I just learned how to use Animoto to create a video. This short video came from some pictures I’ve taken recently at Mt. Irenaeus. I hope you like them and that you’ll give Animoto a try. It’s a very neat Web 2.x application. Follow this link to the video. Animoto.com
What is a contemplative?
Last Saturday my son asked my wife and I if we could define mysticism. I did my best but it’s like trying to define what strawberries taste like to someone who’s never tasted one. This morning I decided to give one of my extra books to our school library but before I did, I looked inside one last time to see any notes I may have left. I found a note on page 81 of “The Illuminated Life: Monastic Wisdom for Seekers of Light,” by Joan Chittister, OSB.
To be a contemplative we must become converted to the consciousness that makes us one with the universe, in tune with the cosmic voice of God. We must become aware of the sacred in every single element of life. We must bring beauty to birth in a poor and plastic world. We must restore the human community. We must grow in concert with God who is within. We must be healers in a harsh society. We must become all those things that are the ground of contemplation, the fruits of contemplation, the end of contemplation.
Wholeness
Religion is about ritual, about morals, about systems of thought, all of them good, but all of them incomplete. Spirituality is about coming to consciousness of the sacred. It is in that consciousness that perspective comes, that peace comes. It is in that consciousness that a person comes to wholeness. –p.16, Illuminated Life–Joan Chittister, OSB
Road to Emmaus
I found myself on the road once again to Mt. Irenaeus. I’ve been a regular at the Mountain for over eight years now. It’s as much my home as the one I live in most of the time and the friars are as much my brothers as anyone in my family. This morning was one of those lovely spring mornings. The sky was a deep blue and not a cloud to be seen. Brother Sun was brilliant and his rays were warming the air temperature to nearly fifty degrees at 10:45 am as I made my way along Route 275 and then onto Allegany County Route 1. There were a couple of drivers behind me who were in a bit more of a hurry than I. I pulled off on the shoulder and let them pass. I continued to poke along at a leisurely 45 mph and then turned onto Hydetown Road where I slowed even further. Continue reading “Road to Emmaus”
Rigid people
This week I encountered once again a chap at work who is very narrow minded and rigid. He’s inflexible and I must have some of that nature in me. I know I do and that’s what burns me about him. This morning after rising I looked outside my window and there on the ground was a little bird, laying on his back, feet pointing toward heaven. He was stiff as a board. I wondered if he had flown into our window and died. I’ll bury him later, but then I mourned briefly his passing. I’m connected to all that is. There is nothing that is that is not connected to me. When I become rigid I forget that. I love the Tao te Ching and the wisdom of Lao Tzu. He was a holy man, a saint who lived before Christ.
When alive, the body is supple, yielding.
In death, the body becomes hard, unyielding.Living plants are flexible,
In death, they become dry and brittle.Therefore, stubborn people are disciples of death, but
Flexible people are disciples of life.In the same way,
Inflexible soldiers cannot win (a victory).
And the hardest trees are readiest for an axe to chop them down
Tough guys sink to the bottom, while
Flexible people rise to the top.
Christ was flexible and when Christians become inflexible they do not imitate Christ
His voice
Everyone that is of the truth hears my voice.–John 18:37
What is the truth? I don’t hear the voice, but I sense it in the silence of my prayers and in the silence of my life. Martin Luther King heard his voice. All the great prophets have heard that voice and it has moved them to speak. From silence they have been moved to act and speak. I think Mahatma Gandhi must have heard that voice too.
I think Jeremiah Wright heard that voice too. Pastor Wright spoke prophetically about an America that the status quo doesn’t want to see or maybe they can’t see. The pundits and the politicians have reduced life to a sound bite. Mysticism is seeing with the eyes closed. In the 81st chapter of the Tao te Ching, Lao Tzu writes:
Sincere words do not sound nice,
Nice-sounding words are not sincere.
Good men don’t argue,
Argumentative men are not good.
