Faith & Life Inspirational Message

       What is life all about?  That is the central question Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits in the sixteenth century, wanted to address, according to Jesuit scholar David Fleming.  Fleming offers his own sense of what Ignatian spirituality brings to the table.  Fleming says, “Here is Ignatius’s answer: a vision of God for our hearts, not our minds.” (17)  Fleming tells us the answer to what life is all about is a vision.  It reminds me of the biblical passage, which tells us without vision a people perish.  That always seemed true to me.  And so it is I can agree with the sixteenth century Spanish saint.  Visions lead to life.       Visions typically are future tense.  While we might talk about visions we had in the past, they are just that.  They are relics of the past.  We may have accomplished that vision.  We may have fallen short.  It guided action for a while---maybe a long while.  A vision born of the past might still be relevant, but it is relevant only because ther

  >  Events FAITH & LIFE LECTURE SERIES Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email February 24, 2022 Three presentations on the theme "Awakening the Dead: The Power of Music and Art as Hope for the Living"  with Dr. Christopher Pramuk In his book "The Artist Alive: Explorations in Music, Art and Theology," Dr. Christopher Pramuk suggests that what divides us across so many explosive fault lines today — political and religious, racial and economic — is rooted ultimately in a profound poverty and captivity of imagination. The poets and prophets, artists and saints, awaken our capacity to see and feel from within the life-worlds of others, including the ancestors, the forgotten dead. Wednesday, February 23 at 7:30 p.m. "You Can’t Blow Out a Fire: Singing the Power of Resurrection Faith" Lindsay-Crossman Chapel Dr. Pramuk will explore with us the fertile boundaries between the artistic and prophetic imagination and the galvanizing relationship in movements for soc

     In her wonderful book, The Seeker and the Monk, Sophfronia Scott tells an interesting story about attending a lecture with a bunch of her friends. An important part of the story is the trip to the lecture. There were enough of her friends, they needed a few cars to make the trip. She says that the speech was amazingly good. It precipitated a riveting discussion among the friends in the car she was riding as they returned home. The she shares this part of the story. “A few days later, I was surprised to learn the people in the other cars didn’t discuss the talk on the drive home---at all.” (88)      As she pondered this, she reached an insightful conclusion. She comments, “…I came to understand, with compassion, how most people deal with their lives and spirituality: they simply don’t engage. They don’t attend to the interior life, to the questions and ideas that arise.” She makes one further observation. “They didn’t want to think about the spirituality that might turn their lives

       One of the things I am convinced is true about spirituality is that it is not always about sunshine, laughter, and good times.  Anyone who has lived knows that life is not just sunshine, laughter, and good times.  I suppose many of us might wish that were true.  But it is not and there is no use in hoping for something that is not realistic.      Maybe the one place where the illusion that life is sunshine, laughter, and good times always seems true is in the first blushes of a romantic relationship.  When you meet “that one” who becomes the sole center of attention, then life does seem to be sunshine, laughter, and good times.  For a short while, this may well be true.  In fact, it often seems too good to be true.  And it is!      I don’t know how many times I have heard people tell someone who has experienced death in a family or some other tragedy that “time heals.”  Of course, that usually is true…but it does take time for the healing to take place.  And in the beginning it

     Sister Joan Chittister from the wonderful Benedictine monastery in Erie has written another reflection. I have admitted before, whenever she writes anything, I will read it and ponder it. Sister Joan has been at it a long time. She has been heralded world-wide for her prophetic witness in the greater church---not only the Catholic Church nor even in the larger Christian tradition. Chittister has been a tireless worker for peace and justice. She challenges me in very good ways. If I want to take my faith seriously, I cannot ignore her.      Her latest piece is on one of the Beatitudes found in the Sermon on the Mount speech as Matthew presents it. Chittister begins in her normal, ornery way. She confesses that much of the stuff in the Bible needs interpretation and some nuance to be relevant to our twenty-first century. Anyone who has struggled with parts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) should agree. But having said that, Chittister then claims “not everything in Scripture lies

