Monday, March 30, 2015

Detachment

We hear the word detachment all the time in the spiritual life.  To be detached is to not be owned by anything but God.  The moment I think that I am truly detached something comes up to show I may not be attached to the things I was but am now attached to something different.  I work to be detached from material things only to find I am now attached to praise for the things I do, or getting to the church first in the morning.  Oh how attached I am to the little number that says how many page views I have had.

For a long time this really bothered me, the idea that I traded one attachment for another.  I think I just gave up.  Then what happened is slowly, over time all the old attachments came back.  I think the attachment to material goods is the most distancing of all the attachments.  I have to spend money and there for time on acquiring what is new and I waste energy envying other people.  I get cut off.  I have all the old attachments as well.  I have had to go back and work at detachment.  Really I am working at reattaching my self to the Beloved and to him alone.  The more I sit with my Savior the less I need other things, and the happier I am.

This time I am really trying to not look at other people and what they are doing.  Sometimes I think we substitute doing for detachment.  I must be detached look at all I am doing!  If everyone would just do all I am doing everything would be great.  Blah, blah, blah....  Then the resentment starts.  If you ever find yourself resenting other people for not doing whatever it is you are doing, Stop!  Look at what and why you are doing what you are doing.  Most likely you are attached to something, good feelings, praise, whatever and are not really doing it for the Glory of God.

It amazing, when we do things for the wrong reasons anger or jealousy are the result.  If we do it for God and not ourselves peace is the result.  We aren't doing something wrong when we do it for the wrong reason we just need to learn to detach.  Prayer is the only remedy for the lack of detachment.  Only in prayer will we find peace.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Called to a life of knowing God

We all have the same calling.  We are all called to a mystical union with Christ.  We are all called to to a deep personal life in Christ.  We are after all, part of His body.  Every single person should work to develop this relationship with their creator so that He can also be our mentor, or Wonderful Counselor.  Simple wrote prayer is a great place to start but we need to move closer than that.  Imagine if your closest relationship was built only on reading poetry to each other.  Would you really know each other?

God of course already knows us and we can know of God from the Bible but we miss getting to know Him personally if we don't dialog with Him.  I miss it when my life gets busy and I cut out my prayer time.  Just sitting with Him quietly not talking.  Of course, what happens then, is that something happens and I run back to Him for help.  It isn't so much even an event happens or a trajedy but that life's stresses build up and have to lay them at His feet.  If I spend time everyday with Him that doesn't happen, I don't get stressed out.

I know too that when I spend more time with my Beloved I am a better person.  I am more connected to the love of God an I share that love better.  I am a more calm and centered person, less judgemental so I am a better representative of what a Christian should be.  I can not do it on my own. I need Him, always.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Prayer and meditation

The one thing I would like to give anyone I meet is the gift of prayer.  Not simply reciting wrote prayers, talking to and listening to God.  Sitting with God with an open heart and mind and letting Him lead you where He wants you to go.

I think the saddest life is the unexamined life where you never get to know yourself.  God will help you see yourself through prayer and meditation.  Learning to quiet your mind and just listen is a skill that has to be developed.  It is well worth the time it takes.  I fits and flashes God has shown me a lot about who I am.  Most of all He has shown me how I am loved.  Only a loving parent will correct you, others just walk away.

It takes time to learn to clear your mind so you can listen.  Start slowly.  Set aside time in a quiet place where you are comfortable and won't be distracted.  I would suggest having a book like Thomas Mertons New Seeds of Contemplation and a blank journal.  Read a short section from the book and then in journal restate what was said and then write how what was said applies to you and your life.  Then sit quietly for a time ask God to speak to you and try to quiet your mind.  To help you not think about things think about your breathing.  Have a word in mind, a quiet peaceful word, like Jesus that you can say to yourself if your mind wanders to bring yourself back.  At first it won't work and you will get frustrated so keep this time short at first.  As you go on though it will get easier.  Your mind will still wonder but in a different way.  Let your thoughts just unfold and watch them.

Another way to get started is to read a Bible passage instead of another book and put yourself in the story.  Really watch and listen and smell the world around you.  Think about the people in the passage and see what happens.  Write down your observations.  Again don't let yourself get distracted but do let thing unfold as they do.  Later think about what you saw and what God may have been trying to tell you.

