly for medical reasons. The doctors want to know the source of my pulmonary emboli and colorectal cancer screening is part of their plan to provide a comprehensive assessment of what triggered my brush with death in September.

In “Canticle of Creatures”, St. Francis writes of Sister Death. He expresses so well what many of us westerners fail to grasp. In the west we dread death and yet it is a part of life. These doctors who have prescribed this examination tomorrow are trying to keep me alive and in better health. Lately in contemplating my own mortality I’ve thought often of what happens after I’m gone. I don’t have an answers only theories expressed by theologians. I guess I’ll never really know and when that day comes I won’t be back to write in this blog what happened and so you won’t know either.

When I really think of how good God has been to me I have to conclude that if there really is life after death that it would be good. All of my life is evidence that God loves me. St. Francis wrote:

I hope tomorrow brings more life, but the older I get the more I wonder what comes after this? It is my fond hope that heaven is like Mt. Irenaeus.