And then somehow I found myself outside being asked and briefly contemplating climbing a tree with a buzz saw, cutting off unwanted limbs. Luckily a rake was placed into my hands. After a brief lesson in the correct leaf raking Mid-Atlantic posture and technique I began. It was a completely new experience for me. I could not remember ever raking leaves before. It is possible even plausible that I had raked before but I had no single memory of it.
The more I raked, the more I liked it. The more I concentrated on the leaves on the moist ground the more I thought about doing God’s work, offering my life to God. Somehow I raked leaves into several little piles, too small to jump into but large enough to see that some leaves had been removed. After I started I wished that there was time to rake all the leaves into neat little piles.
We stopped raking and went back to the kitchen where we joined the others in prayer before they served their guests.
And then piles had to be placed within black plastic bags and carried to the curb. How fun it was to hold the bag open and discuss the Mass, to learn about a monastery in Rome, to learn about the Eastern Church! Somehow the leaves were placed inside the bags and moved away from the front of the house to the street.
The morning was a pleasant gallimaufry. I did not view it as a service project. It was a moment of gentleness and patience. How polychromatic faith is! What a privilege it was to rinse the collard greens and then rake the leaves. Being exposed to different experiences with different people in search of goodness and doing God’s work is invigorating.
I felt humane and worthy of God’s love.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Actions and Prayers -- Part 5
I believe that my Christian life will be an ongoing continuous discernment, I shall always be trying to live a life worthy of God’s love. I must find a way to show humility, charity, mercy in my day to day life. My life hopefully will reflect obedience and fidelity to Christ and his teachings.
Being Catholic presents many ideas to ponder on and to pray about. Prayer is essential for a good Christian life. It is my prayer life which I must concentrate on and improve. How I communicate with God is important! When I communicate with God is important! Why I communicate with God is important.
As a Christian my relationship with God is very important. Every day of my life I must strengthen this relationship through prayer, humility, obedience. I must remember to always be humble, not to boast, not to lust for attention, not to desire and reward for doing the right thing.
Spiritual growth requires discernment; moving closer to God requires discernment; prayer is an essential component of discernment. Spiritual growth is connected to prayer.
Being Catholic presents many ideas to ponder on and to pray about. Prayer is essential for a good Christian life. It is my prayer life which I must concentrate on and improve. How I communicate with God is important! When I communicate with God is important! Why I communicate with God is important.
As a Christian my relationship with God is very important. Every day of my life I must strengthen this relationship through prayer, humility, obedience. I must remember to always be humble, not to boast, not to lust for attention, not to desire and reward for doing the right thing.
Spiritual growth requires discernment; moving closer to God requires discernment; prayer is an essential component of discernment. Spiritual growth is connected to prayer.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Beauty
I have to remember that there is a visible Holy Spirit, leading me toward God, guiding me to doing his work, encouraging me to put others first. I want to learn humility and obedience. I must always remember that the Church was founded by Jesus Christ, and as a Christian there is an implicit promise to offer my life in service of God, to love everyone equally, and be merciful, humble, compassionate. The gates of heaven are not to be taken for granted. The apostolic Church allows us to learn how to love and serve God. As Christians our lives and our daily choices should reflect the Church’s ministry. I have to remember the sacraments, Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation.
I want to live a life that is holy and filled with God’s grace. Our lives should be filled with perpetual love and service to God. I want to add the Holy Scriptures to my daily routine, reverence for all of God’s teachings, respect for all. My faith includes silence. I can look to the saints for inspiration. I am looking for direction.
It was a singular hope that I find this inspiration, enhanced with the beauty and bounty of God.
I wonder if the over stimulation of our civilization leaves our hearts unoccupied. What will we discover about our faith? How can our lives be more devout? And do we all agree on the mission of the Church? Do we understand and believe the Church’s mission?
I hope that my life contains a pure zeal, a pure reverence for God. Each day provides lessons on how to be better, to move closer to God. My life leads me to holiness.
We commemorate our faith when we treat each other with respect and fairness; when we attend Mass and remember the Sabbath; when our lives are filled with obedience, humility, and charity. We must contemplate the saints, the Church’s creeds and prayers, the Church’s documents and dogma and use all of the knowledge from our faith in our daily lives. Our love in God makes us triumphant.
