Invisible God

Just yesterday I was having a conversation with one of the summer interns at Mt. Irenaeus when I said to him that the God of the theologians was not God as I had experienced him. Too often I/we let theologians limit our concept of God. God becomes pigeon-holed and limited by what the God scholars say and speak. I don’t intend to demonize theologians, that’s not my mission. I’m grateful that theologians think and write. Today in my mail comes this gift from the Merton Institute and it expresses almost the same sentiment.

Just as we have a superficial, external mask which we put together with words and actions that do not fully represent all that is in us, so even believers deal with a God who is made up of words, feelings, reassuring slogans, and this is less the God of faith than the product of religious and social routines. Such a “God” can become a substitute for the truth of the invisible God of faith, and though this comforting image may seem real to us, he is really a kind of idol. His chief function is to protect us against a deep encounter with our true inner self and with the true God.

Thomas Merton. Love and Living. Naomi Burton Stone & Patrick Hart, editors (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jonvanovich, 1985): 42.

New direction

I recently wrote about fear and doubt and how I was uncertain of my future and how that future might include retirement. I walked all the way to the edge and even jumped off into retirement only to be recalled by one of my supervisors. A week ago I was summoned to the principal’s office for what I thought would be a scolding and lo and behold the man wanted me to return to the classroom. I’m being re-invented and in September I’ll be teaching seventh and eighth grade students how to stay safe on the internet, use tools like Google Docs and use their cell phones as learning tools.

The request and the experience has left me with a beginners mind. I’m reaching out to other teachers who’ve taught at this grade level before and who have had this assignment. For the last several years I’ve been a proponent of the educational uses of cell phones. I’ve been at loggerheads with the administration on this point. I’ve come to believe that cell phones are really the present and future direction of computing. For years we’ve been talking about one to one computing and only an elite few districts could actually pull it off. Most lacked the resources. Adding to the proliferation of cell phones is the emergence of the Net Book platform. The near and far term will see a melding of the two and in a relatively short period of time I think we’ll see an almost total disappearance of the traditional desktop and even laptop computers in favor of net centric devices that connect to both traditional 802.11 wireless networks and cellular networks. Recent events in Iran prove the effectiveness of low bandwidth tools like Twitter and SMS to get the message out.

Of course these tools can be dangerous in the hands of young people who frequently lack good judgement and use them to send inappropriate messages which put them and their futures in jeopardy. My assignment includes helping to change those behaviors. It’s a tall order but it’s one that’s got me excited and energized. I hope that you will continue to pray as I need those prayers and so do the students I’ll be working with.

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.

Fear itself

I began this experiment with public sharing of my thoughts a bit over three years ago shortly after I suffered a pulmonary embolism. I felt a need to write and discovered that I can write and some like my sister and son believe that I should continue. It’s been an interesting and informative way for me to reflect on what’s going on. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my ideas that I would not have received otherwise. Some of the discussions have helped me to better understand issues or gain some insight I might never have gained otherwise.

Lately, I’ve been without words but not without thoughts, just the inability or unwillingness to express them. I’ve been thinking about retiring for nearly a year now. Some of the events of the last year pushed me in that direction and others have pulled me back. On Friday another such event led me to strongly consider the retirement option again. Fear is the only thing holding me back. Franklin Roosevelt said, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear can cripple and it’s been crippling me. It’s in these moments that I am drawn back to the wise counsel of one of my spiritual advisors who years ago told me never to put limits on the power of God. Not the God of religion but God as I understood Him. This same guy gave me a book nearly twenty-five years ago which is still in my library, “The Conquest of Fear,” by Basil King. My friend’s wise counsel and King’s book have come to my aid many times and from it’s pages sprang the hope that makes even today possible.

It’s up to you to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.–Basil King, Conquest of Fear

This morning finds me sitting in my hermitage, writing this reflection and reading the words of Basil King and considering too all of sacred scripture and all the other wisdom texts I know and love and what they have to say on this subject.

Life in the country

I got this quote in today’s mail and it made me grateful for my own life and even the past two days which were spent not in my own country but in the lake country of Canada. Diane and I spent a weekend at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario at a lovely bed & breakfast called Blueberry Gate. Our hostess treated us very well and we’re likely to return. We got to enjoy a couple of performances at the Shaw Festival and very little television and only sparse internet, enough to send some text messages to our children and an update or two on Facebook.

This will give us some idea of the proper preparation that the contemplative life requires. A life that is quiet, lived in the country, in touch with the rhythm of nature and the seasons. A life in which there is manual work, the exercise of arts and skills, not in a spirit of dilettantism, but with genuine reference to the needs of one’s existence. The cultivation of the land, the care of farm animals, gardening. A broad and serious literary culture, music, art, again not in the spirit of Time and Life-(a chatty introduction to Titian, Prexiteles, and Jackson Pollock)-but a genuine and creative appreciation of the way poems, pictures, etc., are made. A life in which there is such a thing as serious conversation, and little or no TV. These things are mentioned not with the insistence that only life in the country can prepare a [person] for contemplation, but to show the type of exercise that is needed.

Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation. William H. Shannon, editor (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003): 131.

The least

I read this morning about an engaging young lady who will graduate from Notre Dame University today. She’s Brennan Bollman, and she’s this year’s Valedictorian. She’s got a 4.0 and more than that she’s focused like a laser beam on Catholic Social Teaching and the Gospel. I first learned of her earlier today from an editorial piece on HuffingtonPost.com.  I did some research and found out that she’s not only headed to medical school, but that she worked at a Catholic Worker house and like me she’s Irish. What a wonderful combination? The best part of it all is that she gets it. By “it”, I mean the Gospel. The Gospel is not about kissing up to the rich and powerful and subsidizing their failures. The Gospel is about reaching down and out to help those around us and especially the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters.

