Reflection, Dec 30, 2012AD

    Always Advent, Always Christmas,

                                   Always Lent, Always Easter            

             Really, really try with the Help of Jesus during the days of Christmas leading into the New Year of the Lord, 2013AD, to adopt in your personal dealings with one another an alternate worldview, the alternate consciousness, the alternate universe of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Try to subscribe to the values of the Kingdom proclaimed by the Newborn when He grew up.  In personal dealings with family, friends and neighbors, do the best you can (with Jesus’ Help) to be one who tries to build an immediate God—centered world, freer of violence, cruelty, hunger, injustice and inequality.  Try to believe and behave that, indeed, Christ Jesus is in you and you are in Christ Jesus.  St Paul and St John teach us this constantly.  If we did take the Presence of Christ seriously within our deepest DNA, then, it becomes easier to, at least, try to share and implement Jesus’ alternate worldview in our dealings with others.

In the world in which we live, the alternate Worldview or Universe offered by Jesus is a refreshing and vivifying antidote.  Our American culture has been characterized as narcissistic (so self-centred that concern for others becomes an impossibility) as pragmatic (so goal-oriented that whatever works becomes a moral guideline) and as superficial (so driven by a pursuit of things that the pursuit of Transcendence becomes a waste of time and energy).  It is impossible, on one’s own, to respond to a basic human question, “What are you really seeking?          

The Prince of Peace offers advice (and the Energy, viz., the Holy Spirit) to implement this alternate reality.  1) He teaches us that God is always with us, on good days as well as days not so good. (Hard to believe, but since each day is a gift from God (which is why we call it the Present), there can be no such thing as a bad day.  2) He teaches us that tough things do happen (and a middle-class lifestyle cannot prevent it totally), but that Everything works for the good for those who love God.  He teaches us that God (not Ego or We-go) is the Centre of the Universe.  There is no need to be a control freak because God is in control and God is a God of Life, a God of Mystery (both knowable and unknowable at the same time), a God of Reality, and a God of Love, the God of Now. 3) He teaches us that our life is not about us, but that we are about Life and death and Life in Christ forever.  Words cannot describe it, but the believer intuits the Truth. The Paschal Mystery of death and re-birth permeates our existence and the very existence of the Universe.

During Advent, good people basically expressed, in many ways, the fact that they could not slow down and pay attention to the Coming of Christ now and in the future.  In essence, our frenetic pace is saying, “Don’t bother me right now with God-talk, I am too busy getting ready for Christmas.” However, just as it is always Advent, a season of waiting for the Lord because we pray, “Maranatha” (Come Lord, Jesus,) so also it is always Christmas because we celebrate  “Emmanuel”, (God is with us now (in Christ Jesus.)) Our Christmas carol sadly becomes, “O Come, All ye Breathless.” Yet, so also it is always Lent when we hear the call to remember that we are dust and unto dust we will return and it is always Easter because we proclaim Jesus (crucified and risen) is Lord when we chant “Jesous Kyrios”. Yet, so it is always Pentecost when we pray “Veni, Creator Spiritus”, Come, Holy Spirit, viz., integrated energy of God.

In essence, all people live in what is called liminal space, threshold space. We are always in an in-between time. Transcendence is always present. However, it is only when one adverts to Transcendence that one experiences that Transcendence.  Christians are the ones who are supposed to realize that such is the case and demonstrate our realization in our religious behavior. (In this case, religion reverts to its etymological root, re- ligere – to bind together.)  We try to make a coherent view or reality out of our basic attitude to life. 

In a sense it is most appropriate that we consider the in-between nature, the both – and nature, the paradoxical relationship between Advent and Christmas (and Lent and Easter-Pentecost).  Christ is always coming, but Christ is already here.  As we near a new calendar year, it is fitting that we designate the custom of affixing the initials A.D. to dating correspondence and checks, etc.  (Recall that A.D. means “Anno Domini”, Year of the Lord (Jesus)). If you want it or not, it is always a Year of the Lord Jesus. 

