mindfulness in the desert land as the sun sets

When death comes to cover our eyes, will we be conscious enough to ask, "what did I really care about? What did I value? Did wisdom come my way? Did I love well."

the boiling over of it all

                                                                                                            photo by D. Rosen July 2011

We are witnesses to the greatest revolution-a spontaneous boiling over of the inner person.

Surprisingly it is not the Arab Spring, The Occupy Wall Street crowd, political parties, political races...no this one is deeper and much more of a desperate sort.  Are we to be hopeful or depressed? are we to destroy or build? Love or hate? We are a baffled lot.

Violence and fear rule the night and doubt and faith cling to us in the dream time as we fall asleep.
This spiritual dilemma is one that can not be avoided. Man scoffs at religion yet he makes a religion out of any idiotic thing of his own making as long as it is in his own image.

We have isolated ourselves with our technology when it was to be the answer to all our problems. Yet there is at the same time a new evolutionary enlightenment where millions of people, Christians, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, even secularist and just plain seekers of a Power that is greater than themselves are casting off the chains of their own ego's and saying...I am willing, willing to seek...finding the hidden soul that God knows deep inside each man, women and child.

-Dave

of shadow man and leaf jumper

The shadowy man scurried across the street with a look of despair while the young lovers crossed in the other direction and did not even see this phantom soul.

As I walked down Worth Street it occurred, the thought that at that very moment my love for every single human on this spinning globe was real. Even if it originated perhaps from hearing about Thomas Merton's revelation at the corner of Walnut and Fourth Street that cold December day so long ago in Louisville.

Tonight I witness my friend celebrate 2 years as a free man and continue his spiritual journey. Tomorrow we gather to celebrate my dear daughter's fifth birthday and life is good. It is not a dead end street.  God is with us each step along our way.

Dave

the bicyclist virtue

Where does hope come from?

It must come from beyond time itself. Hope rises from the very mind of God, and life would not be life without it. Respect those lost in despair because it is the coward who hides in delusion.

 photo taken 10-4-11
As I began my walk and felt the cool, still air on my face; a women said her good byes to her fellow cyclist. "It is a beautiful day to be alive!" A broad smile came to my face and hope manifest itself over the still waters of White Rock Lake.

Peace,

Dave

eleven stones are tossed in a pond

If you think prayer and meditation will answer the problems that are in your heart of hearts, think again. The more I search the less I know. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, many times a man spends time in contemplation not for the right answer but for the right questions.

~ Dave




"Where is the dwelling of God?"

This was the question with which the rabbi of Kotzk surprised a number of learned men who happened to be visiting him.

They laughed at him: "What a thing to ask! Is not the whole world full of his glory?"

Then he answered his own question:

"God dwells wherever man lets him in"

William Gaylin, Caring (New York: Knopf, 1976) pg. 98

in the heat of the night

The heat rolls over our hot land like a beast, a living thing. This morning as I watered our withered plants of Basil and Spearmint a thirsty lizard tiredly drinks from a leaf. I mischievously take advantage of his diminished state and carefully catch him. To my four year old daughter's delight I show him to her and she pets his silky belly. We release him onto a giant Elephant ear plant and he scrambles to a safe spot to wait for a meal.

Just before noon the city garbage truck rolls up and the weary trash collectors earn their daily bread and all I can do is offer a word of encouragement, "we are one day closer to Fall!"  he smiles and I think God smiles on him in solidarity as our loving Father. Now the blanket of darkness falls over the scorched land and the night creatures come alive to make their concert to all. More quiet than usual as there is so little to drink unless you are the luck one is my garden.

God, my God, The Holy One I meet in the heat of the night, why do the questions of my heart arise at night? after a day of prayers it is always the same forbearing silence that comes to me in the darkness with answers if my heart is open.

Good Night,

The Dallas Mavericks, Lady Gaga & The Image of God

"We were all born to be super stars." a quote by Lady Gaga, I hear the echos from the Eternal One often in the most unlikely places. A few weeks ago while falling into the pit of despair one dark night I heard this quote and it struck a cord within my soul. Stephani aka Lady Gaga said it with such conviction.

The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation says: "Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself lost."