The wise are not learned,
The learned are not wise.Wisdom does not inspire the accumulation of goods;
Living for others makes for a full life.
The more you give away, the richer you are.The Tao of heaven is to benefit, not to harm.
The Tao of wisdom is to do your thing, but not to compete.
It seems to me that those who criticize Jeremiah Wright do so because of blindness. They are not at fault. They cannot see nor can they hear.
Being present
This quote came in today’s mail and it really resonates for me.
Being present does not mean getting rid of emotions in order to stay calm. It is the ability to stay calm within the emotional world we inhabit. Emotions have real value. At the same time, we can avoid falling prey to their traps. Emotions are like storms blowing across a mountain. Even when those storms are roaring, the mountain holds still. Sometimes the mountain benefits as old deposits of dirt are blown away and the air is cleared. Sometimes the mountain suffers as the wind and water beat away at it and begin to break it down. But in either case, the mountain just sits there with presence and dignity.
–Judith Lief, Making Friends with Death: A Buddhist Guide to Encountering Mortality
(Shambhala 2001), 156
Glory to God in the highest
This morning was beautiful, a radiant spring sun filled my heart with gladness as I drove through the crisp clear mid-twenty degree day toward Mass at Mt. Irenaeus. Upon arriving at the Mountain I noticed a number of vehicles parked in the driveway. I had a bit of trouble finding a parking spot, but soon did and then into the house to bring my offering of orange juice and a dozen eggs for brunch. On my way into the house I met a lovely young lady from the State University of New York at Buffalo who was part of the inter-collegiate weekend that had been held at Mt. Irenaeus. Normally, the Franciscan Retreat Center here is home to local villagers and St. Bonaventure University students, but today that circle included students from University at Buffalo, SUNY College at Fredonia, Alfred University, Nazareth College, SUNY Geneseo and St. Bonaventure University. There were about three dozen of these young men and women. Continue reading “Glory to God in the highest”
A Moment of Peace
As I read the news reports coming out of Iraq this morning I began to wonder what if we hadn’t invaded Iraq and we’d have saved all the good will we used to enjoy in the world. What if we’d spent the money we’ve squandered in Iraq on guns, bombs, and other weapons on education for Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis and others. What if we had those 4,000 men and women back who got killed? What if we had 30,000 others who got horribly maimed? What if we didn’t have 1,000,000 dead Iraqis and millions more displaced by the carnage? What if we really allowed the United Nations to work? What if we put all our weapons in boxes and buried them? What if we turned our seven-hundred-forty or so military bases world wide into care centers for the poor and sick? What if we turned our fleets into hospital ships and care centers for the world’s poor? Can you imagine a different outcome? Can you imagine an end to terrorism?
What if the neo-conservative militarists had been flower children? What if Bush, Cheney and the rest had been pacifists instead of militarists? What if they really believed Christ and really practiced what he lived and taught? Can you imagine a different outcome in Basra and Baghdad? It would be a different world.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwhoJ4G1WY]
Back of the bus
When you grow up white in middle America you have a much different perspective from a guy or gal who grew up black or brown in the ghetto. Rev. Wright is correct in saying America is a racist country. There is no doubt about it. America is also an ethnically diverse country in which most if not all ethnic groups have been discriminated against. I’ve seen racism in myself and its not pretty, but it’s there. Until we see that we are all racists there can be no hope of change. Until we can see that we are all flawed and embrace those flaws we have no hope of redemption. Until we can move away from us vs. them we will repeat this tragic cycle again and again.
As easy as it is for those of us who are white to look back and say, “That’s a terrible statement,” I grew up in a very segregated South, and I think that you have to cut some slack. And I’m going to be probably the only conservative in America who’s going to say something like this, but I’m just telling you: We’ve got to cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told, “You have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can’t sit out there with everyone else. There’s a separate waiting room in the doctor’s office. Here’s where you sit on the bus.” And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had … more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.
– Mike Huckabee, offering his perspective on the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Source: MSNBC)