Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

~~Eskimo Proverb~~

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

~~ C.S. Lewis ~~

A Hymn for Atheists

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

~~St. Augustine~~

Attitude

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror,
and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
'Well,' she said, 'I think I'll braid my hair today.'
So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror
and saw that she had only two hairs on her head
'H-M-M,' she said, 'I think I'll part my hair down the middle today.'
So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed
that she had only one hair on her head.
'Well,' she said, 'today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail.'
So she did, and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and
noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head.
'YAY!' she exclaimed. 'I don't have to fix my hair today!'

Attitude is everything.
Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
Live simply, Love generously, Care deeply, speak kindly, and pray continually.

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...
It's about learning to dance in the rain.

It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived

Night Prayer

"Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, comfort the dying, and all for your Love's sake."

“What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.” ---Robert Kennedy

"Pater Noster" in other words

Creator of Heavens
I can hardly say your name.
I want what you want,
But I fear what you want is me.
Give me what I need to live each day
Not hurting people, even those who hurt me.
Keep me moving forward in your direction
With love, grace and humor.

Pope Arrives Incognito in London

The Sacred Music of Ippolitov-Ivanov

Allow me to reiterate...

"Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves. Do not seek for the answers that cannot be given. For you wouldn't be able to live with them. And the point is to live everything, live the questions now, and perhaps without knowing it, you will live along some day into the answers."

Rilke

"Hanaq Pachaq": A hymn to the Blessed Virgin from 17th cent. Peru

Thinking and Re-thinking

Some thoughts that have stuck in my head while reading and “daydreaming” these past few months:

I have tended to think of “praying” as a word-filled activity. Richard Rohr has a description of “praying” as “…being present when prayer occurs.” He sees prayer as a non-verbal resonance with creation and the creator, prayer as a tuning fork touching a deep, universal sounding board. Mystics have often described deep prayer as intimate: “You are so quiet you can hear God listening.” I think less people would be put off by the idea of praying if they adopted the definition of “being present when prayer occurred.”

I have tended to think of “eternity” and “infinity” and “heaven” as removed from the here and now, as what will happen and where I’ll be after this time and space; it is as if this is a separate chunk of the cosmos. I’m beginning to think of it all as seamless. Now is a part of eternity and it might be a good time to practice “living in the kingdom.”
I am trying to get away from thinking of God and heaven as “out there” or “up there.” As several writers have described it, “We are swimming in an ocean of God.” After all, “The kingdom of God is within you.”

I am always amazed when I come across new insights and interpretations of scripture, particularly the “Jesus Stories.” How many different levels of meaning it encourages. That is why I find the Fundamentalists for whom what is written is beyond interpretation (despite the long oral history behind scripture) frustrating.
For example, I was reading a commentary on the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes which suggested that after Jesus blessed the tiny portion of food they had, gave thanks for it, and began to share it with the people around him, those of the multitude who were perhaps hiding and hoarding food for themselves began to share also. Thus thousands were fed.
What I find particularly rich in this suggestion is that it does not negate the scriptural miracle, but expands it to an even greater miracle: the multiplication of generosity in the hearts of people who had after all just listened to the beatitudes.

"The Just Judge and Us"----from " In a Godward Direction"

The story of the woman taken in adultery is often cited when people are talking about the church’s responsibility to offer discernment, or even judgment, in spite of Jesus’ explicit command not to judge (Mt 7.1, Lk 6.37). It is true that this story is often misused from the liberal end of the spectrum, and people forget the final line, “Go, and do not be sinning any more.” Let us not, however, omit a crucial part of the story. After all the accusers slink away, “condemned in their own consciences” as some versions say, Jesus says to the woman, “Who has condemned you?” [i.e., Who made themselves judges over you?]. “No one,” she said. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and do not be sinning any more.”

Jesus — the only human being qualified to judge (because of Who He Is) — here refuses to judge, even in a case where guilt is clear. If he refuses to judge, how dare we presume to judge? The point of the story must be that no one who is a sinner (and all are sinners) can judge another, especially if the only sinless one, Jesus, refused to exercise that role. Jesus refuses to play the judgment game. (See also Jn 8:15-16, 12.47–49 [and 3.17–18]).

Not that he will always refuse it, nor that we will not partake in the judgment (both in the dock and on the bench). But the Judgment is reserved to the End, the Last Day. At that time, not now, Jesus and his Chosen Ones will judge the world. And his Chosen Ones include the people of Nineveh, and the Queen of the South, as well as the Apostles. (Mt 10.15, 12.41–42, 19.28; Jn 5.22-24,29, 12.48). For the time being, the world judges wrongly (Jn 16.8-11), and Jesus warns us neither to judge nor condemn on the basis of partial evidence — for until the Last Day when all is revealed, we have only partial evidence, having, as Paul says, imperfect knowledge. (Mt 7.1–5, 12.7; Luke 6.37, see also Rm 2.1–5, and Jn 7.24.)

I served jury duty over the last several weeks, and one of the instructions the judge gave at the beginning of the case was that we were to form no conclusions until we had heard all of the evidence, and then to deliberate on the basis of that evidence. (The case settled before we reached that point.)