       During this tumultuous time of COVID-19, human behavior becomes really wacky.  Of course, there are the saints who always emerge and serve as a role model.  They stun us with their selfless acts and genuine concern for others.  Sometimes they pass by the second mile and go the third mile.  Instinctively it seems, they know what to say and what to do.  There is a grace in the way they go about even little things.  Blessings somehow exude from their very presence.      And then there are the rest of us---me included.  For us, grace is the name of some girl in high school!  Our actions seem choppy and clunky compared to the holy ones.  Instead of eloquence, we stammer our weak words of encouragement or help.  Rather than the ease of our dominant hand, we apparently are stuck with the less fluid other hand---in my case, the left hand.  Our timing is not as perfectly executed as the saints manage to do.  They seem flawless and we are covered with flaws.  We try; it’s not our motivati

       One of the things I began to realize as a Quaker boy growing up in the middle of last century was that I was deprived!  When your world is small and provincial, you have very little to compare.  It is easy to assume people are all basically just like you are.  You assume most people live just like you live and have relatively the same amount of money, etc.  I figured I was normal and that was the deal life dealt to most people.  I was ok.      But then I went to school.   Back then, going to school was usually the window out of one’s provincialism.  I suddenly confronted “difference.”  Of course, I have to smile.  Back then, difference consisted of farm boy having to spend time with very small town “city kids.”  But they were really different.  They seldom wore blue jeans.  They did not have to milk cows nor drive tractors.  They did not know a bull from a heifer!  I was farm-smart, but they did not care.  They had a city, street-kind of sophistication---or so it seemed to me. 

     I like stories about encountering people who challenge and change lives. I encountered on such story recently when I read Marybeth Christie Redmond’s story of her encounter with Desmond Tutu. This was timely, since Tutu’s death. His story is now finished, but his legacy lives on. I am sure it will continue to challenge and change lives. I never met Tutu and I don’t know Redmond. But after reading her story, I felt like I was right there in the middle of the story.      Redmond describes herself as a writer and former member of the Vermont Assembly---the governing body of that state. She begins telling her story of her encounter with Tutu in the mid 80s with this simple line. “On an unremarkable day, a most remarkable interview would reroute the trajectory of my life.” She had just graduated from Notre Dame and was working as a tv journalist for a local station. Her boss asked her to “do a quick interview” of someone important who was to speak that night at the university.      She

       Yesterday was Super Sunday. In fact, it was another in the long line of Super Sundays (LVI). I spend morning with a bunch of college students…first year to seniors on my campus. As I look out over their young faces, I realized they never knew life without professional football’s Super Sunday. In their lives there has always been a Super Bowl!      I think they are a little stunned when I tell them I remember a time in American when there was no Super Bowl! Of course, that makes me old! In fact, it is a little difficult for me to remember those early Super Bowl days. But I do recall (I think) the third Super Bowl (III). That was the year Joe Namath, quarterback for the New York Jets, prophetically called the victory over the Baltimore Colts, the heavy favorite. More than anything, that probably made the Super Bowl what it was to become.      Yesterday each thirty-second commercial costs $7,000,000! That blows away my mind. $7,000,000 is a great deal of money. But then, you think,

       Insight is often contained within a story. And a story is often grounded and grows out of an experience. I thought about this sequence as I reflected on an insight which came to me today. The experience was simple and uneventful. My experience was agreeing to take my young grandson to preschool. When my wife is out of town, I am usually the backup for my daughter’s multiple needs. Like many parents of younger kids, she tries to balance a demanding job, two kids and all the rest of her life. I am sure it is more difficult today than when we were bringing up our two kids.      So dutifully, I showed up at her house early in the morning. My grandson said goodbye to his older sister as she left early for her school. Almost immediately, his mom took off for her day job of being a physician. It was just the two of us standing in the dining room. He is in his first year of preschool, so everything is new---and probably somewhat scary for one his age. But maybe that is just how I projec

