contemplative – Page 14 – The Future is Open

July 20, 2009

Window on the world

This afternoon and following a nap alongside the road near Cuba, New York I decided to drive north into the Genesee River Valley and towards Abbey of the Genesee. I spent quiet time in the sanctuary. I know God is everywhere but there is something special about this place. Maybe it’s the stillness, but there are other places just as still. Whatever it is I am drawn to this place. I love the smell of the fresh Monks Bread which is sold here and it’s just a lovely place to sit, read and reflect.

This picture taken with my Blackberry camera really captured the beauty outside the monastery reading room. You can see the distant clouds, the statue of Our Lady of the Genesee and the blue sky. After I left the abbey I drove to nearby Geneseo, New York for a Strawberry Coolata at the Dunkin’ Donut store there.

July 20, 2009

Eremo

Today I was back at Mt. Irenaeus after a week away. Today was the culmination of a Franciscan Sojourners retreat and though I was not a part of the retreat there were many familiar faces among those that were there for that event. Fr. Dan Riley, OFM is an eloquent homilist and today he was really tuned up. He took today’s Gospel and talked about coming away to a deserted or quiet place. He talked about eremo and its place in the Franciscan tradition of coming away to quiet places, not to hide from the world but to more fully engage it.

His homily came to me at a time when I’d been thinking about those subjects a great deal. I mentioned in our sharing time that I thought that the world is not broken, but that we are and and that being broken is a good thing. Brokenness is a strength and something to be sought after, because it is only when we are broken and poured out that we are open to the Gospel message. I thought to of the story of the cracked pot and how due to its defect it actually watered flowers along the path. Our brokenness is often our strength, but too often we try to deny it.

I need to celebrate and cherish my brokenness. In it lies my strength. When I am weak then I am strong. When I think I’ve got all the answers then I’m not likely to listen to what someone else has to say. I need those times of eremo to live more fully in the world. Thanks to Fr. Dan for opening up the word once again and helping us all to cherish our times of solitude.

July 16, 2009

He who is without sin..

We are surrounded by scandal. It’s all over the news and the pundits are having a field day. Lately it’s been Mark Sanford and John Ensign. Before that it was Larry Craig and Eliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton and the list goes on. Politicians have been trying to score points by claiming family values and the real issue is after all hypocrisy.

So when they continued asking him, he raised himself, and said to them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. — John 8:7.

Harsh judgement is really the issue and who is without sin. This week too we’ve been treated to another spectacle of harsh judgement by Senators so blinded to their own bigotry and ethnocentrism that they have been crucifying Sonia Sotomayor in the confirmation hearings. The senators are so concerned with Judge Sotomayor conforming to their standard of judgement which is primarily a white male view that they have missed the richness that this woman brings to the table and eventually to the United States Supreme Court.

I enjoyed Judge Sotomayor’s comments on the second amendment. For too long advocacy groups like the National Rifle Association have loosely interpreted the Constitution to mean that Americans have a fundamental right to “keep and bear arms,” without any regard to the overall safety of the rest of us. I believe that Americans do have the right to keep and bear arms but within the original context of the Second Amendment and that is as part of a militia or if you will the National Guard, Army Reserves etc. That I believe was the founders intent.

July 5, 2009

A blessing

Today I made my way along a number of different roads and routes to Mt. Irenaeus. I haven’t been to the Mountain in a couple of weeks. Last week I found myself in Washington, DC and at a bookstore in Dupont Circle at 11:00 AM. Today, the air was sunny and warm as I pulled off Route 1 in Friendship, New York and turned on to Hydetown Road. I drove very slowly along the the dirt road as I made my way to Mass. Lately I’ve been intentionally driving slower and especially on my way up to Holy Peace Chapel. As the liturgy started and Fr. Dan invited us to listen to the lyrics of Cyprian Consiglio as he sang “This is who you are.” Mass began and I listened to the readings and Fr. Dan’s homily and as rich as all of it was, it was the moment when Fr. Dan related the story of how all were truly welcome in this place. Dan said, that earlier this morning as he had been preparing the chapel for the Eucharist that two members of the Baha’i and Muslim faiths had been here praying and that their presence helped to consecrate this place. He explained that they were neighbors and had been here before. Dan’s complete acceptance of them and their faith tradition reminded me why I drive thirty miles to Mass most Sundays of the year. Thank God for Fr. Dan Riley and for the Franciscan Friars of Holy Peace Friary who open the word of God for us.

June 23, 2009

Invisible God

Just yesterday I was having a conversation with one of the summer interns at Mt. Irenaeus when I said to him that the God of the theologians was not God as I had experienced him. Too often I/we let theologians limit our concept of God. God becomes pigeon-holed and limited by what the God scholars say and speak. I don’t intend to demonize theologians, that’s not my mission. I’m grateful that theologians think and write. Today in my mail comes this gift from the Merton Institute and it expresses almost the same sentiment.