One thing to keep in mind is that God is talking to you and really what he says to you is about you.  God will not tell you how other people need to act in these meditations.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Justice is Pro-Life

I have always felt that how you treat living people is part of being Pro-Life.  That you can't be pro-life and no pay someone a living wage or not treat them justly.  I think the events of this last year in places like Ferguson have proved that.  You wonder why a young man heading to college would react the way he did to being pulled questioned by a policeman.  Now that we know that people have had their lives ruined by simple things like traffic violations I think I understand more.

The injustice of a system that charges fines to make money for a town and where the fines are not on a sliding scale based on income is not pro-life.  When lives are ruined, jobs lost, homes lost, jail time given, for traffic fines and jay walking the people of a town come to fear the police.  People who fear the police are going to make bad decisions I. A time of stress that could cost their lives or the lives of the policeman.  Both lives count.  On a different level, simply not killing someone is not rejecting their life.  Not allowing abortion or euthanasia is not what it takes to live a pro-life life.

Respecting life means just that.  Respect life from conception to grave and we won't have to worry so much about the other things.  Making sure that people can provide for themselves and helping them when they can't is Prolife.  Being fair and just to everyone, no matter their skin color, and especially to the poor, is Prolife.

I recently had a tail light go out and got a warning for it.  I heard on the radio the story of a woman in Ferguson who had the same problem.  Her life was torn apart by having a tail light out.  I got a warning for the tail light, expired inspection and not having my insurance cards available.  She got a ticket for her tail light being out in each small town she drove through on her way to work.  She is a working Mom and can't afford the multiple tickets for each city and can't take off work to beg for mercy.  The tickets cost her a job trying to get mercy that she didn't receive and so she had a warrant out for her arrest.  For a tail light and a lack of mercy.

Injustice causes revolutions as we have seen recently in Middle East.  Many of the Western Young people who have their homes to fight have from areas do great unemployment and injustice.  Those young people most likely go to their deaths and go to cause death for others, they bear full responsibility for their actions, most of their neighbors don't take this path.  But do the people who refuse to hire them because of their last name or where they live bear some responsibility.  Maybe not legally, but about in God's eyes?

Think of the number of lives lost to slavery in our own country.  The lives lost in capturing human beings, those lost in the middle passage, those lost to cruelty here.  Add to that the cost in lives to undo that injustice, those lost in the Civil War and the lives lost due to the racism engendered by that horror even today.  My guess is the answer is in the millions and only known in total by God.

Our Lord God has infinite mercy on us.  None of lives a life that would allow our salvation based on oor own merits, we all need his mercy to save our lives.  We should show that same mercy to others.  The justice of God would have us all condemned to Hell if He didn't love us and have mercy on us.  He demands that we treat each other with the same love and mercy.

Relationship

Oh my Lord, I want to rest in You always.  I want to simply be with You and You in me, in my heart at all times, showing me what you will is and how to love.  You have made me unafraid.  I no longer fear the world, what it thinks, if it approves of me.  I know you love me and don't care what I wear or how new my car is.  You care how I treat people.  You care.

I hate, Oh Lord when I get so busy with things in the world that I don't take time to think about You and to visit You in the Tabernacle.  I miss You.  I know You are everywhere but when I don't take the time to sit with You, I feel disconnected from You.  I know You are there but I need to spend time with You, contemplating Your word and listening to You.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Faith

When I first came back to my faith I felt God literally beside me at all times.  He was so close.  I felt ashamed at times because I didn't so much have faith as I knew God was was there.  He spoke to me in so many ways.  It was exciting and I felt so special, it was dizzying.  I literally could not wait to pray to see what would happen, what I would discover, how I would feel.  I guess this is a bit like what it's like when you fall in love.  I was zealous for God at this time and would put myself in crazy situations without a care.  I felt Gods love and wanted everyone to feel that love, especially those who were feeling so unloved.  I knew Gods love was eternal and stronger than any human love.  His is a love that burns away the scabs that we accumulate in life.  I was like growing a whole new skin, alive and tingly, not hard and deadened.  I was open finally to love.

As time went on I got so used to being able to reach out to God and find Him there that I reached out less and less and got caught up more and more in the world.  We still occasionally danced together in prayer but less and less often.  At times I would panic and work really hard at my prayer life to regain that feeling of closeness and have some success.  I see now that I wanted less to get to know myself better and grow in my relationship to God and more that I liked that feeling of being special and different, and honestly somehow better than everyone else.  God had chosen me, I should be special right?

