"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others."

a return to love - marianne williamson

God, You Know the Truth of Me...

"Indwelling God, you know the truth of me even before I was formed in my mother's womb, you know my thoughts even before I apprehend them, you welcome me home into the warmth of your love even when I do not realize I am lost. I know myself so little even as you know me so well. I cannot fathom the future, but grant me the grace to the present in that place where I most belong--- in your heart. Amen." --------Henri J.M. Nouwen

The Chair of Saint Peter

Today is the feast of "The Chair of St. Peter", by which is meant Peter's authority to form a church. I have felt for some time that this was a questionable move on Jesus' part. Why entrust, indeed allow, these followers to form this unmanageable, and in many cases unchristian structure? To preserve his teachings? The Buddha, who lived 500 years before Jesus, forbade his followers to choose a leader.("You have my teachings to enlighten you...") Indeed, the Buddha's teachings were not even written down for a hundred years after the Buddha's death, and they seem to be always attracting new followers.

But the Judaic tradition from which Christianity grew is a legal-minded culture. It is a hierarchy with a law for everything and anything. Indeed the main image of God in the first five books of the bible is one of law-giver, covenant-maker, and contract-enforcer. It would seem that the preachings of Jesus were against exactly that kind of institution which lends itself so easily to corruption, usury, hippocracy and misconduct. Why start up a "sequel" to all that? After all, Jesus says, "I am the way, I am the truth..." not "my church is the way, the truth.."

Not pretending to know Jesus' mind at the time----- maybe he just got carried away with the moment, Or maybe it wasn't enough to show he could survive a horrible death by crucifixion. He could also survive the interpretation and manipulation of his words by those who say they adore him.

And what about Peter (a.k.a. "Rock")? How must he have felt when it dawned on him that he could no longer be just a follower, but now a leader? The "Acts of the Apostles" chronicles the troubles, trials and missteps these church-builders went through. With each step getting farther away from the all-inclusive, all-loving teaching of Christ, and back to legislating, defining, punishing, and excluding.

I have known several people who have gone from being a follower to assuming a leadership position, in the business world, in academia, and in churches. (We peons call it "going over to the dark side.") It is not easy. But how quickly Peter's sucessors forgot what he wrote, quoted at today's mass:

"Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to your flock."

As we can see in the painting by Ford Maddox Ford, the "chair" of Peter is not a throne but a seat at the table of sacrifice, learning how to wash the feet of the "lowly."

"They must find it difficult...Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority." ---(Gerald Massey)

Do It Again!!

"The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again!"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.
But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again!" to the sun; and evening, "Do it again!" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."


--------G.K. Chesterton,“ORTHODOXY”

Separated at Birth

It seems like every columnist and blogger eventually resorts to posting an item or column called "Separated at Birth", the gist of which is to find photgraphs of people, sometimes spanning centuries, who look enough like each other to be twins. Of course, some can be done as a form of harmless(?) political satire:





Sometimes it's just uncanny:



Sometimes it's very scary:



And sometimes they just go too far:



Scientists and Psychologists seem to agree that, as human beings, we're wired to see patterns and detect similarities and note connections. We seem to be exceptional at it on the physical, visible world. Why, then, are we so terrible at seeing the underlying connections between us as spiritual beings, as souls? Why do most religions organize, not to include everyone, but exclude all who are "different"?
When push comes to shove, push comes to shove--- as one of my teachers used to say---and we see only what divides us.

But don't all philosophies and religions, especially those who have the advantage of not being organized, preach that we share a common origin and a common destiny (or destination.) In a very real sense, we are all separated at birth---separated from the creator or the spirit, and also separated from each other. Don't all the writings we hold sacred all say that only when we are able to restore those connections will we have arrived back whence we came?
Isn't unity our destiny?

Just asking...

You don't have to, unless...

"God does not demand that we give up our personal dignity, that we throw in our lot with random people, that we lose ourselves and turn from all that is not him. God needs nothing, asks nothing,demands nothing, like the stars. It is a life with God which demands these things...

God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things-----unless you want to know God. They work on you, not him.

You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it."

----Annie Dillard.
"Teaching a Stone to Talk"

Ms. Dillard is truly wonder-ful writer. Every three or four paragraphs she stops me dead in my tracks.

There are, as of now,three things I really want open the door to:

1.)What did St. Paul mean by "Pray without ceasing"?

2.)Can I ever hope to experience praying as Simone Weil described it:
"Listening to God in silence, we hear God also listening in silence."

3.)Where would I end up if I chose to follow this commandment as far as it could take me:"Be still and know that I am God."

The Hidden Life (cont'd)

But the "hidden life" is not just a place to cover up our "nasties." There is another, more positive part to the hidden world, where the creator has stored a map to life, maybe; or a piece of that puzzle we need to connect with others'. The Spirit , speaking through Isaiah(48:6) says: "I will show you hidden things, things you have not known."



God seems to put alot of emphasis on my hidden life ---what's inside and what's behind my words and actions. There are things only I can show you. There are also things that only you, friends, can you see.

Just lookin' ...

