Faith & Life Inspirational Message

I know what the three words of the title means.  Seasons of creation is a rather simple idea, but without some context, it does not mean too much.  That is how I looked at it, until I read an article that explained a season of creation is specific and something I can imagine many of us wanting to participate in and support.  Brian Roewe writes in a way that informs me and challenges me at the same time. I quote him to give us a sense of what season of creation means.  “The Season of Creation is a monthlong prayerful observance that calls the planet's 2.2 billion Christians to pray and care for God's creation.”  The month begins on September 1, which is the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.  I did not know this special day existed, but I am not surprised.  It is an opportune time to ask earth’s 2.2 billion Christians to take some stand for this beautifully created world.  That is a lot of people!  Basically, one out of nearly every...

Today is the feast day for St. Augustine.  Augustine is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of the Christian Church.  One could make a good argument that Augustine is the most important figure in that history after Jesus and the Apostle Paul.  Augustine had a powerful impact on the developing theology of the church and many related aspects of how we understand church, baptism, etc.  There are some things I wish he had not said and taught.  But about his impact, there can be no doubt. I’m not sure when I first heard about Augustine.  Quaker boys in rural Indiana usually do not run into Catholic saints.  So it is likely, it was college.  I had a pretty good Christian history class in college and no doubt would have heard of the fourth-fifth century saint at that point.  I may even have identified him or used him in an essay on an examination, but I do not remember that.  It is funny that I can remember the book we used; it w...

 Behind my house is a little river named the Rocky River.  It is appropriately named, because during the summer months, especially, when it is low, there are many rocks in and alongside the river.  I like living by this little river.  When I go out on my deck, I could throw a rock into the river, so it is close.  My baseball arm is not very good anymore, so that tells you how close to the house it is.   In fact, when we thought about buying this place, we were a little concerned that it might flood us.  But we saw a hundred years study and plan and discovered there is almost no chance we could be flooded.  I am ok with that level of risk.  I did not grow up around water, so having it outside my back door was not a necessity.  Sometimes I think I would like to live right next to the ocean, but maybe I would get tired of it.  I do like my Rocky River. It is a charming river.  It is really not that big.  But when it rains har...

I realize the title of this inspirational piece may sound a little strange.  How in the world can one incubate the Spirit?  I also realize that some people may not even be sure what the word, incubate, means.  Farmers and physicians probably know the term.  If you look it up in a dictionary, the first thing usually mentioned is incubating eggs.  Farmers think about chickens.  A mother hen will sit on the eggs until time for the chick to hatch.  In effect, the mother hen is keeping the eggs sufficiently warm---the right temperature---for nature to take its course. Physicians and folks who work in labs also would be familiar with the term, incubate.  It is similar to the mother hen.  The scientist keeps cells or bacteria in a tube the right temperature for the process to take its course.  Basically, incubation (to use it as a noun) means to control the environment for the purpose of developing whatever is in process.  Another way the ...

The title of this inspirational piece dropped into my mind without warning.  I am not sure what I was thinking about, but there it was: the privilege of possibility.  Immediately, I like the sound of it.  I like packing together words that begin with the same letter.  Alliteration, it is called.  I am not sure when this attraction to alliteration began.  I do remember the first time a friend told me that’s what I was doing.  I had never before heard the word, alliteration.  But I liked it.  And so the phrase, “the privilege of possibility,” popped into my mind.  I don’t recall thinking about the phrase, so I am willing to accept it as an instant of revelation.  I think all of us get these moments of inspiration.  I suspect most of the time we pay no attention to them, so they are missed.  They simply disappear into the mist of our forgotten history.  Somehow this one stuck.  And now I get to ponder it and play ar...

A recent article told the story of the death of Eva Fleischner, a Jewish-Catholic scholar who escaped Hitler’s Nazi horrors with her parents from her native Austria.  Mary Boys, who wrote the article, tells about an amazing woman, whom I would like to introduce and highlight in these few thoughts.  I never met Eva Fleishner, although I had heard of her.  She taught for years at Montclair State University and made her mark, not only on her students, but on people across the globe.   Fleischner escaped from Austria when she was thirteen, as she traveled first to England and then to the US in 1943.  After college, she worked for a publishing company.  1949 turned out to be a pivotal year for her.  Boys begins the article in a way that explains it.  “When Eva Fleischner left Boston for France in 1949 as a Fulbright scholar, she was engaged to be married. When her fiancé arrived in Paris to join her, she had changed her mind.  Something deeper was...