Dirk gladly took the help of his friends during the Championship basketball game on Sunday night and since he is a humble man despair did not touch him because... he was born to be a super star just like you and me. Don't despair because you still have the 4th quarter to shine baby.

Dave

drifting and trudging

Our society has drifted into a land where our natural resources are wasted in the name of profit and our social values debased into mindless consumption and a materialistic web of lies. Where addiction to power is many times more dangerous than the addiction to pills, alcohol, powder and Afghan poppy fields.

How can we make it through this desert land, where scorpions and rattle snakes wait around the hidden rocks to poison us? We just trudge down the road and try our best to be what we are called to be, "sons and daughter's of light." How can we keep on loving in a world so full of hate? It is difficult for us, but we do it perhaps one person at a time. Just one moment at a time. One prayer at a time.

Praying for my enemy when I cursed him just this morning, and forgiving myself.  Finding hope wherever possible.

-Dave

the saving love of a mother

Sunday Snippet May 9th

                                                 momma and her granddaughter - 1980's
                                        

A mother's love is like no other. Loving us when all others have left us in the desert land alone with the gritty wind blowing the dust of despair. Another name for mother could be hope, for my dear mother never gave up on her prodigal son. Her hope and prayers saved my lost soul. As long as she was alive there just was no way to give up completely to the demons that plagued me in the darkness of the night.

My earliest images, as she packed the home made cakes and other treats to send to my older brother, Max stationed in the killing fields of Vietnam. I was three years old and just enjoyed sitting on the kitchen table snacking on those tiny red boxes of raisins. "David Wayne, honey...now those are for your big brother." She later most likely saved that Marine's life by demanding her boy be sent home early to help our family as my dad fought terminal cancer. Perhaps her prayers saved him as well.

The hysterically funny things she did and her gift for retelling the stories were legend. Born in 1924 to the "greatest generation."and into a coma during Advent of 2003 the night before my wedding and then 21 days in the hospital passing from this "desert land into the great unknown." The power of that moment with her old tired hand in my hand... as the breath of life left her. Well done dear mother, and Happy Mother's Day honey girl.

Good night Momma Dixie,

We love you.

finding the key

Everything seems so black or white in our society. For example, Christopher Hitchen's book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, he really sound like a fun dinner guest...right?  My initial response to Richard was to rush to the defense of religion since the institution is attacked constantly. Now it just seems unnecessary.

Upon further reflection he most likely has much in common with Pastor Hagee. While on the other end of the spectrum and still someone I will not be inviting to dinner, Pastor John Hagee the San Antonio, based mega-church leader who claims that it was God's will that Hurricane Katrina be sent to punish the people of New Orleans for their behavior. He also teaches that the Catholic Church is "The Whore of Babylon" spoken of in Holy Scripture. A catchy name..."The Whore of Babylon."

What is the will of God?

The rabbis of the Jewish faith will tell us that the gift of prophecy was lost to Israel after the Romans destroyed the Temple. But we hear the frenzied voices shouting in certain mosques that the will of God is to strap on a bomb and blow up yourself along with God's enemies. Osama bin Ladin surely believes he is doing God's will. Christopher Hitchen's who spends his time trying to convince everyone that he can prove the is no God and therefore no such thing as God's will, Paster Hagee and bin Laden would all enjoy each others company immensely at there own private dinner party.

Spiritual humility will tell us to not tread on God's mystery and majesty by attempting to explain His Universal Mind in some simplistic manner. Blind faith and atheism are both equally stupid. Having the willingness to do God's will is a wonderful way to start. "Just do the next right thing." If we want to turn our lives over to God's will the following passage may be helpful.

Once we have placed the key of willingness in the lock and have the door ever so slightly open, we find that we can always open it some more. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 35

 I telephoned my spiritual advisor and asked, "What is God's Will?" TG answered.
"whats next is God's will." 



Good night TG,

Dave

"they do not know..."

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."

                                                                            Gospel of Luke 23:34

Many of my friends are not followers of Christ and must be mystified by the actions of some claiming His name. True Christianity is the following and nothing more: To love one another and to forgive. Age after age we create divisions and fear one another until hatred breeds war. Our faith tells us that we are The Mystical Body of Christ, so we must crucify Him again and again when we spread hatred for He loves us divinely.