If we truly believed and acted on the Divine Indwelling as well as Jesus’ Three Noble Truths, then, it becomes easier for us to adopt His alternate Reality or Worldview or Universe.  Then, it becomes easier to implement in a small immediate way a world freer of violence, hunger, cruelty, injustice and inequality, of healthier relationships.

In these post-Newtown Massacre days, recall the Catholic call to disarmament of the heart, viz., think about the NRA and family portraits with small children holding rifles. Recall the new moment in human history, viz., one mistake with either weapons or the environment might tip the scale for a long time. Especially recall disarmament of the human heart, viz., ask for the grace to forgo every temptation to violent words and/or actions. Try it and see.  As Fr Collins says at the conclusion of the Eucharist each Sunday, “Go now and live the Gospel of the Lord.”  123012ADjfq

Reflection, December 23, 2012AD

Like Culture, Like Parent, Like Child?        A few weeks ago, a car was parked in the visitor’s spaces.  It sported a bumper sticker saying, “I pack a pistol in my purse because a shotgun is too big.” Talk about TMI!! Why was she advertising and why was she packing a pistol?

             One wonders if that car belonged to the mother of the young man responsible for the Newtown Massacre last week. One wonders why that woman would want four registered handguns in her house with her son living there.

One wonders many things these days.

We salute our Blessed Mother this weekend as we prepare for the Christmas events coming up.  Needless to say, Mary did a great job raising her Son. Was it Mary who taught Jesus to pray contemplatively and liturgically? Was it Mary who taught Jesus to live and to teach the Deep Incarnation, viz., that God lives in us each moment and we live in God each moment? Was it Mary who taught Jesus the necessity of sharing with those in need as a win-win for all involved? Was it Mary who taught Jesus the value of Enoughism, i.e., that all have enough to survive as part of the Common Good of all? Was it Mary who taught Jesus that love of God and love of neighbor are two sides of the same coin?  Was it Mary who taught Jesus the Paschal Mystery, that all reality, including me, experience growth, change and transformation?    Was it Mary who taught Jesus the Lord’s Prayer and the Parables? Who can answer, but it might very well have been Mary whom God used to share God’s values with Jesus.  Parents remain the first teachers of the children in the ways of faith and hope.  Values are caught, not taught.

Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the womb of her mother, Santa Ana, is an expression of the Catholic belief that Jesus had His act so well together that He had to have a great mother.   Like parents, like child.

However, the world is a relational matrix, a global mesh in which everything that happens has an impact on everything else.  One can raise the question, therefore, whence came the impulse for the mother of the shooter to have four weapons legally in her home? What was going on with her?

Also, what demons haunted her son? What demons haunted her? What demons haunt her culture?  Nothing exists in a vacuum.  The very type weapon used in the mass shooting on December 14 was on sale this weekend on an email site? Who was it who said, Those who live by the sword (automatic weapons) will die by the sword (automatic weapons)? What do you think He meant? What about a nation that uses drones and sometimes, kills innocent children abroad?

One must naturally advert again to the figure of Mary on this Advent Sunday. What might have been Mary’s reaction if the young Jesus wanted a spear for Hannukah? Would she her bought him one? If Jesus wanted to join boys who plagued the lives of occupying Roman soldiers, would she have put her foot down?  If Jesus wanted to go to a violent movie, would she have let him go? If Jesus said that all the other kids were going, what would have been Mary’s response? If Jesus wanted to join the Palestine branch of the NRA, would she have allowed it? Indeed, would Mary herself belong to the NRA? Would Mary have a driven a car with a bumper sticker flaunting that she carried a pistol in her purse because a shotgun was too large?

During these days in which so much legitimate grief and horror is mixed with questions why things like this can happen in our midst, we need to admit that violence and greed are almost seen as virtues in contemporary America. One question that has not been stressed is that these shootings that have become all too common are primarily the actions of middle class white boys who live in middle class and affluent areas.  They don’t happen in inner city, minority ghettos. One wonders why?

