Faith & Life Inspirational Message

On its own the title for this inspirational journey makes no sense.  Of course, the words are understandable.  Everyone knows what ordinariness is.  And sweetness is a no-brainer!  But together, who knows?  What is missing is a context. Actually, context is more important than we usually think it is.  So often, meaning is gained when we know the context.  For this phrase, “ordinariness into sweetness” (the text), to mean anything, we need other surrounding words (providing the “con,” which means “with,” for the text!).  Those surrounding words form a context.  They would shape to how we are supposed to understand “ordinariness into sweetness.” Let me build the context by making suggestions.  The first suggestion is when I came up with the phrase, “ordinariness into sweetness,” I was thinking of Halloween.  No doubt, now the “get” half of it!  Halloween---candy---sweetness!  And you are exactly right.  Everyone thinks of candy when the Halloween season approaches. In fact, you pro

Occasionally, I realize not all good ideas come from books.  It is true that many of the things I ponder and the help I get for my own spiritual journey come from the reading I do.  I feel privileged to have been taught how to read.  It is unimaginable not to be literate, but I realize half the nearly seven billion people in our world cannot read.   It is difficult to underestimate the breadth and depth brought to my life because I can read.  Just think, we can go back to ancient Greece when we read Plato or Aristotle.  We can go to first century Palestine to get a glimpse of how the apostle Paul experienced the work of the Spirit in his life and how he came to formulate his theology of early Christianity.   The great thing about literature and the ability to read is different worlds and dead people are still available to us for conversation.  I can interact with Gandhi; I can converse with Karl Marx.  I can know those early Quakers---my forefathers and mothers.  When I think about

I recently read a charming, but provocative, little essay in Brian Doyle’s book, Eight Whopping Lies .  Doyle entitles the chapter, “Our Daily Murder.”  I have found Doyle’s book so intriguing because I never know where he is going in his essays.  Doyle is a Catholic, so I was not surprised this one was fashioned as a confession.  However, in the beginning I was not sure what he was confessing. He begins the essay, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…” (30)  He continues to recount a recent school shooting in his state.  Sadly, this has been too common in the news.  In spite of this commonality, he laments his reaction and this is his confession.  In typical Doyle fashion, he speaks boldly.  He confesses, “I want to shoot the shooters.  In the head.”  He causes me to squirm a little, because he names something that I feel---at least in a slight form, so I rationalize.  And then he acknowledges, “And I was ashamed of myself, Father, because I wriggle with violent impulses, and I have p

“The Buddha diagnosed our problem as ‘mindlessness,’ meaning that we live semiconsciously because our awareness is clouded and our spiritual vision asleep.”  This comment from Roger Walsh’s book, Essential Spirituality , is a good description of our cultural norm.  And of course, if living mindlessness is a cultural norm, then it seems normal.  Most of us would not think we are living mindlessly.  That is because we seldom see any evidence or folks living mindfully. This is fascinating to me because there is so much interest today in being mindful.  It has become commonplace for businesses to offer mindfulness training.  Those kinds of classes and experiences have blossomed across college campuses.  And yet, I am confident students do not report less stress.  Maybe they do for a little bit while they are in a class or taking advantage of an 8-week mindfulness experience. What I have learned over some significant amount of time is simply having an experience may be nice and provide a go

To write about anger is not something I do easily.  Instead I know myself to be one who too often avoided getting angry, being angry or expressing.  For anyone who wants to be in control, anger is a tricky situation.  You may not be in control, the situation in which you find yourself may go into chaos and then what?  Many families have a tacit agreement that no one gets angry.  Of course, that seems really nice, but it is obviously unrealistic.  And so the anger is repressed or displaced in unfortunate ways. And so it was that I hit upon the theme of anger when I read Sister Joan Chittister’s recent editorial about anger.  Sister Joan is a globally-known Benedictine nun from Erie, PA.  She is older than I am, so she has been around for a few years!  For decades she has been a prophet within the Catholic Church and beyond.  She reminds me what Jesus might have been like.  Often her thoughts cause me to be a little uneasy, but I am sure hanging out with Jesus would have done the same th

