Tag: gratitude

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Altissimo Omnipotente Bon Signore

Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore,
Tue so le laude, la gloria e l’honore et onne benedictione.
— St. Francis of Assisi

Translated from the original Umbrian dialect this is: Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. That was on my heart tonight as I drove away from home and toward my destination. It was a beautiful night for a drive. Temperature hovering at 81 F and low relative humidity. I reflected on the blessings of the day and of year and years. This has been a year of reflection. Yesterday my wife and I celebrated thirty years of marriage. Today it was another memory of an earlier time prior to meeting Diane that had my attention. I’ve been consciously trying to be more grateful. I’ve been following the suggestions of Positive Psychologists and making note of three things each day that have gone well. Originally I noted them here, but have taken to using the notepad app on my iPhone. In any event I am living more mindfully and that is a plus.  It’s easy in the hustle and bustle of everyday to live mindlessly and I do that, but in the past almost 18 months I’ve been living more mindfully and practicing yoga which I’ve found has increased my focus, relaxed me and complemented my contemplative life.

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A full and thankful heart

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States and for many of us it has many meanings. My earliest recollections were trips to my grandmother’s home and dinner with all the cousins. Later in life it was dinner at Mom’s. Still later it was turkey, cranberry sauce, and stuffing in US Navy chow halls. Those years made made me long for the earlier ones. Eventually I got married and thanksgiving meant dinner at our home. My wife was the hostess for our extended families and our children. Grandpa Joe says grace and then we all dive in for turkey, corn, all the trimmings and pies too.

I woke up early this morning and began reading Gratefulness.org which is one of my favorite websites on the entire Internet. I started tweeting and sharing some of their links and stories about the positive effects of Gratefulness. I dozed off again for a few hours and then re-awakened around 8:30AM. to my surprise a couple of those tweets were retweeted and the circle of Gratefulness was extended to at least 2300 others and God only knows who else will retweet again. This demonstrates the power of gratitude and social networks.

Today I’m grateful to God as I understand him and to my lovely wife and children which now include our lovely daughter-in-law. They are tangible evidence of his love and abundance. I’m grateful for my co-workers who continue to inspire me each day. I’m grateful for their patient encouragement which inspired me to return to college a couple of years ago and to graduate in May 2011 from St. Bonaventure University at the top of my class. I’m grateful to my boss, Michelle, a beautiful lady who supported me through four internships and continues to lovingly mentor me. I’m grateful to all the lovely ladies, Jessica, Greta & Katie who took me on as an intern along the way. I’m grateful to my professors and fellow students who encouraged a reluctant student to find my way. I’m grateful for the many Franciscan mentors who help to animate my life each day.

I’m grateful for my Mom who never gave up on me and continues to buoy my spirit when I get blue. I’m most grateful to my wife who has truly been God’s agent in my life. She continues to provide inspiration, love and an occasional kick in the butt to keep me on course. My blessings are so many this day that I cannot count them all. I’m closing this post with one of my favorite prayers that hangs on the wall at Mt. Irenaeus

It is not you that shapes God
it is God that shapes you.
If you are the work of God
await the hand of the artist
who does all things in due season.
Offer Him your heart,
soft and tractable,
and keep the form
in which the artist has fashioned you.
Let your clay be moist,
lest you grow hard
and lose the imprint of his fingers.

– St. Irenaeus

Peace to all and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Feast of the Assumption

Today I rose early for a trip to Erie, PA for another certification test. This one for School Building Leader credentials. I studied the preparation materials and committed some information to memory as best I could using some of the techniques I learned while reading, “Moonwalking with Einstein,” by Joshua Foer. I climbed in the RAV4 while it was still dark and drove the 100 plus miles to Erie. As I drove I thought of the Magnificat.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;
for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Because he that is mighty,
hath done great things to me;
and holy is his name. — Magnificat

I thought of Our Lady and the devotion I have for her. I thought of how often she has protected me and guided me with the gentle touch of a mother. Today, I prayed the Magnificat often as I made my way to Erie in the pre-dawn. I believe I did well on the examination today and I have renewed faith in myself and respect for the test creators and for the testing industry in general. Today was a transformational day for me. I’m grateful for tests as they have helped me to learn even though my frustration with the process had reached a fever pitch last week. Thank you to all who may have prayed for me and for an answer to my own prayers. When I finished the examination and made my way to Barnes & Noble near Millcreek Mall for a well deserved cup of coffee and a cookie I thought of the Latin version of the Magnificat and I recited it too in thanksgiving for my good fortune today.