How much better the church would be if instead of condemning and judging others we looked into our own hearts and confessed our faults (which are many) to one another, seeking the help and support of our companions in pilgrimage? And waited in patience for all to be revealed?

Here is my prayer for the church:

What kind of church we are to be? Shall it be the “O.K. Club” or “St Saviour’s Hospital”? The church of those who are at ease in Zion, or those who dwell in the exile of Babylon? Will it be the church of the Pharisee or the Publican? Of those who bind burdens, or those who liberate? The church of Caiaphas, secure in his skill, or of Cephas, who knew his failings? The church of Paul at his worst, or Paul at his best? Will it be the church of those who close the door on others, or of those who are trying to get in? Will it be the church of those for whom the Decalogue, the Summary of the Law, and the Golden Rule are not enough, or of those who know how hard it is to follow even these high standards? Will it be the church of those who are prepared to cast stones, and were condemned by their own consciences, or those whom they accuse, and whom Jesus refuses to condemn? Will it be the church of those who sit in judgment, or of those who love much, and minister to Jesus by washing his feet with their tears?

I pray our church will be a wing of St Saviour’s Hospital. There are no outpatients there, and everyone who arrives is a terminal case: they die to self, in order to rise to life everlasting. For the church is not a society of nice people who obey the rules. The church is the Body of Christ. There is no salvation in the Law. None. The Law did not and will not save us. Jesus did and will.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Life...Death...Rebirth

Good Friday Music: "Pie Jesu" and "Ave Verum Corpus" by Gabriel Faure

Sad Days Indeed

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting."

— Kahlil Gibrán

“The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places.”
— ~ Ernest Hemingway

“It’s a lot easier to be lost than found. It’s the reason we’re always searching, and rarely discovered - so many locks, not enough keys.”
— ~ Sarah Dessen

"God is Energy, Not Solace"

"One thing is missing in my prayer life, one thing I am learning but may still not believe: The presence of absence is not the absence of presence. Just because I do not feel God's presence does not mean that God is absent. It only means that prayer is not about me anymore. It is about being what I know now that God means me to be.
In fact, absence is as much proof of the bondedness called "missing you" as it is a fear of distance called "you don't love me." It is the challenge to learn to trust darkness as well as light.

--------Joan Chittister, "The Breath of the Soul"






"One cannot know God as long as one seeks to solve "the problem of God." To seek to solve the problem of God is to seek to see one's own eyes. One cannot see his own eyes because they are that with which he sees and God is the light by which we see------ by which we see not a clearly defined "object" called God, but everything else in the invisible one... We exist solely for this, to be the place He has chosen for His presence, His manifestation in the world, His epiphany." (Thomas Merton)

You Might Want to Consider Pro- Choice Arguments...

If ever Carol Gaetjens becomes unconscious with no hope of awakening, even if she could live for years in that state, she says she wants her loved ones to discontinue all forms of artificial life support.

But now there's a catch for this churchgoing Catholic woman. U.S. bishops have decided that it is not permissible to remove a feeding tube from someone who is unconscious but not dying, except in a few circumstances.

People in a persistent vegetative state, the bishops say, must be given food and water indefinitely by natural or artificial means as long as they are otherwise healthy. The new directive, which is more definitive than previous church teachings, also appears to apply broadly to any patient with a chronic illness who has lost the ability to eat or drink, including victims of strokes and people with advanced dementia.

Catholic medical institutions — including 46 hospitals and 49 nursing homes in Illinois — are bound to honor the bishops' directive, issued late last year, as they do church teachings on abortion and birth control. Officials are weighing how to interpret the guideline in various circumstances.

What happens, for example, if a patient's advance directive, which expresses that individual's end-of-life wishes, conflicts with a Catholic medical center's religious obligations?

Gaetjens, 65, said she did not know of the bishops' position until recently and finds it difficult to accept.

"It seems very authoritarian," said the Evanston resident. "I believe people's autonomy to make decisions about their own health care should be respected."
(From Chicago Tribune)
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Being male, I can only intellectually and ideologically support women when they basically say to the Bishops: "Hands off my body, you old farts!" But with this new guideline everyone can see how it feels to have your genuine and thought-out wishes brushed aside in the name of dogma and doctrine.

Theologians Extend Doctrine of “Just War” To “Just Road Rage”

VATICAN CITY – Theologians from around the world meeting in a special conclave announced last night that not only is war justified under certain conditions, so is road rage.

“In order to meet the conditions for ‘just road rage,’ the driver whose conduct prompted the rage must have done something to really piss off the person who goes into the rage,” explained Monsignor Hermann Gottlieb.

“The theologians are unanimous that only the most serious conditions justify road rage, like failing to use a turn signal or driving too slow in the fast lane.”

Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.

~G. K. Chesterton~

Six Words of Advice from Tilopa

Don't recall.
Don't imagine.
Don't think.
Don't examine.
Don't control.
Rest.

This advice consists of only six words in Tibetan. The above translation was developed to capture its brevity and directness. You might prefer this translation

Let go of what has passed.
Let go of what may come.
Let go of what is happening now.
Don't try to figure anything out.
Don't try to make anything happen.
Relax, right now, and rest.