Just as we have a superficial, external mask which we put together with words and actions that do not fully represent all that is in us, so even believers deal with a God who is made up of words, feelings, reassuring slogans, and this is less the God of faith than the product of religious and social routines. Such a “God” can become a substitute for the truth of the invisible God of faith, and though this comforting image may seem real to us, he is really a kind of idol. His chief function is to protect us against a deep encounter with our true inner self and with the true God.

Thomas Merton. Love and Living. Naomi Burton Stone & Patrick Hart, editors (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jonvanovich, 1985): 42.

June 7, 2009

Mountain Road

Today was Trinity Sunday and I really needed to hear Fr. Lou McCormick, OFM homily which included the importance of doubt in our lives. So much time is spent defining what we are and what we believe that almost no one ever gives voice to doubt although you can hear it too if only you listen. Without doubt there would be no faith. In the past nine years since I’ve come to Mt. Irenaeus and become a Secular Franciscan I’ve gone through a series of stages, the latest has been one of intense doubt. I had been thinking of chucking it all because I’m a very non-traditional Catholic and a non-traditional Franciscan too. I am connected to the church more by mysticism than by any other thread.

Today following Mass and Brunch I took a walk along the path called “The Mountain Road,” which winds from near the House of Peace to the highest point on the property and close to my favorite hermitage, La Posada. Posada is the resting place and I’ve spent several nights in its grasp in the past nine years. I’ve also spent other times like this afternoon resting there and listening. Once inside today and seated in a chair by the window, gentle tears came to my eyes and once more I was home. At one time La Posada was a place and it was on top of that low mountain in Allegany County. Today, La Posada is in my heart, it’s a gift that I carry with me, but it’s still neat to come here to this land and to walk intentionally, mindfully slow, listening for my heartbeat, my breath and all the life that surrounds me. The Trinity is about relationship and so are these woods and this path that I am on.

May 31, 2009

Fear itself

I began this experiment with public sharing of my thoughts a bit over three years ago shortly after I suffered a pulmonary embolism. I felt a need to write and discovered that I can write and some like my sister and son believe that I should continue. It’s been an interesting and informative way for me to reflect on what’s going on. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my ideas that I would not have received otherwise. Some of the discussions have helped me to better understand issues or gain some insight I might never have gained otherwise.

Lately, I’ve been without words but not without thoughts, just the inability or unwillingness to express them. I’ve been thinking about retiring for nearly a year now. Some of the events of the last year pushed me in that direction and others have pulled me back. On Friday another such event led me to strongly consider the retirement option again. Fear is the only thing holding me back. Franklin Roosevelt said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear can cripple and it’s been crippling me. It’s in these moments that I am drawn back to the wise counsel of one of my spiritual advisors who years ago told me never to put limits on the power of God. Not the God of religion but God as I understood Him. This same guy gave me a book nearly twenty-five years ago which is still in my library, “The Conquest of Fear,” by Basil King. My friend’s wise counsel and King’s book have come to my aid many times and from it’s pages sprang the hope that makes even today possible.

It’s up to you to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.–Basil King, Conquest of Fear

This morning finds me sitting in my hermitage, writing this reflection and reading the words of Basil King and considering too all of sacred scripture and all the other wisdom texts I know and love and what they have to say on this subject.

May 25, 2009

Life in the country

I got this quote in today’s mail and it made me grateful for my own life and even the past two days which were spent not in my own country but in the lake country of Canada. Diane and I spent a weekend at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario at a lovely bed & breakfast called Blueberry Gate. Our hostess treated us very well and we’re likely to return. We got to enjoy a couple of performances at the Shaw Festival and very little television and only sparse internet, enough to send some text messages to our children and an update or two on Facebook.

This will give us some idea of the proper preparation that the contemplative life requires. A life that is quiet, lived in the country, in touch with the rhythm of nature and the seasons. A life in which there is manual work, the exercise of arts and skills, not in a spirit of dilettantism, but with genuine reference to the needs of one’s existence. The cultivation of the land, the care of farm animals, gardening. A broad and serious literary culture, music, art, again not in the spirit of Time and Life-(a chatty introduction to Titian, Prexiteles, and Jackson Pollock)-but a genuine and creative appreciation of the way poems, pictures, etc., are made. A life in which there is such a thing as serious conversation, and little or no TV. These things are mentioned not with the insistence that only life in the country can prepare a [person] for contemplation, but to show the type of exercise that is needed.

Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. William H. Shannon, editor (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003): 131.

May 17, 2009

The least

I read this morning about an engaging young lady who will graduate from Notre Dame University today. She’s Brennan Bollman, and she’s this year’s Valedictorian. She’s got a 4.0 and more than that she’s focused like a laser beam on Catholic Social Teaching and the Gospel. I first learned of her earlier today from an editorial piece on HuffingtonPost.com. I did some research and found out that she’s not only headed to medical school, but that she worked at a Catholic Worker house and like me she’s Irish. What a wonderful combination? The best part of it all is that she gets it. By “it”, I mean the Gospel. The Gospel is not about kissing up to the rich and powerful and subsidizing their failures. The Gospel is about reaching down and out to help those around us and especially the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.

My favorite quote from the Gospels and one that animates my life is taken from Matthew 25.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘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.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Godspeed to Brennan and all of her classmates.