Our lives should include self-sacrifice and love.
I am searching for direction, filled with the hope of discernment. There is a desire for righteousness and holiness; however, there is a need to be merciful and forgiving in our daily lives and to live a life of worship celebrating the mystery of our faith.
I want my life to glorify God.
I want to live a life that is holy and filled with God’s grace. Our lives should be filled with perpetual love and service to God. I want to add the Holy Scriptures to my daily routine, reverence for all of God’s teachings, respect for all. My faith includes silence. I can look to the saints for inspiration. I am looking for direction.
It was a singular hope that I find this inspiration, enhanced with the beauty and bounty of God.
I wonder if the over stimulation of our civilization leaves our hearts unoccupied. What will we discover about our faith? How can our lives be more devout? And do we all agree on the mission of the Church? Do we understand and believe the Church’s mission?
I hope that my life contains a pure zeal, a pure reverence for God. Each day provides lessons on how to be better, to move closer to God. My life leads me to holiness.
We commemorate our faith when we treat each other with respect and fairness; when we attend Mass and remember the Sabbath; when our lives are filled with obedience, humility, and charity. We must contemplate the saints, the Church’s creeds and prayers, the Church’s documents and dogma and use all of the knowledge from our faith in our daily lives. Our love in God makes us triumphant.
Our lives should include self-sacrifice and love.
I am searching for direction, filled with the hope of discernment. There is a desire for righteousness and holiness; however, there is a need to be merciful and forgiving in our daily lives and to live a life of worship celebrating the mystery of our faith.
I want my life to glorify God.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Hearing
I have a practiced ear, capable of listening to and remembering multiple conversations as long as I remain mute, keep my mind in listening mode.
At times with great patience I can be simultaneously auricular and an oracle.
Depending on who we listen to our lives are filled with either collisions or coincidences. Depending on my mood I find it hard to separate them. I think that my life is dreamily spasmodic, ordinarily episodic. Faith leaves me quenchless, wanting to be better, wanting to be more compassionate, forgiving, and merciful.
Learning about venial and mortal sin, I sometimes feel like a gun-toting, wisecracking lammister hiding from both the police and the mob.
Each day I want to learn more about God, more about Christianity, more about how I follow in Christ’s footsteps. Each day I want to be more humane, more loving.
The minute I recognize that there are two choices, then I immediately realize the possibility of imminent danger, confusion, or delay. Nevertheless I do enjoy playing with this cauldron of ideas, creating rhetorical questions, circulating excessively genteel fears throughout my mind.
I sometime feel that being a good Christian means being a good listener. We need to listen first, then analyze what has been said, and then respond. Listening requires an extra dollop of silence. Silence is not always awkward. Silence is often natural. People trained to expect instant gratification, immediate responses are suspicious of silence and try to fill it with all types of brittle noise.
We, as Christians, always need a bit of silence. It is a time for reflection, prayer, meditation. Silence is not always negotiable. We may hear life’s gamelan gently or boldly playing in the background. We must train ourselves to be mute. Silence can be capacious. Silence can allow us to hear God.
As Christians our lives should be an ongoing, continuous discernment process as we strive to learn new ways to serve God and to share his love with those whom we meet each day. We should educate ourselves to do more and more without requiring any acknowledgement or reward. Let love be our signpost, guiding us toward God.
At times with great patience I can be simultaneously auricular and an oracle.
Depending on who we listen to our lives are filled with either collisions or coincidences. Depending on my mood I find it hard to separate them. I think that my life is dreamily spasmodic, ordinarily episodic. Faith leaves me quenchless, wanting to be better, wanting to be more compassionate, forgiving, and merciful.
Learning about venial and mortal sin, I sometimes feel like a gun-toting, wisecracking lammister hiding from both the police and the mob.
Each day I want to learn more about God, more about Christianity, more about how I follow in Christ’s footsteps. Each day I want to be more humane, more loving.
The minute I recognize that there are two choices, then I immediately realize the possibility of imminent danger, confusion, or delay. Nevertheless I do enjoy playing with this cauldron of ideas, creating rhetorical questions, circulating excessively genteel fears throughout my mind.
