Tag: contemplative

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Romans 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good, to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. -Romans 8:28

That verse and the thought of it is has been with me.  Sometimes bad things happen to good people and I don’t think that God fore ordains those bad things. I think they just happen,  just like rain falls on everyone whether good or bad.  When things happen in my life that I think are bad I tend to blame myself. That’s one of my character defects. Lately I’ve been thinking more and more of this verse when adverse events come and they do. Just today our son called to say that his car had “conked out.” It’s only a couple of days before Christmas and we’re looking at over three hundred dollars to put a new starter in the car. Last night my sister was due to arrive from out of town to celebrate her 50th birthday, but the weather didn’t cooperate and her flight was cancelled. Naturally, we were all discouraged, but in this too I need to look for something good to happen out of this.

Much of my life I’ve spent walking around under a gray cloud when in fact I should be looking for something good to happen.   It really all depends on how I look at a situation. My tendency is to be negative rather than positive.

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Get a grip

The so-called progressives in this country are going nuts about President-elect Obama’s choice of Rick Warren for the invocation at his inauguration.  Rick Warren’s not my kind of guy, but give Obama credit for doing what he promised and attempting to change the culture. We are not a gay America, nor a straight America. We are not blue America and red America. We are the United States of America, a country of many hues and voices that needs to become one. I’d have chosen Jim Wallis myself, but I applaud the President-elect’s choice of Rick Warren because he believes as I do that it’s okay to disagree as long as we don’t become disagreeable. We’ve been too disagreeable for too long and it’s killing us.

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No man will ever see me again

That is how Thomas Merton describes his ultimate call to solitude. I just got through watching PBS’s Thomas Merton special. I’m glad I found it. I missed much of the program, but what I did see was interesting and informative. I drove to Abbey of the Genesee again today. I completed some of my Christmas shopping there. I like to give fruitcake and brownies to my co-workers and some of my business clients. It’s my way of saying thank you at this time of year. I picked up four fruitcakes, 3 loaves of chocolate chip cake, and five Monks brownies.

Thirty years ago on my first visit to the Abbey I wanted to join the community and was crestfallen when Abbot John Eudes Bamberger suggested that there were other ways to live a spiritual life. I wanted to run to the monastery at a time when life outside it seemed to much to bear. Today I’m glad the abbot prevailed. In the intervening years the abbey has come to live as much in my heart as in my head and the fruit of contemplation lives with me everyday. My own life is filled with solitude. I’m not quite a monk, but I live a life increasingly filled with calls to quietness.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av9sRpEVI6M]

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A friend of silence

When I read this quote on Gerry Straub’s blog attributed to Mother Teresa I was struck by its similarity to a quote that I recently posted fromThomas Merton.  I know how much my own growing longing for silence means to me. Later today I hope to visit Abbey of the Genesee, another place that thrives on silence.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is a friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence. Is not our mission to give God to the poor in the slums? Not a dead God, but a living, loving God. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life. We need silence to be able to touch souls. The essential thing is not what we say, but what God says to us and through us. All our words will be useless unless they come from within; words that do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.”
-Mother Teresa of Calcutta
A Gift for God:
Prayers and Meditations
[New York: Harper, Row Publishers, Inc., 1975 – pages 68-69

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A snowy evening

Last night my wife left for an overnight with our daughter. The mission for them is Christmas shopping. Whenever I ask my wife what she’d like for Christmas, the answer is, “don’t buy me any clothes,” or “I don’t need anything.” Truth of the matter is neither of us really needs anything. We’ve got our health, a warm home, employment, our children and twenty-five years of wonderful memories. Nonetheless, Christmas won’t be complete without gifts. Each day of our lives is Christmas. Each day we give of ourselves and sometimes the gifts are only a kind word, but it is still a gift.

With Diane gone I was left to find my own meal and since it was Friday night and I had business in nearby Ellicottville, New York I decided to stop by my favorite eatery there, Tips Up Cafe. I know the owner and he makes the best strip steak I’ve ever tasted. Tips Up was packed last night even though the weather outside was wintry. I love coming to Ellicottville. It’s such a lovely village and as you can see from the picture it’s decorated with lots of lights for the holidays.

Ellicottville is home to Holiday Valley, one of the largest ski areas in New York State and even though the rest of the country is in a steep recession Ellicottville is doing well with all the snow we’ve received thus far. A couple of weeks ago the snow totals for Ellicottville had exceeded 71 inches. We’ve added to that in recent days and then too the resorts make snow. Last night after dinner I drove with a friend to an area just below the slopes. The skiing had finished for the evening and the trails looked surreal as lights shined through both man made and earth made snow. It was a chillingly beautiful sight.  My ride home was exciting too as I made my way slowly along Route 242 which was snow covered and not plowed well. The dense snowfall made it difficult to see. My visibility was limited to just much less than a tenth of a mile in spots. Still there is something mystically beautiful about snowfalls.

Times like these always remind me of the words of Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

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Deep peace

Tomorrow is my birthday and I’m very happy to be celebrating another year of life. This weekend I was able to join my mother, my wife and two children for a basketball game and dinner. It was great to be together again. I suppose the one cause to which I’ve devoted much of my life to is the cause of peace. Sometimes I’m not sure if peace will ever come in my time, but perhaps eventually it will. My hope for you is peace.

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you
Deep peace to you

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8UTJYhmCjw]

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Gift of Solitude

I owe this quote to Gerry Straub’s blog. I keep coming back to Thomas Merton.

Today more than ever we need to recognize that the gift of solitude is not ordered to the acquisition of strange contemplative powers, but first of all to the recovery of one’s deep self, and to the renewal of an authenticity which is twisted out of shape by the pretentious routines of a disordered togetherness…. [We must] be first of all a person who can give himself because he has a self to give. And indeed, we cannot give Christ if we have not found him, and we cannot find him if we cannot find ourselves.” -Thomas Merton

Contemplation in a World of Action
[Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., Image Books, 1974 – pages 280-281]

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The Shack

On Sunday I noticed that Fr. Lou McCormick, OFM was reading a new book. It had a curious title, “The Shack.”  He said, “I want to talk about it at our fraternity meeting.” He gave the book a strong endorsement and said it was very Franciscan in its spirituality. Today, I found myself in Borders Books and near the front of the store I spied, “The Shack.” I took it off the shelf, sat down with a cup of Seattle’s Best Coffee and a snickerdoodle and started to read. I could not put the book down. Four hours later I finished reading it. I never left the store. I bought the book for my wife and the audio-book for a visually impaired friend. I highly recommend you read “The Shack.” It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. I don’t want to take anything away from your enjoyment of the book so I won’t disclose the story.

Today was a personal day for an errand that never materialized, but it was no coincidence that I wound up in Borders reading that book. My faith had been shaken lately and this book was exactly what I needed to read. Reading this was like being on retreat. Do yourself a favor and get the book.

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Wordless noise

I regularly read Gerry Straub’s blog and usually what he posts touches me. What follows is something that I feel a bit more deeply about. Yesterday, while at Mt. Irenaeus I was touched by the poignancy of this silence.

Listening to God requires silence. Silence is more than not speaking. There is within us a wordless noise which also needs to be muted. A silent listener tunes out all exterior and interior chatter in order to be totally attentive to the silent voice of God, actively listening and responding to the very Source of his or her Being. It is only in deep silence that we can perceive the reality of God and the world around us.–Gerry Straub