Magnificat: anima mea Dominum.
Et exultavit spiritus meus: in Deo salutari meo.

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Tired

Lately I have been so tired. I can’t seem to get excited about much either. I’ve been trying too hard. I think that I’m experiencing a let down following the successful completion of  the last semester. I have so much to be grateful for and I have felt little or no gratitude. Tonight I reflected on these feelings and decided that I needed to be more grateful and to accept the things I cannot change. The essence of my happiness lies in acceptance. Too often I reflect not on what I should be grateful for but instead dwell on what I ought to be doing next. Sometimes this restlessness is good and at other times it can be debilitating. Lately it has been the latter experience.

This past weekend was the beginning of a much needed rest. Tomorrow, my classrom is being visited by some pre-service teachers and I have no idea what to share with them. I hope that you will pray that I can show them something or that a visit to our classroom and the children will at least benefit the students in some small way. I am privileged to work with so many wonderful young people who buoy me by their presence in my life. Many of them have no idea how important they are to me.  Without them my life really lacks purpose and yet lately it has been a struggle to maintain the edge. I have felt that I have been really just treading water and it’s a sensation I am uncomfortable with. Whatever I do I like to do with all my heart and lately my heart has not been in all that I have done. I hope that your prayers and the Holy Spirit will animate me and us enough to provide something for these Houghton students who are visiting us tomorrow and on Wednesday. Peace be with you!

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Fifty-eight years

That’s not a long time for many, but it’s twelve more years than my father got and unless tonight is my last night I stand to have more time yet to live and make a difference. When I look around and steadily climbing energy prices and a government teetering on the brink of more tax relief for the rich and let the poor fend for themselves I’m inclined to give up. In the last fifty-eight years there have been a lot of changes. Most of them very good and a few maybe not so good, but on balance we’re better than we were before. I’m grateful to my Mom and Dad who made this opportunity possible and in the last week as I’ve thought about my birthday I’ve thought back and wondered what they might have been thinking in the first week of December 1952. They were both children of the Great Depression and my Dad was a veteran of World War II though he never saw any combat. Nonetheless, they lived through trying times. They were both twenty-six years old. A couple of kids I might call them now and I was their first child.

First born children are all a bit like guinea pigs. No one is ever adequately prepared by school or any other experience to raise children and the first one always bears the brunt of the ignorance. Despite all that I had a good life. December 8, 1952 was my special day and I arrived at 5:58 am according to the telegram my Dad sent. I was delivered by an uncle I never met in a hospital called Miserecordia in Manhattan. I was the first grandson in the family. I was preceded by three grand-daughters in two different families.

I’m hoping this year is a snow day. I used to get the day off automatically when I attended Catholic grammar school as it is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. I’ve always had an innate Marian devotion. Blue is my favorite color and Ave Maria is one of my favorite hymns. Forty years ago I registered for the draft and less than two years later I was in a United States Navy uniform. The only parts of my life I really disliked were the parts I was afraid of and when I got over my fear of them I enjoyed them too.

I have no way of knowing how many more days or hours I will have left but I know that even the hairs of my head are numbered in someone’s book. It’s cold outside tonight and the snow is falling just like it does most years in December, but I’m warm here in my own home and I am filled with gratitude for my parents, my family and my life.

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Every wall is a door

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here, but its not been a long time since I wrote anything. As most college students will attest writing is not a lost art in college and this year in my graduate studies at St. Bonaventure University, I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing and enjoying it too. Next week I start another course and then this summer I’ll be working in an internship. My life has been very busy and I’ve really been too tired to write.

I think often of writing here, but most days I’ve been very tired so my Facebook and Twitter friends have seen much more of me than this blog has. A great deal has changed in a year. I’ve gone from nearly retiring to being fully engaged in teaching and learning and in the process I’ve earned 13 graduate credits at St. Bonaventure with another course to begin next week. Retirement holds no fascination now. I’m fully engaged and eager to keep plugging along.

There is an old expression from Ralph Waldo Emerson, “every wall is a door,” and those words could not have been more prescient in my case.  I have found that what lies beyond the door is not to be feared but to be embraced and while I continue to fear because it seems to be my nature I continue to embrace too.

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I love

I’ve been thinking about love a lot lately and the people I love who have touched my life. Some are gone now. Each spring when the Veronica first appears in the lawns near our home and around the area I think of my grandmother, Caroline Watkins. I can hear her voice and feel her presence with me very strongly. I feel good and wish she were here. I know how much she loved me and how much I loved her too.

