I am amazed sometimes at the reflective nature of visual stimulation from the big screen; moving images, vistas and wonder, storytelling and contemplation. The movie I saw last night astounded in its beginning. The panoramic scenes from the sky drawing down to the story of a young Hindu Indian boy—cute and entrancing, innocent and engaging—became metaphysical in the sense of a greater story of being lost, a naïve childish soul whirled away from his home. Based upon a true story, the young boy ventures, unwarranted and against the will of his mother, away from his home with his older brother, hoping to join his brother in an elderly adventure. Seeking to experience life with his brother beyond his time, the boy becomes exhausted, falling asleep upon a train station bench. Waking, his brother nowhere in sight—in truth his brother struck and killed by a train, the boy wanders the train station searching, eventually falling asleep once again, this time upon a train, a decommissioned train waiting to travel across India. The boy is brought forth from sleep by the rustling of the moving train. Alone, he is locked in the train as it travels a thousand plus kilometers away from his home, into Bengali land and a foreign language he cannot understand. Every scene with the vivacious child is precious, expertly filmed and presented. The ending becomes too melodramatic, relying too much upon emotion and tears, yet the beginning of the movie proved to be a remarkable cinematic experience.

Restructuring settles further, within the start of a new year. I attended noon mass at Holy Rosary in Little Italy, enjoying strombolis from Presti’s next door, proceeding to drive and eat, bound for St. Paul Shrine and Adoration prayer before work.  A noisy one chatters his way into my life, at service as a contractor, ever present as a friend.  The high efficiency furnace he installed performs remarkably.  Beyond warmth, it provides unexpected air movement, pleasingly presenting a freshness to the home.  Internally, I feel as if a bomb were detonated, blasting asunder a sense of normalcy.  Everything is changing.  Shell-shocked, a sense of calm prevails, a whisper imploring for finality, a further interior quieting.  No more expectations.  No more schemes.  Last night was one of intense dreams, vivid and intimate, the rescuer calling throughout the night. I cannot bear the immensity.  The complexities hurt too much.  The significant other places distance and depth, alone examining in introspect, a mirror upon one’s own imperfection.  Honest, open, and willing; potentialities remain alluringly intact.  Vermont lingers lovingly, retirement and peace, yet circumstance cannot provide until all resolution transpires, within the lack of clarity, patience exists, a heart grows fuller, sorrow and wonder prevail, prayer remains a launching pad, tears provide the cleansing of pride, silence the solution to a wicked tongue.  Life continues.

I purchased a new Rosary today at St Paul Shrine.  The decade beads are pearl colored with stainless steel ‘Our Father’ beads.  The large crucifix drew my attention, comprehending immediately the larger cross would fit meaningfully in my grasp while reciting prayers.  It had the perfect size for digging into my palm when held tightly.  I had not seen the extern sisters for some time.  Purchasing the Rosary allowed a bit of private time with the two.  Sister Claire Marie sent me off to Father Roger with a bottle of Holy Water in order to have the Rosary blessed.  During the blessing, Father Roger fumbled with the Holy Water, squirting me in the face and chest due to the stubborn bottle.  His blessing brought peace.  I noticed several individuals watching.  I am pleased, while detached, with my reputation at the Shrine.  I felt the need to purchase the new Rosary due to the Christmas season implosion.  It is a new year and bringing it in will be a new blest Rosary.  Immersed in Adoration, sitting before the Eucharist, sitting amidst splendid Christmas decorations, praying with my new Rosary, it overwhelmed me what a horrid Christmas I experienced.  God is good and all giving.  During my stay at Harbor Springs, I worked with an amazing psychologist who felt the focus must not be put on the relapse in sobriety.  It was important to understand what happen.  Putting aside details, an overwhelming emotional situation floored me, forcing me to collapse into previous poor behavior.  The sobriety will come once again.  There is no need to panic.  Although the financial toll will be significant, it is not devastating.  A restructuring of my personal life will occur, yet it will commence with patience and prayer, allowing proper time and space for development.  At this time, there are no conclusive declarations being pronounced.  There are no passionate apologies or self-incriminations dramatically wept, while the recognition of silent tears before the Eucharist cannot be denied.   There will be no cowering nor running to others, while a priest from the recent past may be brought back into the process—if he is willing.  There will be gratitude and acknowledgment for what God has blessed in abundance.  My prayer life and the pursuit of the contemplative life will carry me forward.  My faith, hope, and charity will remain as my foundation.

Jusepe de Ribera: The Adoration of the Magi

I desire no consolations which takes me from the sting of conscience; nor do I seek consolation which leads to pride.  For all that is esteemed is not Holy, nor every sweet thing good, nor everything that is dear pleasing to God.

Thoughts leading to addiction, ponder and consider.  Can a sin linger, granted permission to abide under the guise it is necessary because it humbles?  Can I allow a particular sin of propensity to stick around, content with the sincere humbling it brings about?