The Museum of Thom

Sitting in my corner of the chapel, scatter-brained (sigh)as usual. Pictures of people I want to remember while praying come rolling by, followed by memories of people no longer with me, then places I've been with those people-----suddenly, I'm all over the map, literally and figuratively.

So, to pull myself away from the map and back to the drawing board, I try to detach myself from this space. It's an old game I used to be quite good at---in school, unfortunately. I simply imagine I am now visiting "The Museum of Thom." Thus the room I am in is a kind of DIORAMA like Natural History Museums have, with false "infinity wall" backgrounds, and fake clouds over fake mountains. But all the furniture is authentic from the "time of Thom". See that chair and those kneelers over there? We have reason to believe he used those.


(That's his piano in the foreground and an exact replica of the old chapel behind. Quaint, isn't it?)

I remember Steven Wright saying he woke up one morning and everything in his apartment had been replaced by exact replicas...
Sometimes I look around my living space and wonder what would one of those CSI guys on TV deduce from these digs?


What conclusions would they draw about that person, and what, more interestingly, would they think important. Would they ignore something I think is very important? The point is to somehow become objective, get a different perpective on "my case."

But the true "game" is to look inside me and see what that God, described in Ash Wednesday readings as the one who sees what is hidden, would piece together. Ah, Yes... the hidden life: the things I hide from others because I'm so afraid; how about the things I hide from myself? Now there's the real "Museum of Thom."

"Never Cut What Can be Untied."

• "I am a religious person...and by 'religion' I mean re-ligio, the re-tying of a bond...restoring the legato of life. Life divides man into many pieces...There is no weightier occupation than the recomposition of spiritual integrity through the composition of music."
-------Sofia Gubaidulina

And here I come, staggering to the starting line...

It's never a good sign when you're so tired from preparation, that it's hard to put it in gear. There was so little time this year between seasons----we just put away the purple vestments, didn't we?---that I'm scrambling to calm down.---- Huh? Anyway, I hope to use this one-tenth of the year learning a bit of the Buddhist way of seeing things, and connecting it to my own questioning beliefs.

Thought for the day: "Don't mistake the finger for the moon."


Oh yeah, and how about as a country we give up torture for Lent?
Just asking...

Sheridan Ave., 1:00 a.m.

Spirit of the heavens,
Out of the quiet urban night
a pinprick of sound in fognight
A little louder now, a little clearer,
A siren
Police, fire, ambulance?
Seems to be fire engines,maybe two or three...
Louder now, there are ambulances following
and maybe a chief's car.
The crescendo moves from forte to sforzando!
They are just a block or two away.
An elderly man walking across the street covers his ears.
Spirit of earth,
I have heard this crescendo of alarm several times a night
and still I tense up and pray to you.
I wish no ill on anyone else in this city
But please, let this racing, chasing sound keep going.
Let me hear its diminuendo.
Don't let it abruptly halt.
Let it fade.
God of foggy city nights,
Let it fade.

The Immense Minutiae of It All!!

Last night, in between meetings, I found myself alone in the large, dimly-lit church. This would be a good opportunity to continue fingering the rosary beads and thinking on passages from the bible.

As I was saying the familiar prayers, I thought of myself all alone in this big church, in this big world, in this huge universe, and thinking how inconsequential this little man and his prayers must be. How big infinity! How miniscule all its parts!! How easily I will be lost and forgotten! A tiny bug on the cosmic windshield! Anxiety shivered through me.


Then I thought of all the human beings ---- to say nothing of other living creatures---- the billions of people that surround me and make up this world. How crowded the world is! I thought of all the souls of those in the past that might make up some other world I hadn’t seen, hovering around this church. I avoid crowded places: bars, theaters, elevators, etc. and here I was imagining all humanity, of all ages ! All alone in this church I felt claustrophobic!

I have felt true aloneness (or as close as I want to come) once in my life. Three years ago, after heart bypass surgery, I was under sedation, while also weaning my body off other drugs. (In short, I was “out there.”) During this period, I had the same dream or hallucination several times. It was very real and inescapable. I found myself sitting alone in a dark, damp room or cellar. The sound of dripping water was everywhere. Once in awhile someone would walk by, but would pay no attention to me.Though I don't remember chains, I could not get up and leave. I was completely alone,and I had the feeling it was forever. Feeling totally lost and abandoned, I began to cry and cry and cry.

It seems those are the two ways I am confronted by the world: I feel all alone and left behind, or I feel stampeded, pushed around, and swept away by the enormity of the “cosmic crowd.”

My challenge is to concentrate on what is individual in me, and what connects me to other creatures, as well as creation as a huge entity. It has something to do with all of us being sharers; we are all givers and takers, in our individual relationships, and in the huge picture of which we are a part. And then there is “God” in all things and "God" beyond all things.

Just thinking…


This is a tiny house on Iceland.

You find Iceland!!

The Milky Way:Our sun is that dot down towards the bottom center of the page.

Heavens! Our galaxy, The Milky Way, is a very tiny section of the constellation Virgo, highlighted roughly in the center of the picture.