I sometime feel that being a good Christian means being a good listener. We need to listen first, then analyze what has been said, and then respond. Listening requires an extra dollop of silence. Silence is not always awkward. Silence is often natural. People trained to expect instant gratification, immediate responses are suspicious of silence and try to fill it with all types of brittle noise.
We, as Christians, always need a bit of silence. It is a time for reflection, prayer, meditation. Silence is not always negotiable. We may hear life’s gamelan gently or boldly playing in the background. We must train ourselves to be mute. Silence can be capacious. Silence can allow us to hear God.
As Christians our lives should be an ongoing, continuous discernment process as we strive to learn new ways to serve God and to share his love with those whom we meet each day. We should educate ourselves to do more and more without requiring any acknowledgement or reward. Let love be our signpost, guiding us toward God.
Friday, November 20, 2009
The Triumph
Our lives are filled with many moments equivocal, moments caustic. Our society creates and exaggerates spiritual and existential conflicts. Our materialist culture is a jumbled mixture of assumptions and ambitions, praising decadence and moral and ethical ambiguity while hiding moral deprivation.
How abstract life can sound when certain words are utilized to manipulate our emotional response to a topic, to temper our reactions and our interactions! How absurd modernity is when society encourages distance and distrust among its diverse members. In many ways modernity will always be at war with Christianity.
The triumph of God is love. Faith is the centrifuge of the soul’s longing for God. Within faith there is something euphoric, something symbolic.
Of course within our individual narrative lines there are always examples of God’s mercy, compassion, and love which we sometimes overlook. We must acknowledge always acknowledge and offer praise to God, our lives must involve holiness.
It is easy to forget that being Christian means being part of a community. Christianity does not grow in a vacuum. In each of us Christianity’s formation has been a continual activity of our hearts, minds, and souls. It’s impact upon our imagination is hard to calculate.
The Sacraments of the Church allows us to develop and maintain an identity as believers and followers of Jesus Christ. The characteristics of Christ’s teaching provides a model for living a simple life filled with forgiveness, mercy, and love.
Modernity offers and promotes a complicated network of relationships. Even when modernity suggests simplicity, rarely is simplicity ever achieved without rejecting and/or limiting access to some core parts of modernity.
For those who allow themselves to believe and to follow the teachings of the Christianity, life can be a more simple, more spiritual, and more beautiful. This is not meant to suggest that Christian life is easy. It is not. Being Christian is often a daily struggle between good and bad; moral and ethical choices confront us each day at work, home, and many places in between; the meagerness of consumerism constantly battles our sense of social justice.
Being Christian helps us to understand the world in which we live, understand that many of the problems and concerns have been around in one form or another for thousands of years. Being Christian gives us hope and strength to survive. Being Christian allows us to believe in God, his mercy, his forgiveness, his love. Being Christian encourages us to believe that we are not alone.
A Christian life is filled with hope and love.
How abstract life can sound when certain words are utilized to manipulate our emotional response to a topic, to temper our reactions and our interactions! How absurd modernity is when society encourages distance and distrust among its diverse members. In many ways modernity will always be at war with Christianity.
The triumph of God is love. Faith is the centrifuge of the soul’s longing for God. Within faith there is something euphoric, something symbolic.
Of course within our individual narrative lines there are always examples of God’s mercy, compassion, and love which we sometimes overlook. We must acknowledge always acknowledge and offer praise to God, our lives must involve holiness.
It is easy to forget that being Christian means being part of a community. Christianity does not grow in a vacuum. In each of us Christianity’s formation has been a continual activity of our hearts, minds, and souls. It’s impact upon our imagination is hard to calculate.
The Sacraments of the Church allows us to develop and maintain an identity as believers and followers of Jesus Christ. The characteristics of Christ’s teaching provides a model for living a simple life filled with forgiveness, mercy, and love.
Modernity offers and promotes a complicated network of relationships. Even when modernity suggests simplicity, rarely is simplicity ever achieved without rejecting and/or limiting access to some core parts of modernity.
For those who allow themselves to believe and to follow the teachings of the Christianity, life can be a more simple, more spiritual, and more beautiful. This is not meant to suggest that Christian life is easy. It is not. Being Christian is often a daily struggle between good and bad; moral and ethical choices confront us each day at work, home, and many places in between; the meagerness of consumerism constantly battles our sense of social justice.
