In a few weeks I’ll be a graduate of St. Bonaventure University. I’ll have my degree in hand and I’m looking to make a difference in the lives of children. I’ve got some ideas of applying Franciscan spiritual principles to the education of students. I think you can do it in any setting whether public or private. St. Francis kissed the leper and that was a metanoia for him. In the past almost two years I’ve had a metanoia too. I think it’s time for a change in education. We need to re-humanize the process. Too much emphasis on testing and more testing. I recently read a book called “The Fourth Way” by Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley. I’m also a devotee of Parker Palmer and I think that we need to re-create community in our schools and specifically authentic learning communities to guide our communities and our students into the years ahead. I’m hoping this blog ignites some new thinking. I’m looking for others who are like-minded.
Halt the Lion of War
I just watched a great video from TEDx which is one of my favorite sources of information and education. Consider how William Ury’s approach which is based in Abraham could work. This fall as a graduate student at St. Bonaventure University I read one of William Ury’s books, “Getting to Yes.”
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Healer of my soul
I love the lyrics of this song. So peaceful and reassuring are the words of John Michael Talbot. A couple of days ago our friend Paul Kelly passed from this life to the next. Death need not be what we have made it and as a Franciscan I am comforted by St. Francis’ own welcome of Sister Death as he called her. Death is after all a part of life and without it we could not go on. We will all miss Paul with his wit and wisdom which he shared with us all. Today I took a drive along the Allegany River as it winds its way along Interstate 86 in New York’s southern tier. The gray mists that shrouded the mountain tops to the south provided an ethereal backdrop and in the silence I looked up those valleys along the south bank of the river. Traveling through the towns of Allegany, Vandalia, Limestone and then south to Bradford, PA I thought of my friend Paul and our many trips along this same route.
More than anything else today I felt grateful. The excitement of Thanksgiving and the reunion with family along with Paul’s death provided peak moments. Today there was peace and memories. I love this song and its lyrics. I hope you enjoy it too.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amEntTOmwMA]
Peace prize
Congratulations to President Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. This puts him in heady company and I hope that he can live up to the billing. More important than Barack Obama is the fact that Americans went to the polls last November and elected a leader who has put our country back on the track of international diplomacy and away from international lawlessness. We have gone from pariah to promise in just shy of nine months. President Obama gets a prestigious award, which he was quick to say he was unworthy of. Worthy people always say things like that, that’s what makes them worthy. I congratulate the President, but also I congratulate the American people who put a man in office that once again makes most of us proud to be Americans.
I feel sorry for some of his opposition which include virulent members of the right wing of American politics, the Taliban and leaders of Hamas who fail to see anything positive. One of our greatest presidents and a man also hailing from the State of Illinois, once said, “You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot please all the people, all the time.”
Some of my friends have suggested that the Nobel Prize Committee did this as way to shape America’s policy. That might be. Rewarding good behavior with compliments is an accepted practice in the world. Shunning bad behavior is also an acceptable practice. I hope the President lives up to the award and ends both the Iraq and Afghan wars, rids the world of nuclear weapons and also bring healing to the strident racism that affects our own country. The United States of America is a multi-cultural, pluralistic society and we need to foster that at every opportunity. May peace and good fortune continue to bless our leader. Shalom, Peace, Pace, Pax, Amani, Paix, Salaam, Shanti, Mire, Heddwich and on and on.
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Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. — St. Francis of Assisi
Thought provoking
Today Plain Foolish whom I have great respect for, mentioned a video that I felt compelled to view because of her recommendation. It is riveting and I recommend it to you. I hope you take time to watch these videos and to reflect on how we can do a better job of loving our neighbors and stemming the tide of prejudice and injustice. For more information about the series “Constantine’s Sword,” or to view this presentation in its entirety on Youtube follow this link. I like the way the author, James Carroll has presented his work. I think he’s done a real service for us and it invites an examination of our souls. James Carroll’s decision to leave the priesthood seems to have been a prophetic calling. It seems to be me that if he stayed in the hierarchy he would not have been able to do the work he has done here.
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.
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
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Thanksgiving
This is a day and a season of thanksgiving and this year I’m most thankful for all that has happened. This has been a watershed year of memories and a chance to reconnect with people and memories from the past. Just yesterday I received a note from a surgeon who was once my boss at the Naval Submarine Medical Center in New London, CT. A few weeks ago I decided to write this man whom I had last seen on January 17, 1975. Dr. Biesecker was Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy Medical Corps when I last saw him. I always called him sir, or Dr. Biesecker and all these years later when I decided to write a letter that’s how I addressed him. I thanked him for his influence on my life both then and now. A week ago I received an email from another former Navy medical officer, Dr. Copeland, with whom I served. I’m thankful to my nephew Tom Watkins who joined the U.S. Navy in January of this year, because it was Tom who helped rekindle this spirit within me.
When I left active duty in 1975 and the active reserves in 1977 I rarely looked back at my naval service. I was proud of it, but I got on with life. Other than a three semesters on the GI Bill I really never took advantage of the benefits veterans are due. Perhaps it was pride, but I never looked for a handout. I never joined the American Legion. I kept my uniform and mementos of my service, but I kept a low profile. About ten years ago at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes dinner the speaker, Clebe McClary, invited those of us who were veterans to stand. It was really the first public recognition of my military service that had ever occurred. That was the beginning of a journey that continues to this day. Tom’s enlistment made the fire burn a bit more brightly. If it hadn’t been for Tom I don’t think I’d have gone to Albany, GA this year. If it hadn’t been for Tom I’d never have gone to Great Lakes Naval Training Center again. Because of Tom I relived a very special chapter of my life again. I tried to live that experience more mindfully this time.
I called Tom today to thank him for his service to our country and to tell him that I loved him and I’m damned proud of all that he’s done. I hope those of you who read what I have written will take the time to thank a member of the Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines or Coast Guard. If you meet a veteran, thank them for their service. I pray daily for an end to war and I try to be an instrument of peace knowing well that there are war torn areas of our world that cry out for help.
Hallelujah
This is a special night. This is one of those watershed events in history. This campaign reminded of the campaign of John F. Kennedy in 1960. I remember that. I was a seven year old boy. This campaign just concluded has surpassed that one in the sense that not only have we elected a new president, but we have done so conclusively. I wonder what Martin Luther King Jr. would have thought of such an event. I am filled with gratefulness and happiness. This is the end perhaps of a long dark night in American politics and policy. I hope that President-Elect Obama can bring our nation together. I am weary of politics as usual and I think that is what President Obama will bring a paradigm change. I believe he will be a consensus builder.
We face a very uncertain future. These are times that will require special leadership and I believe that the creator has heard our prayers. I’ll write more as I’m really tapped out from all of this. I feel very tired tonight, a bit feverish. For nearly eight years now I have been praying for peace, walking for peace, running for peace and just trying to be at peace. Good night. Pax vobiscum.
Open my eyes
O Lord, open my eyes that I may see the needs of others; open my ears that I may hear their cries; open my heart so that they need not be without succor; let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong, nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich … And so open my eyes and my ears that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for thee.
– Alan Paton