Grace and love are two key concepts for Christianity and many other major religions as well.  I can say that I am for both concepts.  I want both to be involved in my living---indeed, my daily living.  I am sure I have experienced both.  I hope I have given both to people.  That certainly would be my desire.  I suspect that authentic life and meaning are impossible without both love and grace.  And yet, many folks probably would be hard-pressed to come up with good definitions of both words and an explanation of how they work together.  That was my mindset as I was re-reading Gerald May’s book, The Awakened Heart .  I have read the book before and parts of it I have read many times.  It is one of those books I always know will give me help and challenge me, too.  I value all of May’s books and appreciate how much help he was to so many of us in the “spirituality business.”  May was a psychiatrist and long-time associated with S...

While the title may be attractive, when you realize it is actually about theology, some folks may be turned off.  Certainly, among the students I teach, theology is not always at the top of the list of things they are really hoping to spend time thinking about.  But if you have faith in something---whether it is God or some lesser god---you have some form of theology.  Obviously, this is theology very broadly defined.  Theology is basically a way of describing what and how we believe something. The title comes from a recent piece by my good friend and Franciscan friar, Dan Horan.  Dan teaches theology, but he is so much more.  He has been to my campus, we serve on a couple committees together and, I can attest, he is a great, fun guy.  He is much younger than I am and, therefore, gives me a fresh look at how a more recently educated theologian is doing the work of interacting with contemporary society and helping people---not just Catholics---make sens...

I think I must be in a season of songs.  Various songs pop into my head.  Most of them are because of the tune and, then, what words I remember come back to me.  I have enjoyed music, as everyone does, but I am not big into music.  I only messed around with a coupe instruments when I was younger.  Unfortunately, I spent too much time on sports, instead of developing at least a modicum of musical talent.  And so, at one level, it is a little odd to have music become a big part of my recent life. One song that recently came to me was the song written by John Michael Talbot, contemporary Catholic composer.  He called it “Here I Am,” which is modeled after some verses from the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah.  It is a hymn that talks about a person who hears a call and responds.  I find it both a challenge and reassuring.  It inspires me to want to listen and to be as responsive as the person Talbot describes.  It does not require a special person...

I don’t usually entitle something with a foreign phrase, especially in a language I don’t know.  But today is different: Somos el Barco, which is Spanish for “We are the Boat.”  I know a few words in Spanish and can pretend to read a little of it, mostly because it shares some words with French.  In our own country, we hear a great deal of Spanish being spoken.  In the last calendar year, I have been in California and literally right on the Texas-Mexican border.  In those places, one hears Spanish almost without ceasing.  I vowed if I lived in one of those two states, I would immediately begin learning that language. I heard the phrase, somos el barco, in a rather odd place, it would seem to most people.  I was reading about the closing of the annual conference of LCWR, an acronym for Leadership Conference of Women Religious.  This is an organization of the leaders of almost all of the Catholic religious sisters---read nuns---in this country....

Grace and love are two key concepts for Christianity and many other major religions as well.  I can say that I am for both concepts.  I want both to be involved in my living---indeed, my daily living.  I am sure I have experienced both.  I hope I have given both to people.  That certainly would be my desire.  I suspect that authentic life and meaning are impossible without both love and grace.  And yet, many folks probably would be hard-pressed to come up with good definitions of both words and an explanation of how they work together. That was my mindset as I was re-reading Gerald May’s book, The Awakened Heart .  I have read the book before and parts of it I have read many times.  It is one of those books I always know will give me help and challenge me, too.  I value all of May’s books and appreciate how much help he was to so many of us in the “spirituality business.”  May was a psychiatrist and long-time associated with Shalem...

 The point in some, if not much, of my reading is to stay current on a variety of topics.  And because I am involved in some quite different venues in my work, the reading list would be a surprise to most people.  I am involved in circles of religion and spirituality and that is fairly obvious to most people.  I am involved in other things as well, but for our purposes here, I want to unpack even more diversity.  My involvement in spirituality issues is also fairly diverse. It is no secret I am a lifelong Quaker.  I suppose after all this time, I probably will leave this world as a Quaker.  I also feel like a I am more than simply a Quaker.  I see myself in ecumenical and interfaith terms, too.  By ecumenical, I mean that I hang out with and appreciate the other Christian traditions.  No doubt, doing this with Methodists and UCC folks is easy, because they are relatively close to my own tradition.  But it is also not a secret that I...

Each day I try to be grateful for the many good things that come my way.  I don’t think I have any more good things than the normal person.  Also, I don’t think I am any more lucky than anyone else.  I think we all have some good things come our way in fairly regular fashion.  And luck is a visitor to many people.  I take these as givens.  The real choice is whether to be grateful for life.   Much of our gratitude is intentional.  I was taught at an early age to say “thanks” when people did something for me.  I have distinct memories of my dad turning to me and saying, “Now, what do you say to the nice lady?”  She may have just given me a piece of candy after our meal at the restaurant.  I am sure I was glad to get the candy, but I am also sure I was thinking, “it’s not that big a deal!”  My dad helped me see it was a big deal. And I have come to learn on my own that there are a lot of things out there that don’t seem like...