The previous paragraphs were a text exchange, coalescing subtly.  I have heard it said that when dieting the first ten or twenty pounds are easy to lose.  It is the last five or so that prove difficult.  I hope it is not shallow, for the vanity of shedding pounds is a poor example, yet the point is refinement commences quite naturally, however the further one goes the narrower the road becomes.  Those sins rooted deepest within habit and personal imperfection; upbringing  and subconscious, pride and prejudice, are the last five or so pounds proving nearly impossible to shed, most likely impossible without the grace of God.

I shared an exchange with a friend regarding the importance of proper self-knowledge for spiritual growth.  It is much more than the realization we are sinners and God is loving, compassionate, forgiving, and omnipotent.  A brutal honesty must be engaged in order to grow in sanctifying grace.  If we do not properly identify who we are, our very foundation for living in accordance with Divine Will is toppled.  It is a grievance I find troubling with our current education system as it functions in the United States.  Somewhere in the last decade or so the education system has found it imperative to form children’s social conscious and self-identity, stripping the duty from the Church and family.  Of course, the disastrous results are only too evident in society, as well as the counter reformation movement through the preponderance and prosperity of home schooling amongst devout Catholic families and the rise in esteem of a Catholic education.  It is God’s will children are formed within a religious setting and family environment, so wonderfully laid out in the essential social justice encyclical, Rerum Noverum, by Pope Leo XIII.  The education system further errors by advancing their power over young minds by stressing the absolute need to pursue a higher education.  The pursuit of a college education by a vast majority has become a deplorable destruction of the ability to mature psychologically sound or within the confines of proper self-knowledge.  The over-emphasis upon politics (the manufacturing of disturbing social activist and agitators), sexual identity, pop culture (the extreme overabundance of artist and minds lost to watered down, intellectually immature, pop culture pursuits), just the wasteland of nonsense being perpetrated on college campuses is a blaring reality.  Then add in the immense amount of money being channeled into academia through grants and the burdens placed on the very individuals supposedly being advanced through student loans the whole mess proves impossible in growing through grace.  No matter how sincere in motivation and intelligent in scheming the profound improving of societal conditions cannot be accomplished; communal distress and individual deterioration is the inevitable consequence.  I did not mean for this to be so complicated, yet will continue.  The very ideas and examples presented through the Holy Family, the simplicity of vocation and being embodied by Mary and Joseph, as well as Jesus, are essential. It is not necessary for individuals to grow in intellectual pretense in order to grow in abundance within the plans of God.  In fact, to grow through a misguided, no matter how well intended, self-identity, believing one’s self to be something one is not through the encouragement of worldly standards and the accomplishments of advanced degrees amounts to individual enslavement and societal insanity.  The chance for spiritual blossoming on the individual level when ideas of intelligence, growth, and maturity prove impossible for penetrating self-awareness forces a vast proportion of young people away from the grace of a life embolden with enduring happiness and ultimate freedom.  Yet beyond a generalized societal view of modern conditions, I meant to steer this more towards intimate friends and the importance of knowing who we are on the deepest levels, able to free our lives from delusion.  If we live lives of delusion we place severe obstacles between ourselves and God’s ability, through Mary, to shower grace.  My mind goes to three friends who presently serve as lectors.  Without judgement, it is difficult to observe these three men read scripture during Mass when it obviously deters from spiritual growth.  The ultimate intent of Mass to transform and advance is lost.  No matter how strong the intent to pursue God exist within the mind, the heart and reality is usurped by pride and a concern for worldly advancement.  The loving grace waiting to pour forth from the hands of Our Heavenly Mother is rendered useless when an obsession upon reputation and the sensation of immediate gratification blinds.  Individual circumstances are created only through an overall approach and behavior arising from limited self-awareness.  To stop reading scripture during Mass for these three men would solve nothing.  An entire psychic change is necessary to grow in grace.  I am sure we can all easily identify such individuals within Church social environments.  The obvious importance is not to judge, yet to fortify one’s own self-awareness.  During yesterday’s Thanksgiving celebrations, another example of stunting spiritual growth, while employing the pursuit of God, lovingly presented itself.  A family member several years ago adopted two children under the auspice of a nondenominational church focused on evangelization.  Yesterday, the family member revealed the realization the adoptions were a mistake, conducted for improper reasons, while also demonstrating the strength and wherewithal to persevere.  The nondenominational church, a newly formed entity created by one couple and a wealthy core group, was encouraging members to adopt needy children, thus advancing in number their blessed flock through growth within worshipping families.  The participating family member, following the instructions, example, and competition set forth, preceded to adopt two children.  The individual and spouse were both in their fifties, already blessed with two of their own teenage children—blossoming wonderfully in grace.  God is good and all giving.  Now with the passing of years, the struggles with the adopted brother and sister, children removed at young ages from a drug addicted stripper mother and an imprisoned father, are driving a wedge within the family. It is a complicated situation, only properly understood through the eyes of God and love.  The point to be extruded is that good intentions (as well as the need for proper spiritual direction); the desire to do great things through the love of God, does not prove sufficient in meeting the demands to grow in grace, while the complications of self-imposed misdirection remain within the ever-expanding range of grace.  Grace always waits patiently within our mistakes.  Once again, God does not call for most of us to do great things.  Our dreams, fantasies, and reality must remain humble and simple in self-exertion.  The challenge to remain content and peaceful within a life of worship and prayer is enough to advance in grace.  As St John of the Cross presents the idea of ‘nada’, to do nothing, is profoundly a spiritual challenge.  The thought coalesces with an awareness emerging during my time with the Carthusians, an order dedicated to the non-doing of great things within the body of the Church.  There is an emptiness within my spiritual self-identity, bonding me with my paternal mother and father, an acceptance of mediocrity and struggle throughout my life, a life prone to the reality of failure, a life scarred and recovered from the ravages of severe alcoholism.  It is painful to accept, yet I am growing and nurturing the reality my life will never be glamorized through higher achievement.  I am mediocre at best and yet I comprehend God’s infatuation with my coming into acceptance with the fact, the understanding His love is enough, holding before me tenderly the images of Mary and Joseph.  Within the humbling fact of who I am is the birth of the immensity of who God is.  God is good and all giving.