My favorite quote from the Gospels and one that animates my life is taken from Matthew 25.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’ Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Godspeed to Brennan and all of her classmates.

Where to begin

I haven’t been doing much if any blogging lately.  I’ve been too busy and mostly without words or the willingness to write anything down. Yesterday, Dara Maria graduated from State University of New York at Fredonia. I am so proud of her, she finished Summa Cum Laude.  She’s a very bright, classy young lady with a bright future and like her father, she’s an idealist.  I think being an idealist is important for teachers.  Ever since I returned from my southern trip last month I’ve been in a very introspective and contemplative mood. I’ve found a great deal to be excited about besides Dara too. I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs, reading blogs everyday, posting to Facebook and taking lots of digital images. Most of them have been with my Blackberry cameras, but still taking pictures and being as much alive as ever.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Thomas Merton and how his journey and mine are parallel though vastly different. A friends Facebook post led me to a Merton quote from “Rain and the Rhinoceros.”

The rain surrounded the whole cabin with its enormous virginal myth, a whole world of meaning, of secrecy, of silence, of rumor. Think of it: all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody, drenching the thick mulch of dead leaves, soaking the trees, filling the gullies and crannies of the wood with water, washing out the places where men have stripped the hillside! What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech, the most comforting speech in the world, the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges, and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!  Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it. It will talk as long as it wants, this rain. As long as it talks I am going to listen.”–Thomas Merton

I love to listen to the rain and we had some more of it last night. It was a perfect setting for contemplation. In fact I live on our enclosed porch. Nearly every waking hour I spend here except for when I’m at work or eating dinner with my wife. I spend my time in this hermitage that’s set apart from the rest of our home.

Along the Erie Canal

I took a fairly long day trip today after Mass at Mt. Irenaeus and eventually I made my way to the edge of the Erie Canal near Bushnell’s Basin just east of the Village of Pittsford, New York. It was a beautiful day as temperatures reached the high sixties and many folks were either jogging, cycling or walking along the towpath on the opposite side of the canal from where I took this picture.

I’ve had a fascination with the Erie Canal that goes back to my childhood when I first began to read about it. My great-grandparents, Welsh immigrants to this country made their way to Upstate New York along this waterway. In fact, Richard and Catherines Owens might well have looked upon the spot where I stood today as they made their way from Castle Garden in New York City where they first entered the United States. My grandmother was their youngest child and she along with five of her seven siblings were born in the United States. Two of Grandma’s eldest sisters were born in Wales and made their way along this water route with their parents to Western New York. That was nearly one-hundred and twenty years ago.

Enhanced interrogation

Enhanced interrogation is yet another euphemism that belies it’s real purpose and effect. War and especially modern warfare as practised in the United States and Western Europe is full of these poppycock descriptions for degrading human life. Let’s call a spade a spade and say that in our country it became okay to torture people whom we viewed as a threat to our national existence. The apologists for enhanced interrogation were policy makers at the highest levels of our government, including the President of the United States. When the images of this torture began to flood the media our then president described the situation as a few bad apples at the bottom. It’s now become apparent from recently released documents that the bad apples were at the top. The bad apples have now become hot potatoes because no one wants to cut to the quick and prosecute those who advocated and authorized the torture. On one side of the aisle allegations are raised that we threaten to further weaken the country and our ability to conduct intelligence operations which in effect are coveting our neighbor’s goods.  Intelligence is yet another euphemism for spying and we spy along with the rest of the world because we are afraid of the other guys or gals.

I don’t want to tear the country apart with a witch hunt, but as a former member of the U.S. Navy Hospital Corps and a person who at one time fell under the Geneva Conventions, I’d like to see U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines be afforded a measure of humanitarian protection in war zones.  It’s more than ironic that most of the defenders of these practices never served our country. Once again its the chickenhawks who are squawking the loudest.  How about a little enhanced common sense for a change? Why not a return to the Golden Rule? The phony Christians are often invoking our Judeo- Christian roots, then why not start acting like Judeo-Christians and loving our enemy and treating others as we’d like to be treated.

Turn the bad apples over to the International Criminal Court and let them deal with them and exonerate American and Judeo-Christian principles and protect soldiers, sailors and marines everywhere. That would be really supporting the troops.

Without words

My heart has been without words lately. I’ve not felt up to writing about anything and I think there’s a good reason for all of that. Silence is more and more apart of my days and night even though I live in a world that will never be completely silent. The more silent I am the more I can appreciate the voices of others.  Friday was May Day, a special day of memory. In 1982, when we were early in our relationship as a couple my wife made me a May basket and gave it to me. I remember how deeply moved I was by her gesture. It was apparent to me then that this lady really loved me and it came at a time when I didn’t really love myself. I’ve reflected lately about what a pivotal moment that was in my relationship with not only Diane, but with God and life in general. Metanoias come about in life not from bolts of lightning that would scare us,  but more from changes in degrees of intensity of the light in our lives. The May basket in 1982 was one of those changes of intensity when I realized that not only did Diane love me but that I was loveable and that I needed to love myself too.

One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”–Mark 12:28-31

One of the paradoxes of life is that we can’t really love others until we love ourselves. I missed that for much of my life up until then. I miss it from time to time even now. When my relationships are suffering its often because I’m judging myself too harshly and when I’m tough on myself, I’m tough on those around me.  Diane taught me the lesson of my life on the first day of May in 1982. We celebrated that event Friday night with dinner at the lovely Glen Iris Inn overlooking the Middle Falls at nearby Letchworth State Park.