One of my goals this summer has been to live mindfully. To enjoy each day and each moment as it comes. Life is really in the present moment. It is not in what we project nor in the past we have already lived. Only the present moment is what matters. We live and die in the present moment. Continue reading “Bell of mindfulness”
Endless war
As a veteran of the Vietnam era and a dedicated peace worker I’m always skeptical of the government’s rationale for war. War’s only profiteers are the workers and owners of the military armaments production facilities. Continue reading “Endless war”
Ohio
This song became the anthem of a generation that opposed the war in Vietnam. There is no question that Iraq is not quite as bad as Vietnam, but if you’re the relative of someone serving there numbers are not important. The life and health of your family member is the only important thing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iPBm_cES94]
Working Assets’, Working for Change campaign to pressure pro-war Congressmen and women recalled to my mind the pressure that we had to exert back then to end the war. The lyrics and melody of this song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young still cause the hair on my arm to stand. I have not forgotten Vietnam nor its lessons. Human life is precious and war will never bring peace or security. War only brings more of itself.
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?Gotta get down to it
Last Supper
I use my cell phone camera quite often and this weekend while at St. Francis Inn I spotted a print hanging on the wall in the dining room that I liked a great deal. Often Christ is depicted as a Caucasian male and usually a Western European or American male at that. Not often is Christ depicted as the Palestinian male he was or as any other racial type. At St. Francis Inn the image of Christ as an African is depicted in an area frequented by large numbers of African-American men. This is only the second depiction I’ve ever seen of Christ and the apostles as Africans. I think it’s quite powerful and very appropriate at the Inn.
No Room at the Inn
This short video clip chronicles some of the unbelievable devastation of the Kensington area of Philadelphia. We should have a new war on terror that focuses on the terror that our nation’s poor and homeless face each day. Continue reading “No Room at the Inn”
The Lord hears the cry of the poor..
I just got home from a few days at St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia. I went there to help and I was helped. St. Francis of Assisi said, “it is in giving that we receive,” and that is what happened. I have never witnessed such poverty nor ever lived among its victims and I am deeply touched by what I have witnessed. I don’t have the words yet for all that has happened in the last few days. There are not words adequate to explain what I have seen and heard. Continue reading “The Lord hears the cry of the poor..”
St. Francis Inn
Tonight while attending an Evening of Re-Creation at Mt. Irenaeus a fellow Secular Franciscan asked if I’d like to accompany a group of seculars to St. Francis Inn in Philadelphia, PA. I really wasn’t sure, but after asking my wife I consented to go. Continue reading “St. Francis Inn”
Could you please help our 9/11 heroes?
I saw a nice message on Huffington Post and I thought it deserved even more air time and coverage. Thanks to Michael Moore for taking the time to really care about the heroes of 9/11 who’ve been neatly forgotten by the politicians who never tire from the political mileage they attempt to leverage for their particular causes.
Mr. Giuliani, Could You Please Help Our 9/11 Heroes from huffpost and Vimeo.
A radical change
This quote came in the mail today from the Merton Institute. I liked it a lot and I’m putting it up here for reflection. Thomas Merton was and continues to be an influence in my life and contemplation as Merton defines it does change me. It is as Merton says, ” a radical change in my way of being and living.”
Contemplation is not a deepening of experience only, but a radical change in one’s way of being and living, and the essence of this change is precisely a liberation from dependence on external means to external ends. Of course one may say that an opening of the “doors of perception” is not entirely “external” and yet it is a satisfaction for which one may develop a habitual need and on which one may become dependent. True contemplation delivers one from all such forms of dependence. In that sense it seems to me that a contemplative life that depends on the use of drugs is essentially different from one which implies liberation from all dependence on anything but freedom and divine grace. I realize that these few remarks do not answer the real question [about drugs and contemplation] but they express a doubt in my own mind.”
Thomas Merton. Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968: 217.
Song of the Morning Star
Carlos Nakai plays some of the most hauntingly beautiful music I’ve ever heard. Carlos is a Navaho-Ute Indian flute player. I first heard his music at Mt. Irenaeus a number of years ago. Initially it was used in conjunction with centering prayer at the Mountain. Since that time I’ve purchased several of Carlos’ albums. Song of the Morning Star is a hauntingly beautiful melody and reminds me not only of Mt. Irenaeus but also of the desert southwest and Arizona in particular. I bought my first Carlos Nakai album on a trip to Sedona, Arizona in 2001.
Song For The Morning Star by R. Carlos Nakai