Posts

How to Find God

Image
Google Image When you fall in love, you want to think of nothing else, or no one else, but your beloved. It can be close to an obsession. If you marry, as I did over 50 years ago, love eventually transforms. You don’t expect to be always aglow with emotion, to be feverish about it. Your conversations with the other aren’t always warm and interesting. You settle into a more enduring, calmer and, in my opinion, more authentic kind of love, in which you become accustomed to think about the other’s welfare at least as much as your own, close to a real “love of neighbor as yourself.” Oh, you still have those moments in which your heart melts for your beloved, but they are balanced by the joint, day-to-day tending to the needs of living. Married Love I think this understanding of married love, at least, is analogous to what may happen when we pray, or don’t pray. Says Ronald Rolheiser, priest and theologian, in his little book, Prayer, Our Deepest Longing: “We nurse a fantasy both a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is Self-Love Overrated?

Image
Google Image There’s an ad appearing regularly on streaming video, and I assume on regular TV, showing an attractive young woman with beautiful, long black hair who has just used a hair product that has made her hair gleaming and shiny. Walking down a city street, she passes a store front with a big window and can’t resist stopping to look at her reflection, running her hand down her hair as if appreciating a luxurious garment. Her face conveys a self-satisfaction, even smugness that says, “My hair and I are beautiful. Aren’t I wonderful?” This is a message conveyed by an endless barrage of TV advertising that wants you to believe that their products – from hair and beauty products to toilet-bowl cleaners - will make you feel good about yourself. And feeling good about yourself is a cultural priority. Pop Psychology Obviously, it’s not good to feel bad about yourself, and contemporary psychology has helped us appreciate this fact. But there’s psychology as a science – which is on...
1 comment
Read more

Faith, in a Culture of Violence

Image
Google Image Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, a religious conservative, co-founder of Turning Point USA and an influential voice in the Trump administration. He was reported to have been shot in Utah by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson who was apparently opposed to Kirk’s teachings. It comes several months after the fatal shooting of Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, 55, a Democrat, and her husband, Mark. They were murdered in their home by a person described as “a far-right extremist.” An article on the website, A Mighty Girl, posted by a friend on Facebook, quotes the Center for Strategic and International Studies that between 2016 and 2025, there were 25 attacks and threats targeting elected officials, political candidates, judges and governmental employees that were motivated by partisan beliefs. It metastasizes Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, had this to say about the Kirk killing, according to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thy Will Be Done?

Image
Google Image A phrase in the “Our Father,” also called the Lord’s Prayer, has always been a problem for me. To me, this phrase expresses the aspiration that we, and everybody else, follow God’s will. And in context, the implication seems to be that God’s will will be done on the arrival of God’s kingdom (“Thy Kingdom Come”). But following God’s will is easier said than done, as expressed in the Book of Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible. Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid and unsure are our plans. For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the   mind that has many concerns. And scarce do we guess the things on earth and what is within our grasp we find   with difficulty. But when things are in heaven, who can search them out? Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high? Does It Answer the Question? Ok, this is a hin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Faith, Patience, and Endurance

Image
Google Image Interesting, isn’t it, how things can be going smoothly in your life, then all of a sudden, they’re not? Those things may be relatively insignificant, like getting cut off in traffic, misplacing a credit card, or spilling a quart of milk. Or they may be big things, like the illness of a spouse, the death of a family member, the loss of a job. So, there’s this trait called endurance, which Dictionary.com defines as “ the ability or strength to continue or last, especially despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions .” Some people just don’t have it. Others do. Some have it in spades. Harder As You Age? Endurance gets harder as you age – deserting you when you need it most. I’d like to think that I have an above average amount of endurance, that I can maintain that “bring it on” attitude in the face of the vagaries of old age. But I may be kidding myself. As I’ve mentioned before, when things go my way, I’m a saint. When they’re not, well….” I can’t resist a...
2 comments
Read more

The Kingdom of Heaven???

Image
Google Image Before moving to Colorado, my wife, Amparo, and I used to drive from Des Moines to Denver to see our daughter, Maureen, who lives in the city’s southern suburbs. Because of the homilies and the wonderful diversity of the parish, we used to make the long drive to Denver’s City Park neighborhood to attend Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola Church. The pastor, Dirk Dunfee, S.J., authored and delivered most of the homilies. He has moved on but now writes a blog that has been forwarded to me. Like his homilies, his blogs are cogent, to the point, easy to read, and sometimes funny. In the blog-writing department, I know when I’ve met my match. This recent blog is based on a gospel reading of the day about a notion that is not easy for contemporary people to grasp, the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God. Jesus uses the terms hundreds of times, but Americans, at least, have little direct experience with kingdoms so the idea may be lost on many of us. Fr. Dirk has his usual ins...
1 comment
Read more

Evolution: The Creator’s Favorite Tool?

Image
Google Image I often sit and read on the small stoop outside our house in the evenings, sometimes with “an adult beverage.” It’s usually cool and always calming. The calming effect is partially due to the two beautiful trees in our tiny front yard. One is a 25-foot Ponderosa Pine. With its gnarly limbs and long, slim needles, it appears to be much older than it is. The other tree is, according to the plant ID app on my phone, a type of fruitless crabapple. It’s not a particularly elegant tree, but at about ¾ the height of the Ponderosa and with its deciduous leaves, it provides more than its share of shade. And both trees attract a variety of birds, many who sing their hearts out. I usually sit there late in the afternoon when there’s almost always a cool breeze, reminding me of one of my favorite passages from the book of Genesis, which provides an image of God that is so human, it makes it a bit easier to relate to the divine: “The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God...
Post a Comment
Read more