Then too I was picnicking with my wife today in Cuba, New York in what the locals call Willow Bank Park. We used to picnic there in 1983 when we were newlyweds. Now we’re a bit older but we still like picnics and tonight we were able to have one. It was romantic and lovely to be with the one I love and who has most drawn me out of myself in these last almost twenty-nine years since we first dated.

I loved my ride to Mt. Irenaeus today and my time with the Friars there. I love Fr. Bob, Br. Joe, and Br. Kevin. I love Fr. Lou and Fr. Dan even though they weren’t present today.  They are family to me and so are all the other regulars like Duane, Anita, John and my other Secular Franciscan brothers and sisters.  I loved to the ride I took after Mass and brunch. A ride that took me south over the mountains to Bradford, PA. I found a nice little mountain vista and pulled my car off the road for a short nap in the lovely sun.

I love our children too. Devin and Dara though both away in Buffalo and Rochester, they are never far from my heart. Today at the prayer of the faithful I asked that God would bless all those I love and all that he loves which must be the whole world. He knows them all and blesses them all.

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Red Spanish Tile

This morning I got up at 7 AM, showered and got ready for the first class of the Spring 2010 Semester at St. Bonaventure University. I was excited to once again be meeting with this small group of nearly two dozen educators from all across Western New York. It’s only been since July of last year that I’ve been a Bonaventure student, in the Educational Leadership program, but in that short time I feel a kinship the like of which I’ve never known prior. Coming to St. Bonaventure has been like coming home from a long journey. I drove the twenty plus miles from my home in Franklinville to the university, parked near Hickey Dining Hall and then walked across the campus to Plassman Hall. As I climbed the steps at Plassman I thought of my wife and how she had earned her Masters degree in this building. I thought of our marriage, our children, our first date at the Reilly Center and common love of basketball which often brought us to this wonderful Franciscan institution. I thought of the Allegany Franciscans who welcomed me to Kindergarten in 1957 and also of the Franciscan Friars who taught me at nearby Archbishop Walsh in the mid-1960’s.

After finding the classroom and greeting our professor Dr. Gibbs and my classmates I grabbed a hot cup of coffee and sat down in my seat in Room 150. Dr. Gibbs welcomed us and as he lectured I looked to my left and through the windows. The sun was streaming onto the brick of one of the adjacent buildings. My eyes looked higher toward that streaming winter sun and then I saw the red Spanish tile roof and I remembered how I used to sit in study hall at Archbishop Walsh nearly 43 years ago looking at those same red Spanish tile roofs. My eyes misted briefly as I thought back over all those years and the dreams of a teenage boy who could not have imagined all that would be in store for him. That moment filled me with gratitude to be sitting in class for the first time at Plassman.

On my way out of the building after class I spotted the plaque dedicating the building to Fr. Thomas Plassman, who was born in 1879 and died in 1959. He did a lot of living in 82 years. He became President of the University in 1920 at the age of 43. That’s an amazing feat for such a young man. I’m very grateful to be a member of the St. Bonaventure University community and to the Franciscans and others who built this place over the years. Deo gratias!

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Anniversary

Today is the fourth year anniversary of this blog. It’s also my brother Mark’s birthday. Mark will be 56 today.  I’m wishing Mark a happy birthday and thankful that I’ve been able to hang around another four years to share what’s been on my mind.

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White desert

Today is one of those typical January days that define winter in the western southern tier of New York. It’s 9 degrees Fahrenheit and there is a mist of snow and ice crystals in the air. It’s a good day to be close to the fire. Frigid days and nights are said to produce a good crop of maple syrup in a few months. Maybe that’s just legend but if it’s true then today is filled with sweetness. For most of my life I’ve wished I lived someplace else at this time of year. I’d still prefer the sun’s warmth to days like today, but I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of the white desert.  I’ve been privileged to visit the Sonoran desert of Arizona at certain times and a few weeks ago as I made my way in this winter wonderland I came to appreciate the parallel between the Sonoran desert and our countryside in winter.

We all need deserts in our lives to help us better define and appreciate the lushness of creation in our day to day life. I’ve felt a closeness with my creator which I cannot describe when I’m in these deserts and it has been the desert experiences which have blessed me.

I will lead you into the desert; there I will speak to your heart. — Hosea 2:14