Winter 2009
Third Week of Lent
A million decisions
Ten Commandments
Do the math.
My eldest son gets upset sometimes when I offer to do things for people. He has the ”don’t let people take advantage of you” attitude my father used to have. It’s very sweet. But, It’s not an issue of being taken advantage of, but rather an attempt to work off bad karma I’ve accumulated by doing good. Every choice should be a conscious choice. Making good choices is a daily discipline. The reign of God is undermined by the random acts of evil and selfishness practiced by the “too many” in the world. Whatever rule or guide, whether the 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Eightfold Path; follow one if it leads to goodness and peace.
Second Week of Lent
Abraham’s plan
Carried out today
On battlefield altars.
The story of Abraham’s sacrifical offering of Issac is a difficult one to understand. Did Sarah know where he went with their son? Sacrificing your child to please the gods is nothing short of demonic. Was God testing Abraham or were the writers making the point that the God of Israel isn’t interested in the blood of children? I vote for the later. Human sacrifice was not all that uncommon and getting the word from God that a ram will do was a welcome break from tradition.
Perhaps we need to take a lesson from Father Abraham when it comes to the way we sacrifice our young men and women in war. Time has come to find a new way of solving conflict. Drinking more tea with the enemy might be a first step in Afghanistan. Now that Obama is in charge we need to reset the body count. The war that was wrong is still is wrong. A timeline to leave is not a solution. The peace community and liberal types like myself should be no more tolerant of the war under Obama than we were of the war under Bush. War is the problem, whether it is directed by a W or an O.
First Week of Lent
Casting my net
Into the me
Coming up empty.
If I was a Zen buddhist this haiku would be something to chant om about. But, the emptiness I speak of is more of a “nothing happening yet{” comment. Perhaps I need to fast or say a few thousand rosaries or confess my sins to a complete stranger. Lent is a time for relfecting on the purpose of faith and to clarify what it is we are called to do an be. With this in mind an empty net might be beter than a full plate of meaningless chatter. Time to stick a stone in my mouth and just listen.
Ash Wednesday, 2009
Lenten journey begins
Destination nowhere
Now, here.
The lunch ladies saved me a cup of cream of chicken soup today. It was such an act of simple kindness. If I hadn’t been so busy feeding 150 students curry rice I would have indulged. When I saw them they inquired as to what happenned and why I didn’t show up in the lunch line. I blurted out, “I’m Catholic.” This, coming from the same person who used to pass out Hersey chocolate bars to the diocesan staff on Ash Wednesdays. This Lent is different. I’m not planning on turning conservative, but I would like to take a lenten journey. The tradition of fasting and praying might help me reach my destination ~ nowhere, the now and here.
Religion is mostly sideshow and sham. But, despite its shortcomings, it has something to offer the soul in search. There is so much religious knowledge and belief that needs to be thrown overboard. I hope and pray that I can really clean heart and head this Lenten season.
Week of February 15, 2009
Ablated
Electrophysiological adventure
I recently had a camera and a few live wires shoved up my crotch and into my heart. Once in, the doctors started zapping away and charcoaling my ventricles. They said that we wouldn’t know if the procedure worked for a month. So, while waiting for the bruises to fade, I’m popping my pills and opening the bills.
The best thing about the surgery was the response from family and friends. First of all, Kate and I had to go in to Chicago for two nights for the procedure. We realized that we had to leave the boys behind and arrange for them to get to school, etc. Our amazing and wonderful niece, Jamie, came to the rescue. Her generosity and kindness is overwhelming. She is a chip off her grandmother. She made my heart feel better long before I went under. I also am so thankful for the Zubas who sent dinner over when we were gone. The waiting room was filled with all my favorite people. All the cards and concern expressed by the people in my life are the medicine that make me whole.
Week of February 8, 2009
Change we can believe in
Neither candidate or creed
Darwin.
People misunderstood Charles. He was a mystic in the mud, a buddha amongst the butterflies. Religious types were the first to try to crucify him for his courage to speak what he believed to be the truth. The truth of evolution is all around us. Some specifics may need to be fine tuned, but the generalities can set us free. Free to understand where we came from, and free to see how we truly are one body of creation.