I have many reasons to be thankful.  One of the reasons I am thankful is the fact that I am able to read some interesting material and spend time with others in conversation about that material.  Of course, for me much of that conversation time is with students.  But I really don’t like to call them students. I like to tell my students I prefer to call them colleagues.  After all, that is what a college should be doing---making colleagues.  In some areas I know more than they do.  In other areas they know more than I do.  Many are smarter than I am.  They just have not lived as long and, therefore, don’t have as much experience as I do.  But the problem with having experience is we too often think we know it all.  We become less open; we make too many assumptions.  We forget to be learners, too. Some interesting material I am reading and have the privilege of spending some time in conversation with my colleagues is from the early Christian desert fathers and mothers.  I smile as I

Doubtlessly all of us deal with failure from our early days.  We don’t always use the word, failure, to describe one-year olds who try to walk.  But I have recently watched my grandkids negotiate that momentous step in human growth.  They look like tiny drunks lurching through the living room.  They crash with frequency.  It is funny that all of us bystanders keep encouraging the young one, who has barely mastered standing up, now to take those first steps.  And then, they try.  Inevitably they fail.  And they fail often.  But they keep trying and, soon enough, to begin to walk. We don’t think about their earlier wobbly efforts as failures, but that’s what they are.  This proves the first point we all should register when we think about failure.  Failure is not always final.  Often it is part of the process.  It is part of the process of growth.  It is part of the process of development.  If the one-year old is not willing to risk, they won’t fail.  But they would never learn to walk. 

As someone who has been involved with religion in a variety of ways for more than a half century, I am familiar with the various themes that religions of all traditions must address.  Invariably these themes emerge from basic human questions.  Early on kids learn to ask these kinds of questions.  They will ask where they came from!  Fairly quickly, they will ask about God.  They might have questions surrounding death.  This death interest seems to emerge about the time they head to school.  These are not easy questions to answer. Even for me, having a Ph.D. in religion, they are not easy questions.  Of course, I know enough book knowledge to offer answers, but often they don’t seem like real answers to those asking the questions.  I find offering doctrinal answers are even less relevant.  People with real life questions don’t need or want a lecture.  And they are suspicious of official church pronouncement, standard answers from some book of doctrine or some superficial answer like,

Recently I had occasion to speak about contemplation and living the contemplative life.  Since I teach a class that focuses on that kind of topic, people assume I am an expert.  That is hardly the case.  The main reason I don’t feel like an expert is the fact that contemplative living is not that much about ideas and concepts.  It is not like theology in that sense, although it is related to theology.  Contemplative living is as much about practices and how to live life as it is how to think about life.  Contemplative living certainly does contain concepts.  This is true for Christianity, but it is just as true for Buddhism and all the rest.  For example, I can think of the Buddhist Eight-fold Path.  Of course, there are eight points to this.  But finally the Eight-fold path is about a way of life more than it is about concepts to think about Buddhism.  One of the eight aspects of the path is right speech.  Right speech sounds pretty simplistic.  And it most ways, it is simple.  It jus

I saw a friend of mine yesterday and I could tell even before she said anything that she was in a good place.  Often it is not difficult to tell when someone is feeling very well or, the opposite, very poorly.  Usually our emotions are “speaking,” even if we don’t use words. So she clearly was having a good day.  There was the inevitable smile.  There was a bounce in her step.  She leaned into the greeting.  Bad days often make us reticent in the greeting.  How we say, “hello” matters a great deal.  Her “hello” was engaging, invigorating, and empowering.  (I like those three words!  Who could imagine a simple “hello” doing such wondrous things!)? We talked a little.  She had had a good day…maybe a couple days that were very nice.  It is good when life turns out well.  The sun shines.  The breeze caresses.  Even when little troubles come our way, there is no big deal.  I love good days…who wouldn’t? After our encounter, I had a chance to reflect a little on the experience.  I lear