The second amendment speaks of the right to bear arms in one’s homes. The origin of the amendment was that irate native Americans (aka Indians) would raid colonial towns in indignation that their land had been taken unilaterally taken from them by stronger, white intruders. (The same people who gave us the second amendment also tolerated slavery until 1865.) 

Maybe, people had the right to bear arms (to fight off indignant Indians). What about the people who want to right to send their children safely to school or wanted to go to a movie and/or a mall safely? Maybe, we need a strong lobby?

The last few days, an email petition was circulated by SignOn.org addressed to President Obama and to Congress. It says,

“How many more innocents must die at the hands of an antiquated and oft-misinterpreted amendment? Enough!

“Our second amendment rights are long overdue a reevaluation. How many more senseless and entirely PREVENTABLE shootings have to occur before we do something about gun control?

As a citizen-constituent, I ask you that you take a firm stand to make a positive change by restricting access to guns and saving lives.

I don’t have a gun. I don’t want a gun. I don’t need a gun. But somehow the guns end up in the hands of people crazy enough to use them irresponsibly and dangerously. This HAS TO BE STOPPED.

Would the pistol packing lady in Sleepy Hollow sign the petition? Would Mary sign the petition? Would Jesus have signed the petition? Would you sign the petition?     122312AD jfq 

December 16, 2012AD

Not Quite the Kook!!

             Once again, St John the Baptist (aka Jack the Dipper) challenges audiences, then and now. He  keeps his role as “Warm-up Act” or Precursor (Forerunner) of the Main Event, our Messiah.

             The Dipper has been described as an apocalyptic, viz., “fire and brimstone” preacher who used strong language to confront his audience. It is no small thing to call people a brood of vipers.  Recall, as well, that the hearers were the folks who bothered to go to the banks of the Jordan to hear this counter-cultural figure. Most (then and now??) said, “Don’t complicate my life with your Godtalk! I’m too busy with very important things.”  Remember that Jesus had the same experience with the man who had just bought the field, the other who had just bought oxen and the third who had just gotten married.   All good things, and yet…. What did the Baptist think of those who couldn’t be bothered making the journey to be told to snap out of it, to smell God’s coffee and to get a (new) life (style). His response, should he have heard their laments might have been, “Whether you like it or not, God is coming.”

Yet, his challenges are rather simple.  Or are they?  He tells the crowds to share with one another, whether it is an new jacket or extra food. It is just the Golden Rule in concrete circumstances.  If one needed extra clothing or food, one hopes that another with extra would share. Yet, sadly, folks have to be reminded of that 2,000 years after the Baptist made his pitch. Thank God, so many in Armonk respond so wonderfully and generously. However, John’s message must have involved critical thinking on the part of his audience. His message was about a re-adjustment in basic thoughts and attitudes, as a non-negotiable.  John’s message was about an ethical adjustment in one’s behavior, if one’s priorities had become dysfunctional and/or aberrant when the name of the game remains the infantile games named by psychologist, Erik Erickson, viz., security, esteem and control at all costs.

We recall the N-syndrome which plagues so much of the American Zeitgeit. We tend to be non-stop, numbed, neurotic about taking care of Numero Uno in a response to the Traumatic terror of the Transient, and yet, every major religious system and now science teach us that change is inevitable. Christian call it the Paschal Mystery. All experiences growth, change and transformation. Wake up and smell God’s coffee.  The way that the System controls mass consciousness is through superficiality.  News focuses on something serious; by 15 minutes into the news, they get trivial. Sometimes, they don’t wait the 15 minutes.

John’s message is that God cares much about what is happening in the world and is about to take definitive action to ameliorate our addictions, compulsions, enmeshments through the arrival of Someone Who would clean up the mess that began in the Garden of Eden with the sin of arrogance committed by our first parents.  Imagine falling for the temptation that “you, too, can be like God”. Yet,  this is, in essence, the sin of the System, viz., to control reality to one’s advantage.  The System feels that we are living in the best of all possible worlds. The System feels that anyone who is reasonable would want to live in the System that we set up and that there is something wrong with someone who would challenge the System.  Because the System controls reality, it feels that it can change the rules to benefit the System.  Should someone disagree, then something needs to be done.  (This is what happened to John, Jesus and countless others since, then and now.)   Adam and Eve still live in many ways in their descendents, when you think of it!!