Now it harder, I know  He is there but we no longer dance in prayer.  I have to learn to love Him and not the feelings.  I have to grow in faith and not seek to be special.  I have to do the hard work of being one of his children.  He chooses each of us everyone is called, we have to follow.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Lent and Charity

If you live you your whole without any real want, if you have food to eat, a bed, warmth, clothes, and medical care how can you truly love the poor and desire to help them?  You need to experience what it means to want something to know what it is like for you brothers to want.  Lent can give us very small glimpse into want.

When we fast from real things, not just chocolate and soda, but heat or food.  We learn a bit what it's like to not have those things.  Of course seeing we can just break our fast from heat or food we don't really know what that is like.  We won't know what it's like to see our children do without th, but at least in our bodies we can feel the cold and the hunger.  This is one of the things Lent can give us if we allow it.  Depriving ourselves from comforts makes us appreciate what we have and can make us sympathetic towards those who have those things.

It isn't too late to add something to our Lent.  Fast from comfort, even if is just on Fridays.  Sleep on the couch and fast from a warm bed.  Look at what you normally spend for food in a day, cut it in half, and see what that's like and give the savings to charity.  If you are really adventurous, on a Saturday morning find a food pantry and stand in line with everyone else and eat what they eat for breakfast, give what you normally spend, or more, to the food pantry.  A group here in Austin called Mobile Loaves and Fishes has a Holy Week retreat each year where you spend 3 days living, eating, and sleeping on the streets of Austin.  The retreat ends on Holy Thursday.  It's a great way to enter into Easter.  I would say that the charity I received out on the streets was the the most profound I ever experienced.  Christ gave us himself, can't we give more?

Monday, March 9, 2015

My morning prayer

Thank you Dear Lord for loving me today and everyday.  Thank you for saving my life.  Thank you for showing me possibilities and how being brave is easier than I thought.  Thank you for turning my life from a place of unremitting darkness to place of light and love.  Thank you for opening my eyes to the people around me, letting me see that they are just like me with the same fears and worries.  Thank you for opening my my heart to them.  Thank you Dear Lord for teaching me to love.  I don't love as well as You love but maybe someday I will get closer to that ideal.  Especially Lord thank you for opening my heart to those it is hard to love and so are most in need of love.  Dear my one wish is that my heart would more open to love, that I would both love and and have the courage to do all the things in the world that needed to bring more love into the world.  Amen.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Love

God loves me and that has all kinds of implications for my life.  God doesn't just love the me He thinks He knows, He loves the me that even I don't know.  He truly loves me and He loves everyone. If someone loves you like that you naturally love them and try to please them.  If I could love as the Beloved loves I would love all He created with the same love He has for them, but my love, like my knowledge of myself is hindered by sin.

Even so, I should let His love fill me to over flowing so I can in a small way, love all His creation.  I am afraid to let His love fill me.  His love is a light and I am afraid to look at myself and truly know myself.  The sins I commit knowingly and through my actions are bad enough but the sins I commit by not doing, not seeing, not hearing, not caring, are easy for me to over look and so remain in the shadows.  Am I so fragile?  Why do I hold on to resentments, hatred, prejudice, do I think they make me strong?  I think to let go of these things I would have to recognize I have them in the first place.

Maybe if I let His love fill me from end to end I would be more bold.  I have felt His all pervading love before.  It was sublime and painful.  Afterwards I wondered why it didn't stay, why He withdrew, but now I think I was the one who couldn't stand it and so pulled away.  Opening up to love takes courage, I think.  If I open myself to His love and let it pour through me to others, I have to open myself up to others, and to myself.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Not as God thinks

I have been thinking a lot about Lent and Easter.  I understand the joy of Easter in human terms.  It's like a great party trick, first our Savior was dead and now he isn't.  We had lost Him due to others people's evil deeds but God won out and we have Him back and as a bonus we have Him back forever.

Thinking about it now I am beginning to see it differently, somewhat.  The whole thing is a great act of Love.  He came to us out of Love and He died for us out of Love.  God the Father loved us so much He sent His Son to live with us and to die for us.  He didn't send His Son to die for is unwillingly.  Jesus is not our whipping boy, He died for us willingly.  He went with His eyes open knowing how he would have to suffer, but he did it gladly to save us.  He didn't die because of that others did, but He suffered and died for what I have done and will do.  He is infinite, so He can love us each completely.  He loves us each intimately, He knows us each deeply and completely and loves us deeply and completely, unlike anyone in the world.

Holy Thursday and Good Friday are not tragic, they were necessary.  God doesnt do things like this unless it is necessary.  Without those days of suffering would we love Him so much?  Was it necessary for Him to suffer to prove to us how much He loves us?  We don't love Him as much as He deserves.