Being Christian helps us to understand the world in which we live, understand that many of the problems and concerns have been around in one form or another for thousands of years. Being Christian gives us hope and strength to survive. Being Christian allows us to believe in God, his mercy, his forgiveness, his love. Being Christian encourages us to believe that we are not alone.
A Christian life is filled with hope and love.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Heroes
There is one idea that I hope that all Christians should always consider as they live their lives each day. Our lives can inspire others to believe in God, to believe his teachings, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. As Catholic we can be heroes to those around us by simply sharing our faith; by simply praying; by helping those in need, the poor, the homeless; by simply living lives of hope, mercy, compassion, and love.
It is easy to assign this duty, this responsibility to the clergy, to the rectory staff, to the archdiocese staff, to the volunteers of the various parish ministries, to anyone but ourselves.
But, we share this responsibility to live lives that bear witness to God’s love and mercy. We share the duty to do God’s work, to spread his Word, to help those in need. All of this is to be done freely, without thought or desire of earthly reward or payment. It all needs to be done simply, beautifully for the love of God.
Altruism is good for the soul. Our culture encourages us to be selfish, to think of our comfort and well being first, to put ourselves first. This thought is in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus Christ. There has to be something more to our lives than simply being the first in line, the first to be seated at dinner. Our lives are enriched when we are able to serve another, when we allow ourselves to assist someone who needs our help, when we put aside our prejudices and act according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Each of us can be a Christian hero if we allow ourselves to try and if we allow ourselves to believe in ourselves and in the glory and the power of God. When we our actions are selfless, they embody the humble, compassionate mannerisms of Christ. There is a robustness in being selfless. Being selfless introduces another way of living and behaving to us. Being selfless is a “correct” way of living and reacting to our culture.
Our dominant culture promotes the idioms of insecurity and provincialism and perverts the ideas of innocence, simplicity, spirituality. Fear is now the vigorous common denominator guiding the American culture. Many of our laws were enacted because of fear. Fifty years ago we were afraid of nuclear annihilation. Now we are afraid of dirty bombs and terrorists. God has left the building. God is only on the periphery of our culture. The dominant culture is violent, decadent, selfish, distrusts authority, desiring only instant gratification.
Our dominant culture does not offer hope, does not offer faith. It offers rhetoric, stump speeches, all types of pills with all types of side effects, all types of commercials to improve everything which can be seen by the eye. Faith, hope, love, and mercy do receive airplay in sappy love songs and in connection to the latest crime in the news.
As Christians our lives must offer an antidote to every moral and ethical argument created by our culture. We must live our lives for God. We must be willing to sacrifice our lives in service of him. The goodness in our lives which we share with each other in God’s names will make us heroes.
It is easy to assign this duty, this responsibility to the clergy, to the rectory staff, to the archdiocese staff, to the volunteers of the various parish ministries, to anyone but ourselves.
But, we share this responsibility to live lives that bear witness to God’s love and mercy. We share the duty to do God’s work, to spread his Word, to help those in need. All of this is to be done freely, without thought or desire of earthly reward or payment. It all needs to be done simply, beautifully for the love of God.
Altruism is good for the soul. Our culture encourages us to be selfish, to think of our comfort and well being first, to put ourselves first. This thought is in direct conflict with the teachings of Jesus Christ. There has to be something more to our lives than simply being the first in line, the first to be seated at dinner. Our lives are enriched when we are able to serve another, when we allow ourselves to assist someone who needs our help, when we put aside our prejudices and act according to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Each of us can be a Christian hero if we allow ourselves to try and if we allow ourselves to believe in ourselves and in the glory and the power of God. When we our actions are selfless, they embody the humble, compassionate mannerisms of Christ. There is a robustness in being selfless. Being selfless introduces another way of living and behaving to us. Being selfless is a “correct” way of living and reacting to our culture.
Our dominant culture promotes the idioms of insecurity and provincialism and perverts the ideas of innocence, simplicity, spirituality. Fear is now the vigorous common denominator guiding the American culture. Many of our laws were enacted because of fear. Fifty years ago we were afraid of nuclear annihilation. Now we are afraid of dirty bombs and terrorists. God has left the building. God is only on the periphery of our culture. The dominant culture is violent, decadent, selfish, distrusts authority, desiring only instant gratification.
