Prayer of Endurance

 

Prayer in such a place; imagine !

It is summertime in Seattle, and yesterday was very hot, by our standards. Occasionally we hit 90 or above, fahrenheit, but usually the air flow shifts and ocean air flows in with its characteristic cool temperatures and normal moisture content. I remember years when I had to walk through snow that had accumulated to my hips, and it was treacherous going. Getting on or off a bus was a challenge; the snow had piled up, the bus is abnormally far away from the curb and you had to struggle to get on the bus. It doesn't generally stick around for long, and the snow pack in the mountains is prodigious, making for merry hearts for skiiers. This year might be one of those years when the skiirers are ecstatic and everyone else either hunkers down at or sets in for a siege against the snow and ice until the weather changes and the ice and snow are melted by warmer air

You might think that it ought not to matter to a hermit or a monk, but winter can be a challenge. Some ot the old eremitical orders had wood stoves and piles of wood for heating the cell. Whether it is cold or hot, weather is undeniable. A wool habit is fine for winter, but innappropriate for summer. If the abbot decides it is too hot to work and wear the habit at a certain point, he can call for removing part of the habit to relieve the struggle in the heat.

Father Lewis of the Kentuckey Trappists related such occaisions as being noteworthy. Very little things can become significant in a monk's life or the life of a hermit. Whlle penance is beneficial in a spiritual life, after a certain point, it becomes more than intrusive, and tends to be a distraction; hence removing part of the habit to relieve the heat becomes a moment of grace.

enduring the attitude of the political climate in the world becomes a spiritual matter when I intrudes in our attitude to God and fellow human beings. 

There are millions in the world, after all, who endure exactly the same heat or worse in Saia Europe, from time to time, and one might questions what happens to the merit collected in enduring the unendurable. There are people in the world who live without food or water, and no one recognizes their merit for enduring to the bitter end; people die of thirst and hunger, and their brothers in the world think nothing about it as they trudge through the shimmering desert trying to reach water and food. Women and children are caught up in the fury of the weather with no escape, and life goes on.

Prayer is like the fragrance of a rose. It is there for a moment, then fades from sight, and the monk or hermit who markes its passage is carried on the wind of its passing. One might remember such occasions for a long time. A person enduting many such days reaches a point when the question arises, how long, O Lord?

Contrasts

 

I got my mail, a letter from the Democratic Party and a letter from the director of the orphanage to which I contribute. I read the letter from the director first, thanking me for my prayers and contributions. Then I opened the other letter from the Democratic Party. I was suddenly stunned by the incredible difference brtween the two. One is from a man who takes care of homeless children in Belize, thanking me for partnering with him through my donations. I can't send very much, but then the only important thing is that I send something every month and try to include a little more if I can.

The other was worried about the money the political opposition has been given by those who think they can buy an election. One man is worried that he has such small resources, and the other bewailed the hundreds of thousands of dollars they must surmount somehow.

The orphanage is in a spot near Mexico, Belize and Cuba where people live in a potential disaster zone every year in the summertime. The man from the Democratic party doesn't have to worry about where his next meal will come from or whether he will have a safe place to sleep tonight.

In my mind, the opposite party is demonic, and the people running it are visitors from hell, not caring if anyone needs resources to have something to eat or a place to sleep that is warm in the cold and dry in the rain. Every cent someone gives whose people is a punch in the face to orphans the homeless the elderly and the poor who barely survive day to day. They also could care less if the people have jobs or medical care or can afford groceries or money for bills and education. 

Remember this; every cent going to the republican party is going to the enemies of the human race and a servant of hell.

Courage

The sounds of love don't just happen, you have to make them :).

 

To follow nature month by month and year by year, means acknowledging we are susceptible to the same forces of nature as the animals. All of us are subject to the will of God. The most we can do is love Him.

Fathers

I never met anyone who captured my entire fascination enough to settle down together with them and found a life together. That becomes starkly apparent when father's day arrive, and people around me are having lttle babies and boucing them on their kees with delight <s>. I have offered my potentilaities to Jesus to do with what He pleases. No one goes through life unrecognised, and when God recognises you, it is before witnesses who bestow their approval. It may not be apparent to me, but it seems to be apparent to others. Those who engage  a soul in recognition are lit by the light of God's love, that we took the time, to honor Him with a gift of their time and love for one of His own.

We honor one another with special garments, while God honors us with the garment of His Being, always perfecting us as we wander through life, hoping we measure up to His expectation, knowing, nonetheless, that we can never offer anything so perfect as to surpass His gifts to us.

Happy Father's Day to all fathers :).

Beginnings

 

It is so soon gone, but it is only one word in the endless stream of His Heart.

It is quiet; not entirely silent, because of all the automobile traffic in the distance. I live alone, except for the fact that I live in a room surrounded everywhree with rooms just like mine, where people live their daily lives, surrounded themsleves by other people in the same reality.

So it doesn't, or shouldn't, take long to ascertain that in the noise and surrounded by people, I live in a very small quantum of silence, neverltheless surrounded by silence and solitude. The combat and the issues of life take place in the midst of these illusions. When you take up the hermit life, you immediately are immersed in an opaque nuance of meaning. However well He has hidden Himself, God is already there in the circumastances of reality as you perceive it or it surrounds you in matter of fact reality.

The opportunity to gree Him is immediately present, regardless of how He chooses to announce Himslef, He will nevertheless announce Himself in the silence and the solitude.

If all the cars and freeways disappeared in an instant, the bare reality of truth would be immediately available and  impinge on the senses without hesitation, and reality of being in yourself in the immensity of the real is immediately apparent, though the simplicity apparent may be deceiving.

You need not sria dn inch, or set out on a treks in the desert to find yourself or reality. They are already there and immediately available.