Faith must come before the virtues of love and forgiveness.

Faith that I am loved must come first and then the capacity to love and forgive others is possible. The devil called self hatred must be cast out for our hearts to make room for this divine work among us.

Pax,

Dave

betrayal with a smile

Holy Wednesday thoughts,

Photo taken at a church somewhere in S. Texas in 2009.

Jesus entered the great city on a Sunday with palms laid in his honor before him and by Wednesday his friend plots against him with his political enemies.

As Jesus was sharing and teaching a huge crowd on the Mount of Olives one of The Apostles was plotting against him. Was it greed, ambition, jealousy?  how could a trusted apostle turn on his own Rabbi. The world never found out because his final act of selfishness ended in suicide.

Picture in your mind the boasting name-droppers of our day, the hangers-on, the stupid ones blinded by ego. Here we find our Judas. Betrayal with a smile.  We should look to ourselves, when have we betrayed a friend in small ways? shared in gossip just to fit in or worse, just to boost our own human ego. True this example pales in comparison to taking part in murder of an innocent friend, but these small cuts cry out to the universe just the same. Death by 1,000 cuts is still a death.

Matthew 26:14-16 (New International Version, ©2011)

Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus

 ¹⁴ Then one of the Twelve—the one called Judas Iscariot—went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and asked, “What are you willing to give me if I deliver him over to you?” So they counted out for him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.

falling bird and swooping bird

                                   swooping mother bird

Experiencing God can be the most meaningful thing in life. The God of my understanding is experienced in my Catholic faith in an actual historical way; we believe that God revealed himself in flesh and blood in a place and time in the personage of Christ.  Through the healing of ancient spiritual principles found in my twelve step program, God is experienced in a personal miracle of sobriety each day.  My cross turned out to be a precious gift.  

It is the most interesting thing in this world; how we each find a Higher Power beyond ourselves. I have friends who only know God as the Great Unknown, Creative-Mind-of-the-Universe.  Even the agnostics seem to find a Power Greater than themselves, although theirs is a difficult road.

Questioning ourselves in self examination:  if religious, are we finding a relationship with God?  Or going through the motions imagining that some formula will work in our lives? If I can only remember the formula?  While others are spiritually egotistical, believing their personal spirituality is so far advanced that it would be a waste of time to contemplate the words of a saint from 500 years ago.

We humans find understanding best sometimes in ordinary experiences like the following.

Earlier this week I was trimming a bush in my backyard and to my amazement a baby bird fell out of its nest, the frantic mother was swooping at my head as violently as possible.  A neighbor helped place the tiny Robin back in the nest and now all seems to back to normal. For Many weeks the mother Robin had been attacking me, dives, swoops and I could never figure out where the nest was located. The father bird mostly just stayed busy searching for worms but attacked a few times. He seemed not as interested in attacking a 200 pound man. The mother was fearless and effective as each day my meditation area had to move.

 We have a 50 foot 90 year old Pecan tree and this bird builds her nest in a 5 foot tall bush directly behind my meditation area. Scanning the yard for weeks to find the was just like finding God; both were found when in the last place I had looked.

Our four year old daughter and the two neighbor girls got to witness the beauty of the baby bird reunited with the mother, father and sibling. The look of awe on their faces said it all. We all were alive and in the moment it was profound.

Religion and spirituality merged in the cathedral of the bird’s nest.

Have a meaningful Holy Week.

Pax,

Dave

America the Poor

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.

           Mother Teresa

                     Poverty that surrounds our poor land.

She drives alone to work listening to other people's woes and the propaganda men all shouting at once on the radio about the defects of their imaginary foes. In her cubical working furiously for the quasi-religious sect of Chase Bank or Citi Bank...

Locked behind the door of her "beehive existence" in Apt 3216 watching "The Bachelor" her poverty of loneliness is so profound that she does not even know to cry. The TV commercial asking for donations to the poor of Africa should include a message for this lonely soul.

"Can we love our neighbor? do we even know our neighbor?

Our neighbors just want someone to listen, to know they matter. To hear their story. Reaching our hand out to the ones drowning in the unquiet city.

-Dave