On a recent walk through the park area I almost always choose for my route, I noticed the sky, the air, and general sense of “place.”  This is both good and bad.  It is good that I was taking notice.  And it is bad because it lets me know how unaware I typically may be.  I know as well as anyone how important awareness is for the spiritual journey. But that day I was aware.  The keenest part of my awareness was how the late afternoon had “the feel of autumn.”  As autumn approaches, the light in the sky comes at a different angle and intensity.  At least in my part of the country, the air does not immediately go from summer to winter.  Autumn is usually announced with some cool nights and early mornings.  Then it might even get fairly warm, or even hot, during the day.   It struck me that autumn had not yet come, but I was on the edge of autumn.  I am not sure I had ever thought about it that way.  As I normally think about edges, they usually are sharp.  Maybe because it has been t

The image of a broken soul has been a powerful one for me.  Having just commented on it, I cannot leave it alone.  I have more thoughts about a theme that I think is quite important in the spiritual realm.  Oddly enough, I believe a broken soul is why so little is done spiritually in some folks’ lives.  And on the other hand, a broken soul is sometimes the driver of so much spiritual activity and growth for other folks. Let’s approach this from two directions.  As usual, language helps me think about the process.  I realize a broken soul happens in both an active way and a passive way.  When I ponder a broken soul from the active sense, I mean I do it to myself.  I “break” my soul.  I smile or shudder (both are appropriate!) because I have done this to myself so many times.   There are countless ways to “break” our souls, but the end result is the same: a broken soul.  It might be important to define what I mean by soul.  The best way I get into a definition is to acknowledge that

The title for this little inspirational piece comes from a one-liner in Brian Doyle’s exquisite book, Eight Whopping Lies .  As I get a little further into this wonderful book, I am amazed at Doyle’s skill to narrate in a succinct, clever fashion a short story that winds up being gripping and then instructive.  It has been a while since I enjoyed a book this much. Today’s focus comes in a short story simply called, “Your First Rosary.”  Since I did not grow up Catholic, I never had a first rosary.  In fact, I have never had a rosary.  I have seen them and held a few in my lifetime, but I don’t have any of my own.  Like most non-Catholics I think, I have struggled to understand and appreciate what the rosary means to Catholics.  This may not be true, but the rosary always seems to be more important for women than for the men I have known.  Typically, the Catholic young boy or girl receives the rosary at their First Communion, i.e. the first time they are at Mass when they actually take

As a Quaker, I never grew up hearing about saints.  The only exception would be to call some of the authors of the New Testament saints.  For example, folks often talked about St. Paul or one of the evangelists, such as St. John.  Since I never went to Catholic colleges, it was not often I would even hear about luminaries in church history referred to as saints.  For example, it would be Augustine, instead of St. Augustine.  Of course, if someone else called him St. Augustine or referred to St. Thomas Aquinas, I knew exactly whom they were talking about.  As I become more concentrated in the study of Christian history, I learned more about saints.  I understand some why the Catholic Church engaged the process of declaring some people to be saints.  Even though the Apostle Paul in the first verses of his letter to the Romans tells us we are all called to be saints, I know what the Catholic Church was doing was singling out a few people who had extraordinary status as saints.  And I unde

While doing some reading for a colloquium I attend, I had the occasion to read a quotation from Thomas Merton.  Of course, he is my favorite monk.  Most of all, he is my favorite because he is a man of my own time and culture.  He was older than I am, but had he not died in a tragic accident in 1968, he still could be living.  And I know some people who knew him, so that always makes it feel like you knew him, too. The article I was reading was talking about Merton’s move out of his monastery in Kentucky to a little hermitage.  A hermitage is a small place (his was two rooms).  It was only a half-mile or so from the monastery.  But it was his alone.  It put him out on his own. In the hermitage he would still continue to live as a monk.  His quest was still to seek and soak in God’s Presence.  But he would do it without community---without that corporate support system.  I must admit, I can feel the lure of that and I can experience the terror it must incite. Then I came to these

I suppose if we asked a number of different people what the point or purpose of life is, we would get a variety of answers.  I am ok with that because I am not sure there is just one answer.  If there is just one answer, I suspect most of us would assume that one answer must be the right answer.  Of course, we can think of people we would know who claim, “of course, there is one, right answer.”  I am less sure. This is not to say I don’t think there are answers.  If asked what I think the purpose of life is, I am pretty clear what my answer would be.  And I am sure not every other person would immediately say, “of course, that is exactly the case.” And I am also comfortable with the fact that a longer life or more experience might change my mind.  I want to stay open. In some ways I am more comfortable with my questions than my answers.  I know at some stages of my life this would disturb or worry me.  Early on in the spiritual journey, I assumed I would find or assumed I would be