One might mistake the starkness for the totality of reality. Encountering it over time places you immediately present to them and they to you. Your heart continues to beat, and you continue to breath.

The beginning comes when you are confronted with needing to define what you should do, and what you should think. It is for this moment you wrote you rule and began to do what nothingness should be doing.

Great saints may have already inhabited your place, and you might wonder if they might address you where you are, or if they would announce themselves demanding your plan for your life.

Trust that you will be deported as you should be and that you will be inspired to payer. You must at some early moment announce yourself by praying and listening. You should learn to be silent when you pray, and your thoughts corralled and subordinated to God by your will. THe love in His Heart will either respond immediately, or He may defer His announcement. Whether you see Him or not is determined by His own Will, and if you never perceive the announcement of His presence, does not mean He has not spoken nor that He has never been present. You are where you are by His Will and you should set your heart to acknowledge Him affectionately. You may wonder if there is any way in which to present yourself or array yourself to Him, but do not take too long, because He may have severl lifetimes worth of things to say to you if you are available and aligned to Him.

The greatest sin of modern time is that none of what I have already said happens, and the Lord is disapointed. In the midst of turmoil and chaos, He is still present and still disposed to lsiten to you and act immediately to offer Himself to you and you to Him in being which is contemplative prayer.

One may or may not find contemplation or experience it in his walk. Just do not dail to realize that you are walking, next to Him. Be avaialbe to Him and He will be availalbe to you. Do not worry about the kind of attention you elicit, or that you will elicit from Him. One word has seven meanings so you can never exhaust His Heart. It will always be there.

You may encounter Him on the cross, or you may encounter Him ascending into heaven. I can only encount a tiny amount of His pain, but I have grown attached to it so that it must be in some encounter or I fret. He always creates space into which He might pour encounters and meanings and realities you could not have imagined, but if it is from Him, it will always lift you up and for even an instant, you will be aware, and it will be sufficient to fill eternity if He leads you.

Peace

 Regardless of the ease it represents, giving Microsoft exactly what they want simply makes no sense, any more than giving in to any bully thief or pervert. They all represent occasions to let them take what they have nor ight to.

People have no right to complain if they give away their trust without complaint or objection thinking something good will spring up from the dung heap of their plans.

Having a virulently narcissisitc president into whom government  pours money is siomply obscene, especially when the largesse involved is inevitably stolen from the people to support those who make the bombs and technology with which to carry out predatory policies of warfare.

The result of the grossity of the theft incurred is the tragedy of lost lives, both of our citizens or the citizens of countries suffering the oblitteration of their society.

Peace is never the result of threats and insinuations. It is the result of good faith and the acknowledgement that people are human beings, entitled to live in safety and safety. In a real sense, peace is the result of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, and in those societies where that is recognised, there is peace and safety, but not otherwise. Those peoples who respect one another and support one another welcome diversity and the creativity. Where there is neither, there is only violence, destruction and death. We must make it true in our hearts so that they unite to Christ's Sacred Heart and the sacrifice of His Mother in giving Herself to Christ for our sake. There can be no peace where it is not requested of the Mother of God. One of the hallmarks of Her presence in peace. It is quiet around Her, and around Jesus so that if you crave peace and quiet, you turn to Mary and Jesus together as advocates of the fulfillment of ourselves, because fulfillment is the natural and abundant outcome of encounters with God.

Willingness

 

The accidents of reality inexorably point to the truth.

One of the hall marks of maturity, spiritually or otherwise, is accepting reality. A man who has visions and spiritual prodigies occurring in his life would be suspect if he refused to do the will of God when it is unambiguously known.

A man who will not immediately accept the will of God is not holy nor in any way special despite prophesies and spiritual occurrences. The enemy knows how to make a man float in the air, but God knows how to reward an obedient soul. Insisting on having one's own way in spiritual matters is not sign of holiness, but of selfishness.

That is why penances help to clarify, by revealing that a correction is needed in one's path. If a man can't alter the course of his life, but stubbornly hangs on to his own notions of what God wants, knows very little of the will of God. The Lord accepted the Father's plan and the Father's will, and went to the cross to die, so we would have hope in the depths of despair, and light in the deepest night.

How can a man so cling to his own judgement and will if he sees God and His Will but will not admit he is wrong? It is possible everyone else is wrong and the individual is right, but the Will of God is always clarified because He is the truth.

God loves His people, each one, individually as well as corporately. He will tolerate stubbornness and respect the individual will, but He must safeguard everyone at the same time, and that may mean that reality falls on everyone in the midst of catastrophe. That is the explanation for why catastrophes happen to good people in spite of the consequences.  Civilizations have been swallowed in annihilation despite the decency of their lives. We know that His love motivates all He does, but He will cleave to His Will when we would wish otherwise, but to defy Him because of His will is a dangerous circumstance.

Hundreds of thousands died in the cataclysm at Krakatoa, and the mountain is being reborn by the same processes of nature, and other places show signs of volcanic eruptions imminent shortly, and undoubtedly, many people will die again because of such things. We must offer prayers for people that they will be found honest and decent on the day they stand before God, having left behind this life.

The desire to belong to Jesus must be stronger than your own will, and stronger than the desire to be safeguarded and preserved against destruction. Therefore one's prayer must be toward submission to His will. We are not owed any explanation, because we do not have the same view by which to judge. 

Dictators throughout history have insisted doggedly on having their own will, even when it was pointed out that it was not in people's best interest. Their arrogance insisted on their own will, and they had to watch as everything was destroyed. Our prayers should be to ask for the grace to accept God's will regardless of what anyone else wants. Our prayers for our sisters and brothers must be for the grace to do God's will.