Matter Matters

“In the beginning was the Word,” writes John in the prologue to his gospel. And all things have come into being through the word… It is not as if the elements of the universe are fashioned out of a neutral substance. It is not as if creation is set afire from afar. The matter of life comes forth directly from the womb of God’s being… The whiteness of the moon, the wildness of the wind, the moisture of the fecund earth is the glow and wildness and moisture of God now. It is the very stuff of God’s being of which we and creation are made.”

J. Phillip Newell
“Christ of the Celts”

The Gull, The Kite, and Joe Gula

This morning I was sitting on the rocks by Lake Michigan, phasing in and out of some kind of praying. I watched a gull float by---what an easy metaphor for the brain to use when considering the spirit.
Behind me, on the grassy area of the park, a young couple was laughing, trying to get a kite up in to the wind. I remembered my friend Joe Gula, deceased now several years, who had an annual kite-flying party for relatives and friends of all ages, complete with awards and prizes and certificates for everyone for some kind of achievement or another.

As I thought of him, with the kite in the air and the gull hovering nearby, I wondered if I had somehow "contacted" or "awakened" the spirit of Joe. I know this is stretching it,( and I agree with George Carlin, who passed away the other day, that it would be a lousy eternity for the dead to have to lie around watching the living all the time),but I also somehow believe that what made Joe "Joe"---- how his eyes lit up when a young nephew or niece got their kite airborne for the first time---did not die with the body or ceased to exist.

Recently I watched a video on memory and the brain. It showed the mind making all sorts of electical connections in different hemispheres of the brain to summon up images and emotions and information needed to "remember"----- just the way the circuit board of a computer gathers data, even though we didn't know these things about the brain when the computer was designed. (One could say humans intuitively designed computers in our image, without even knowing it. Tell me again in whose image was creation made?)

Is it not possible that the gull and the kite and Joe Gula lit up more than just the connections in my mind, but perhaps coinciding switches in another level?
Just asking...

Hello, Joe. Look at that kite!

"Happy are those who shall see you,
and those who have fallen asleep in love,
for we too shall have life."

Don't Lose It.

Cleaning House (or at least clearing a path to the door)

We've been sorting through and cleaning out the old family house. If you are familiar with this process, you know that at times you have more of a mess on your hands than you started with. My prayer life and spiritual thinking has reached that point. What a mess! I stand, as it were, in the middle of the muddle, not knowing what to do first. I wanted to address some basic issues of belief, but more and more issues came out of the cupboards and closets of my religious upbringing.

I am reminded of a poster I had in my dorm room in college that said,"When you are up to your butt in alligators, it's difficult to remind yourself that your original objective was to drain the swamp."

But some thoughts have come to the forefront:

The holy presence of "God" and "heaven" and the "communion of saints" is inside us and around us NOW--- not up in the sky, or far away, waiting for us in some future time. It has something to do with the life and light all of us creatures
have in common and share, and when we acknowledge this common bond we are closer to "God" and "Holiness."

Alot of this clutter comes when I try to decide if the Spirit is this or another thing that people say it is, when,as I wrote earlier,God can be all of those things or none or something entirely different. My thinking tends to become clearer when I decide to Let God be God. Let God define God. Isn't that what we pray in the "Our Father": "thy kingdom come, thy will be done..." In other words,"Go ahead. Be God."

Because we humans have been given, or have deveopled, a self-awareness, we have a capability and a responsibilty to examine the intentions of our actions and the outcome of our behavior. INSTANT KARMA!

There's also alot of boxes marked "dopey dogmas" and "Theologians covering their butts" and a huge crate devoted to "imagined sins, original and not so" that are unnecessary baggage and are ready for the dumpster.

At Last, A New Psalm!

Thom's Psalms #10 mixed voices

"Waves of Grace"

"Waves of Grace"
(Thom’s Psalm #10)
To the Educational Community of St. Nicholas of Tolentine
(so full of Grace.)

Grace is the energy needed for miracles;
Grace flows from gratitude, so thank the Lord.

Be grateful, be gracious to those whom we must look after,
Be graceful, be grateful, and serve all with joy and laughter.
For where there is laughter, miracles are close by.
Gratias Tibi! Miracles are close by!

Grace is the energy needed for miracles;
Grace flows from gratitude, so thank the Lord.

Seldom we see the miracles all around us, that surround us.
But gracefully does God move, and quietly does God speak.

So blessings on you, sons and daughters of God,
The world is full of grace.
Blest is the one whom you bring to the world,
Jesus Christ.
Gloria Tibi! The kingdom of God is near!

Grace is the energy needed for miracles;
Grace flows from gratitude, so thank the Lord


Mariagnes Menden, Soprano

Thom P. Miller
June, 2008