When faced with a pastoral or parenting dilemma, we need to focus on what is possible. How to lead the person to the next virtuous choice that is within reach. Step by step a solution emerges. Always look for the grace in the moment rather than gap between ones ideal and practice.
Co-Dependent Quicksand
Truth like a Stone
“truth is like a precious stone, offer it in your hand, and it draws others to you, Hurl it at someone, and it causes injury”
Pope Francis
Three Things We Need
A deep sense we are loved
Activity that is meaningful
A future in which to hope.
Suburban Flight
I take my dog for walks on the neatly poured sidewalk. The grass plots are cut with perfect straight edges against the path. There are little white flags on some, warning of chemical treatments. Weeds have been banished and foreign grasses conquered, yielding a pure rug of verdant fescue.
Beneath these pristine plots lies a deeper plot, rooted in the common sod of human nature. New homes, Vaulted ceilings and granite counters cannot alter the human project. The false self must still be shed completely. And the foggy illusion of separateness and security unmasked by the clear and real pain of neighbor-suffering and frailty.
This working out of ones salvation in fear and trembling, this project of becoming human, should not be covered up or cluttered over. Nor should it be undertaken alone.
On my summer evening walks, the garages are open and the owners of these pristine plots are working hard to maintain their accumulated stuff. There are red Corvettes and black Harley’s, ATVs with bulbous knobby tires, and all kinds of clean looking power tools. Riding mowers, weed-wackers, and leaf blowers. The same stuff duplicates from man-cave to man-cave, adding more volume for the assembly plants in Mexico, and the American big box stores. Each thing needs cleaning and maintaining, each having it own weight and pull. Why do I fee so heavy? Am I secretly attached or drawn to this shinny mechanical stuff? Or do I morn for the souls who are attached? I don’t own as much as my neighbors, yet I feel the weight of their stuff clinging onto me.
My heart is heavy and I don’t know what to do. I am both participant and alien. Culpable in my own flight into isolation and comfort. The melancholy of late summer hangs heavy in the air. Each breath, like a hard pull on an old mower. The crickets are buzzing in loud screams of boredom, and TV images flicker in the windows, flashing disasters and violence among distant people’s. This illusion of separateness, this flight into false security, and consumerism is tearing me up inside. My back aches and burns, tightening in cords. Is it Jeremiah burning or just the dry rotting of age? Lord, wake me up, and send me somewhere, to someone.
But son, I have sent you here.
Temperance and Detachment
These two virtues can be summarized by the phrase:
“Things are to be used, people are to be loved”
Self Indulgence and inordinate attachment to things often leads to sadness, loneliness, and boredom.
Temperance is having the proper balance in the use of things , and Detachment is the ability to hold lightly the goods that we receive without inordinately clinging to them. These two virtues are not easy to acquire or keep. It is a lifelong battle, but one that is worth never giving up on. Two steps forward and one stop back. It is a constant struggle for self control and spiritual maturity, but without it, there is no peace and joy.
If we seek first comfort and pleasure, and try to grasp them tightly, the peace and joy that we are really seeking, will slip through our grasp.
Our culture confuses peace and joy with comfort and pleasure. There is a big difference!
To Become Love we must be Fearless
Fear is perhaps the biggest obstacle to love because it holds us within ourselves. Fear is a form of clinging to a false security and and identity.
Love is a self emptying. It requires a leap into the unknown, with no guarantee of safety. It is like being tied to the mast of a ship that is sinking, but sinking into fullness. Ultimately it is a gift, a grace that fills us up just when we feel we have reached the end of ourselves.
Our separation from God is an illusion, our vulnerability is an illusion. We are safe in the Father’s hands. And yet we are still afraid.
It is the ego and the false self that make us so vulnerable. It takes courage to let them die.
Thoughts, Habits, and Friends
We are all born into a battle. Our thoughts and habits are the chief battleground. The best defense is a good offense. If we choose which thoughts we will hold onto and let the others pass by we are on the offensive. If we hold to our good habits even when the going gets tough, we are on offense. However, the moment we start entertaining our fears and negative thoughts, we are in retreat and on the defensive. Our habits will soon follow our thoughts and then our defenses become further weakened and we find ourselves out in the open and vulnerable. If we are surrounded by good friends and we are open with them, then we still have a great defense, even out in the open field of battle.
So it comes down to the thoughts we chose, the habits we form and the friends we keep.
The Prayer of Weakness
Can I take my fatigue, and sense of powerlessness and just let that be my prayer? No words, no concepts, just let the felt weakness be the doorway, the entrance in.
If I am called to transformation and a higher state of awareness and service to others, it will not come by escaping my situation or dreaming or wishing for a different circumstance. It is making use of “what is” that reveals the path. When your limitations become a prayer, and your happiness is grounded in just being, rather than doing, and your guilt and regrets dissolve into gratitude, then you know the “Kingdom of God is within You”
Ego Free Companion
I love to look into my dog Holly’s eyes and talk to her. Of course if I want to have a dialog then I have to answer for her.
It goes something like this:
Me:
“What’s it all about ? Do you feel any sense of purpose and meaning?”
Holly:
“I want to eat, sleep, and be with you”
Me:
“Is there anything else you want?”
Holly:
“Nope. I am here to be with you”
There is something deep and rich about the humble loyalty of a dog.
What if I were so humble and so available to others?
What if I could truly say that —
“Life is not about me, I am about life”
(unknown)