Week of February 1, 2009
Advocate of the anti-Semite
Harborer of homophobes
Vicar of vice.
Ratzinger has returned! Roman Catholics should feel moral outrage due to the recent actions of Pope Benedict. His decision to revoke the excommunication of Richard Williamson, who has denied the Holocaust is a insult to all Jews. Pope Benedict’s appointment of a man who claims that Hurricane Katrina was God’s divine retribution for sexual permissiveness, including tolerance for homosexuality, is equally stunning. The American Catholic people and hierarchy need to raise the question of Pope Benedict’s poor judgement and his ability to fufill his duty to provide moral leadership .
Week of January 25, 2009
Corporate Caligulas
Overlords of opulence
Consciousness in commode.
John Thain and those like him for whom money is not an issue have issues. The more you spend your days spending, the farther away you drift from the common human experience of making ends meet. The opulent rich are disconnected. Wealth can’t buy humanity. Unrestrained consumption leads to addiction, obesity, and even spiritual death. What we own, redecorate, or identify with is all maya, a.k.a., illusion. In the end, we only can take with us what we can fit in our coffin, and not everything makes the journey. I pity those who spend tens of thousands on their toilets.
Week of January 18, 2009
After the party is over
A black man will be responsible
To clean up the place.
My 7th grade students were taken aback over the big deal I was making about the inauguration of Barack Obama. They understood the excitement, but not the tears. In their experience , the presences of an African –American male, a women and a few white guys running for the oval office is normative. A classroom filled with kids from every corner of the racial and ethnic spectrum is what is familiar. The fastest growing population in my school needs to mark the “other” box on forms which haven’t updated to “multiracial”. What is amazing and overwhelming for one generation is no big deal for another.
My mother referred to the inauguration as the beginning of the true America. My students are the sons and daughters of former slaves and slave owners that hold hands together (and more than that!). I have warned my students, “racism is not dead.” I’ve also let them know that discrimination and prejudice have suffered a severe blow. Long ago the words “ All men are created equal” were penned in the Preamble of the Constitution. For the longest time these words remained hollow and empty. Now they can be proclaimed anew.
Week of January 11, 2009
Reign of Cheney ends
Pimping of democracy done
Let America be America again.
The Cheney administration has met its constitutional end. Cheney and his presidential puppet, W., will leave behind a shameful legacy of lies, death, corruption, and incompetence. For the last eight years, Cheney has promoted the use of torture and the violation of civil and human rights. Far too many of the Cheney/Bush foreign policy initiatives were based on arrogance and ignorance. The executive branch was taken hostage by people who disregarded the rule of law. After eight years under the influence of special interests and rigid ideology, the king and cowboy on their way out. Someone should check what they are taking with them and do a clean sweep to get rid of anything they might leave behind.
Week of January 4, 2009
David becomes Goliath
Eyes for an eye
Blitzkrieg.
Israel has every right to exist. Like all countries, it has a right to defend itself. This time, exercising this right has gone very wrong. Women, children, and the elderly have been slaughtered. In an attempt to extract individual terrorists, Israel has become a state that engages in terror. The United States must distance itself from such brutal disregard for the lives of non-combatants. To get rid of Hamas, they have become just like them. The solution to the problems in Gaza do not lie in its destruction. As an ally of Israel, the U.S. should be providing leadership and counsel. Instead we remain complicit and silent.
Week of January 1, 2009
Ringing in the new year
Ringing in the old year
Ringing all the time.
Finally, a haiku about tinnitus. This one goes out to Al, Mark and all the rest of us who suffer from the demonic om. We ring. The only rest we get is deep in REM. Its as if we have been chosen to be the witnesses to the Big Bang. We testify to the ongoing echo. My new year resolution is to get to an acupuncturist to see if there is any way to turn down the volume. For those of you who have no idea what I am writing about, go turn on a T.V. to a channel that doesn’t work. Make sure it has white noise. Turn it up real loud. Enjoy the rest of your life. The tone is a little different, but after a few days of hearing it, you’ll get the point. If hearing is on a continuum, we exist on the opposite end from the deaf. Please speak a little louder, but don’t yell. There is enough noise already.