There is a poignant moment each time I open the blank sheet on the computer screen.  It gives me some sense of what God must have felt at that beginning point in history.  At these beginning points, one real option is nothing---to do nothing.  When God or I become creative, there is a starting point. Sometimes, I just look at the screen.  Somehow it feels a little different than the old days when one took out a blank sheet of paper and picked up the pen.  For one thing, on the computer screen the curser is there, marking the spot where you will begin---if you choose to begin.  The creative process fascinates me. Sometimes, I feel like that curser is yelling at me, “Come on, type something!”  On my computer that curser flashes on and off.  That feels more demanding than if it just stayed still.  The screen---the paper---is all potentiality.  It just waits for me to act. Sometimes, I think about the first letter I will type.  What will be that first word?  There are very few single

I continue to be entertained and enlightened as I make my way slowly through Brian Doyle’s book, Eight Whopping Lies .  Doyle has an uncanny way of telling a compelling story within about two pages.  The stories originate out of real life and it is so easy to relate to the ordinariness of the story.  And then Doyle drags us deep into profundity and that is where the enlightenment emerges.  Wow, that is an amazing revelation is my normal response. Still near the front of the book is the little story Doyle entitles, “Is That Your Real Nose?”  I had no clue what this story would narrate.  I suppose I had my doubts that it would be about real noses.  So I eagerly began to read.  Doyle has a charming, simple way to engage the reader.  This entry begins with the cryptic question: “Best questions I have been asked?”  As a writer and speaker to many groups, I am sure he has been through his fair share of Q&A, as they are called.  Quickly, he tells us his favorite question.  “The best ever:

Leave it to Sister Joan Chittister to tell it like it is.  I have long admired this Benedictine Sister of the Benedictine monastery in Erie, PA, where I once had the privilege of speaking.  The only disappointing thing about that experience was Sr. Joan was out of town and did not show up.  I did not care whether she was there to listen to me, but I did want to greet her and maybe even spend a little bit of time chatting. Joan Chittister has been a Benedictine nun for a long time now.  She is a prolific writer and commentator on the spiritual life and the Church---Catholic and otherwise.  She has been a modern day prophet in our midst.  Sr. Joan has one foot in the scriptural witness to the life and ministry of Jesus and the other foot in our contemporary world with all of its problems and promises. For those who think Jesus may not be speaking to our world, I would counter that perhaps Jesus speaks through people, such as Joan Chittister.  Perhaps she is the proper spokesperson and no

I am assuming the title of this inspirational piece makes no sense.  It is a term I found within a short article I read.  I will explain.  I read quite a number of things which are potentially interesting, but I have no clue what I might glean from it and whether there will be anything of use for me.  I now read quite a bit of stuff online.  I use some social media, like YouTube and others such venues.  I certainly read beyond what most people probably consider religious literature.  But much of it somehow relates to the things I do in religion. The article I latched on to had an inviting title (for me).  The title declared, “We spent a day shadowing Google interns.”  I assume everyone knows about Google.  It is the most-used search engine.  Of course, it is the name of a business, but it is so much more than that.  The company name actually has become a verb in our language.  People talk about “googling” something.  Or we can be in a group and something comes up in the group which no

Even though I call these things I write “inspirational reflections,” I would never claim that what I think and write in these things are directly from God.  I don’t sit in my chair, plug my ears into the divine wavelength and start transcribing what God tells me in the moment.  In fact, I would not even want that if I could have it.  I don’t even want to make fun of that process.  Actually I can believe some folks are that immediately in touch with God, they do get something like direct messages.  I am ok with God working that way.  And I think I have known people who may well be so pure and connected with the Spirit, God does not need to mess around with indirect media to get the divine message across.  But I am not one of those folks. I look for inspiration in all sorts of places.  I try to keep my eyes and ears open.  I stay as aware as I can.  Whatever I read qualifies as a possible divine resource.  People with whom I talk may turn out to be angels with a mission to give me a mess