They told us our gods would outlive us
They told us our dreams would outlive us
They told us our gods would outlive us
But they lied

The gods we dream into supremacy do not out live us, they do not offer permanency, lasting relevancy. Time goes by and things grow old, demanding more, never able to satisfy to the core. Here I am growing old, standing alone and the things of my youth have crashed away, stolen into the morose of insufficiency, and yet within the sadness vision becomes acute.  I breathe easier, reposing into stillness.  I need more, and underneath permeates a joy, silently bolstered by faith, hope, and charity.  God is good and all giving.

It has been awhile since I journaled in a post. God is good and all giving. Work settles nicely, a return to second shift pleasing. I have just completed plans for a Thanksgiving vocational visit to the Carthusian monastery of Transfiguration in the mountains of Vermont. I will arrive Saturday, committed to staying until Wednesday. On Wednesday, a decision will be reached whether to continue the visit or return to the significant other and celebrate festivities with family. I surrender to mystery, allowing the time of intense contemplative prayer to appeal. Appropriate complexities arise with the significant other, demands upon maturity naturally called forth due to shared imperfections. Wednesday, she utilized her lunch to meet me at St Paul Shrine for noon Mass. It proved meaningful, surprisingly deep in penetration. Her love is authentic and genuine. She is not churning and burning through people. I am not just another to fill her time and dissipate energy because she cannot bear to be alone. She is attracted specifically to me, making herself vulnerable. She is a good woman who knows what she wants. I am moved, humbled and grateful for the sanctifying grace, aware of the immense healing power provided through her. No woman has treated me the ways she does. She is special on a multitude of levels. She grasped my hand during Mass, the effort comforting immensely. The extern Poor Clare sisters from India, having not seen her for some time, were delighted with her presence, joyful and abundant with words. There is something profound within our relationship. Sunday will be an Arise potluck following a Mass dedicated to the various Arise gatherings at St Clare and St Paschal Baylon. The members of the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament will attend as well as the priest of St Clare and other invited guest. I am making a lentil soup, finding an excellent recipe with butternut squash and kale. Life is good, abundant and evocative.

Detox Balance Lentil Soup

For the crockpot:
·2 cups butternut squash (peeled and cubed)
·2 cups carrots (peeled and sliced)
·2 cups potatoes (chopped)
·2 cups celery (chopped)
·1 cup green lentils
·¾ cup yellow split peas (or just use more lentils)
·1 onion (chopped)
·5 cloves garlic (minced)
·8-10 cups vegetable or chicken broth
·2 teaspoons herbs de provence
·1 teaspoon salt (more to taste)

Add at the end:
·2-3 cups kale (stems removed, chopped)
·1 cup parsley (chopped)
·½ cup olive oil – rosemary olive oil or other herb infused oil is delicious
·swish of sherry, red wine vinegar, or lemon juice to add a nice tangy bite

1. Place all ingredients in the crockpot. Cover and cook on high for 5-6 hours or low for 7-8 hours.
2. Place about 4 cups of soup in a blender with the olive oil. Pulse gently until semi-smooth and creamy-looking (the oil will form a creamy emulsion with the soup). Add back to the pot and stir to combine. Stir in the kale and parsley. Turn the heat off and just let everything chill out for a bit before serving. The taste gets better with time and so does the texture, IMO!
3. Season to taste (add the sherry, vinegar, and/or lemon juice at this point).