Our dominant culture does not offer hope, does not offer faith. It offers rhetoric, stump speeches, all types of pills with all types of side effects, all types of commercials to improve everything which can be seen by the eye. Faith, hope, love, and mercy do receive airplay in sappy love songs and in connection to the latest crime in the news.
As Christians our lives must offer an antidote to every moral and ethical argument created by our culture. We must live our lives for God. We must be willing to sacrifice our lives in service of him. The goodness in our lives which we share with each other in God’s names will make us heroes.
Faith
I have always been restless. I have always liked moving around outdoors. Once upon a time I was a cross country runner. I always liked running around and thinking or walking around and thinking. I do some of my best thinking when my mouth is still and my feet are moving me forward, moving me toward the horizon.
From the outside each religion involves many obtuse beliefs and traditions. Depending on how religion is approached there are all types of rankings and classifications which can be applied to formal worship. But faith is a serious issue which defies easy definition. It is always important to consider how faith influences each one of us as we live our daily lives.
I am peripatetic. I sometimes feel the most spiritual when outside, walking between here and there. If I am not too preoccupied or otherwise resistant, different sensations are discovered by my eyes and ears. I have on occasion felt the presence of God.
Faith is not static. Faith can displace established ways of thinking, talking, and relating to the world. Faith is fundamentally simplistic in its approach to us and specifically spiritual in its interactions with our minds, bodies, and souls. Faith can and does touch different parts of our beings.
The origin of love and hope somehow intersects with faith.
For me faith asks many questions, inspires many answers, sparks creativity. Surprisingly faith makes me restless as it encourages continual growth by creating successive series of thoughts and deeds which challenge the moral and ethical laxity of our current society. Interestingly faith is the greatest architect of all goodness, compassion, and mercy within our lives.
Admittedly, faith offers evidence to support and nourish our love of God. I believe that it is an argument for all that which is beautiful, all that which is innocence, all that which is inspirational. Faith asks me to not be conventional, to not be traditional, to dare to sacrifice myself, my life for the glory and the love of God.
It is obvious that each person’s faith creates its own private idioms. There is no question that we should all follow the Ten Commandments, live our lives according to the Church’s doctrines and rules, and above include a love and respect for everyone. I admit that it might be difficult to do but it is essential to create and maintain a good relationship with God.
In the process of examining my faith, there is an explicit desire to find a personal relationship with God, to find the origins of my hope, my love, my mercy.
Faith offers us a chance for continual discernment, continual improvement as we learn about and approach our own holiness.
From the outside each religion involves many obtuse beliefs and traditions. Depending on how religion is approached there are all types of rankings and classifications which can be applied to formal worship. But faith is a serious issue which defies easy definition. It is always important to consider how faith influences each one of us as we live our daily lives.
I am peripatetic. I sometimes feel the most spiritual when outside, walking between here and there. If I am not too preoccupied or otherwise resistant, different sensations are discovered by my eyes and ears. I have on occasion felt the presence of God.
Faith is not static. Faith can displace established ways of thinking, talking, and relating to the world. Faith is fundamentally simplistic in its approach to us and specifically spiritual in its interactions with our minds, bodies, and souls. Faith can and does touch different parts of our beings.
The origin of love and hope somehow intersects with faith.
For me faith asks many questions, inspires many answers, sparks creativity. Surprisingly faith makes me restless as it encourages continual growth by creating successive series of thoughts and deeds which challenge the moral and ethical laxity of our current society. Interestingly faith is the greatest architect of all goodness, compassion, and mercy within our lives.
Admittedly, faith offers evidence to support and nourish our love of God. I believe that it is an argument for all that which is beautiful, all that which is innocence, all that which is inspirational. Faith asks me to not be conventional, to not be traditional, to dare to sacrifice myself, my life for the glory and the love of God.
It is obvious that each person’s faith creates its own private idioms. There is no question that we should all follow the Ten Commandments, live our lives according to the Church’s doctrines and rules, and above include a love and respect for everyone. I admit that it might be difficult to do but it is essential to create and maintain a good relationship with God.
In the process of examining my faith, there is an explicit desire to find a personal relationship with God, to find the origins of my hope, my love, my mercy.
Faith offers us a chance for continual discernment, continual improvement as we learn about and approach our own holiness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)