I lived long enough and taught long enough, I recognize for myself, at least, there are some basic human truths.  I am not bold enough to claim I know these truths are truths for everyone, but I also know they are true for me.  And they are true for many of the people I spend time with---students, coaches and so forth.  What this means in some ways is life efficiency.  It seems funny to write that, because in many ways I am not very concerned about efficiency.  But by life efficiency I mean I don’t spend time anymore wondering if these things are true for me.           I can give you three examples of human truths for me.  These three come from the work of Gerald May, the late psychiatrist and long-time teacher at Shalem, the spirituality center in Washington, DC.  May says that humans aim for three things in life: identity, meaning and belonging.  I have thought about that quite a bit and I concur.  It is true for me personally and it seems true for many with whom I spend time.  There

     After a few decades of teaching, I have learned some things. A person would be a fool to claim he or she has seen everything. Humans are capable of incredible novelty, so things continue to happen in the classroom and outside that I never would have imagined. A long time ago (1966), Clint Eastwood was in a mediocre movie called, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” I think that probably characterizes so much of life. We see all three elements.      I would like to comment on one major thing I have come to expect in the classroom full of students. Very often, there is a subterranean level in the life of students that usually does not show. I may or may not come to know about it. And this subterranean level of life comes as the good, the bad and the ugly. When it surfaces, I am always amazed and grateful. Allow me to offer some detail.      What I mean by the subterranean level of life is the “stuff” of life that is going on in a student, but an outside observer does not see it nor can

        I have the pleasure of being part of a small group which meets online. We began shortly after the start of the Covid pandemic and just keep going. Many of the folks are people who have been part of my life at one point. A couple others are now friends, but they came to the group with someone else’s guidance. There is nothing unique about us or even distinctive. Our purpose in gathering is very simple. We want to explore life and talk about life from a spiritual perspective.          I am not the leader. If we have a leader, it is the Spirit. It is wonderful to be part of a group which is so meaningful, but does not have to achieve and accomplish anything. I am content to see it as a gift. I am even willing to think that we are a gift of the Spirit to each other. At the spiritual level, life may actually be that way. However, too often we are too busy living our lives in the way we intend, such that we miss the pure giftedness of life itself. I am grateful to have hints and sign

     I like finding things that resonate with my way of thinking or link with something that is important to me. Recently, I happened upon a short article by a retired pediatrician. It was clear the guy, Allan LaReau, was also a man of faith. His article is entitled, “When a sign is a wink from God.” I confess I am intrigued with winks and winking. They are a cool non-verbal way of communicating. I recall a few years ago when one of my granddaughters was still pretty young, I taught her how to wink. It was funny to watch her contort her face to try to make only one eye close. Doing the wink in real time for her meant closing and opening the eye at what must have felt like the speed of light! She succeeded in learning and it is one of our favorite ways of “speaking.”      When I saw the title of LaReau’s article, I thought I might know where he was going, but I was interested in seeing what exactly he would do. The author begins his story by recounting seeing a sign hanging over a firep

       Recently, I had took the opportunity to read much of Ilia Delio’s writings. As both a scientist and theologian, Delio brings an unusual perspective to the task of making sense of our faith in this increasingly technological world. I have spent some time with her and find her fascinating to listen to her describe the questions and concerns of the young people she teaches at Villanova, while at the same time trying to live as a Franciscan Sister in the 21st century.      I appreciate how she challenges me, since I also spend my time teaching young people in a college setting. I am very aware that my college requires students to take classes in the sciences. I am also aware of the kinds of things they will be taught in some of those classes. I know that too much of the faith tradition within Christianity is content with theologies from a pre-science time long ago. That does not make those theologies wrong, but it does mean they often seem dated and inadequate. I also now to suggest