This may seem like a really odd title for an inspirational piece.  I know many people would flat out say there is nothing spiritual about golf and dismiss it out of hand.  That may well be true.  I certainly am not going to argue that golf is inherently spiritual.  Nor am I going to say that I know golf is spiritual.  My real question is whether golf can be spiritual?   This question is rooted in two aspects of reality for me.  The first is the Quaker perspective that all of life is sacred.  This is the normal Quaker way into a discussion about the sacraments.  Quakers who know something about sacramental theology would readily agree that the sacraments of the Christian Church, i.e. the eucharist, baptism and others, are sacred.  It would be silly to think that all of life is sacred, except the two things most Christians assume are sacred or sacramental.  But I know some silly Quakers!  The second aspect of reality is quite sim...

The Hebrew Bible, which Christians typically know as the Old Testament, still speaks to us.  For those of us who read and use the Bible, this is not news.  But in our culture today, it is less and less available to people as a resource for life.  In effect, this was the message of an article I recently read and want to share highlights here.  I think it is an important message of assurance in our crazy times. Carol Glatz brings in a number of scholars to make her point that the Old Testament is a guide for coping in a time of trauma.  I would agree that a large number of folks do experience this period as trauma.  It is a period that has hurt us, scared us and threatened us with unimaginable things.  It has been a trying time of loss---loss of life, jobs, security and so much more.  Even if this has not been our direct hit, so many more of us feel vulnerable to this hit.  We feel like sitting ducks. Glatz soon quotes Jesuit Biblical scholar D...

I recently saw a YouTube presentation of one of my favorite hymns, “Be Not Afraid.”  I know the tune and lyrics came from my graduate school days when the whole phenomenon of Folk Masses became quite the thing in Catholic circles.  Usually with guitars and other instruments like that, the attempt was to be more relevant to the generation represented by me.  I must admit, I liked it much better than the organ music that typically was found in churches.  Even though I was not a Catholic, I appreciated the music. And so, when I heard that tune this time, I was already prepared to enjoy it.  This rendition is made by multiple Catholic musicians, all working remotely, as is normal during pandemic times.  There must have been 25 different musicians.  One of them was Bob Dufford, who wrote the song and published it in 1975.  Dufford had not yet become a Jesuit, but later joined that outstanding group of Catholic brothers.  It led me to look a bit in...

Yesterday was one of those days.  I woke up and was already feeling alive.  I went outside to get a cup of coffee and the newspaper and could tell the weather was going to be splendid.  It was one of those early autumn days…cool in the morning, but you knew as the day wore on, it would become pleasantly warm.  It was a beautiful day.  And the best part was that I had an awareness of this and was thankful. I am afraid there have been many beautiful days and I was so unaware that I missed it.  I know there have been many beautiful days and I was upset and could not be thankful.  I am sure there have been countless beautiful days and I was so busy that I completely missed the opportunity to notice it and to be thankful. Yesterday was one of those days.  I was busy, but I was able to be aware and to give thanks.  It was a beautiful day and I took steps to enjoy it.  Given my schedule, I was able to be outside on numerous occasions. ...

The title of the article I read yesterday really caught my attention.  It talked about something “beyond happiness.”  The full title is “A New Gauge to See What’s Beyond Happiness.”  I was not put off by the idea that there might be something beyond happiness.  Of course, I enjoy being happy.  Unless one is totally crazy, everyone would enjoy being happy.  In my cynical moments I would say sadness will be a given in life.  The question is whether there will be any happiness! The author of the article, John Tierney, is working with some of Martin Seligman’s ideas.  Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, is considered the father of positive psychology.  He has done a great deal of writing focused on the happiness theme.  As the article goes on to claim, Seligman now is “seeing certain limitations of the concept (of happiness).”  It seems there might be more to life than simply being happy.  I h...

I have read much of what Thomas Merton wrote.  As many know, Merton is my favorite monk.  A few times, I have taught an upper level seminar on Merton’s spirituality.  So I have read enough to cover myself on that level.  But I have not read everything he wrote (and likely I won’t).  He wrote prolifically from the time he entered in 1941 the Trappist monastery.  He was still writing when he tragically died in Thailand in 1968. Merton is fascinating because his spirituality evolves as he continues to experience life.  One might think that living in a monastery would bring nothing new under the sun.  But Merton read, he conversed in letters, he had visitors, and he traveled a little.  And he paid attention.  He paid attention to his own life’s pilgrimage.  He knew above all that life is not static. The two areas that Merton did not change were he continued in his commitment to Roman Catholicism and he stayed true to his vow to rema...