It is the challenges hurled at the soldiers and the tax collectors that scripture scholars have focused special attention.  The Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, who wrote later in the first century, that King Herod had John arrested because “others were listening to John’s message.”  Some conjecture that John was winning hearers among the soldiery and the tax collaborators who propped up Herod’s oppressive system of institutional violence.  What would have happened if his agents of institutional terrorism (mercenary soldiers) and his tax farmers who cheated people realized the errors of their ways?  The Baptist might have had more listeners than we imagined.

Today, the Baptist challenges a compulsed society.  Several years ago, Ann Wilson Shafe, a sociologist, wrote a book entitled, When Society Becomes an Addict. She wrote that the System itself has become addicted to the “System”. We know that things are not the way they should be. We know deep down in our minds and hearts, that a world in which 2% of people own 50% of the land in the world that something is wrong.  We know that billions of people do not have proper diet or medical care.  We know that something is happening to our very environment that by 2040AD, Arctic ice may disappear each summer.  Hurricane Sandy dealt us a blow that we will remember. We know that war is obsolete as an apt means of conflict resolution and yet, we tolerate sending other people’s children and parents to risk death for questionable causes.  What if it were our own children?

The Baptist’s cry might have shaken up a few more folks than we thought.  More was going on with John the Baptist than we realize. Maybe, more snapped out of it then, smelled God’s coffee and got a new life style. 

With God’s Help, in Christ Jesus’ alternate universe, the World Order of the God of Life, Jesus’ lenses, Christ consciousness, the Kingdom, others still can do so.  Even now, though not yet! Imagine!!          121612AD jfq 

December 9, 2012AD

Not Really Mr Grinch !!

             Jack the Dipper is back at the River Jordan.  We meet John the Baptist on these Sundays of Advent as we continue, with God’s Help, to prepare the Way for the Lord.

             He should generate now, as then, a lightning rod of response. However, we domesticate, defang, or tame such religious figures because  the “Word of the Lord  came to John in the wilderness.” Such as John force us to face ourselves if we listen to them. However, he is not Mr Grinch!

He was and remains a challenge now.  He did not go to Rome or Jerusalem to proclaim his message of metanoia , viz., snapping out of the Systemic Big Lie and realigning ourselves on the Way that God wants us to travel.  He wants us to welcome the One Who follows.  John offers the chance to see that we need to snap out of it, to be reoriented and to live as God wants. My true self is who God wants me to be; my false self is who I want to be. They don’t always coincide.

Human behavior is mimetic. We don’t want to be left out of the crowd.  Most accept almost unquestioningly the conventional wisdom of culture.  Most allow others to determine who and/or what is important and/or desirable and unimportant and/or undesirable. Hence, if most participate in a culture that accepts unchallenged what is fed to it because everyone else does as well, then,  sociologists are correct.  We become “sheeple.”

Sociologists tell us of a programmed, not natural, need to be conscious of “in crowd/out crowd.”  With whom do we identify?  Do we use ethnicity, race, religion, class as determinants of those with whom we associate or emulate?

American theologian, David Tracy, speaks of the “traumatic terror of the transient”, viz., we don’t want change, individually and/or culturally.  We want the status quo, if we are “in crowd”.  

Further, this tendency to distinguish “in crowd” and “out crowd” can be sadly coupled with a propensity to violence and vengeance , presented in the Cain and Abel story.  Those with whom we do not identify might tend, perhaps, to be less human. We might treat them differently than others.  Anything goes when I am protecting my (our) turf!! Sound familiar?

Our ancestors were basically “hunters and gatherers” until about 10, 000 years ago. Theories abound that our ancestors only succumbed to “binary or dualistic thinking” with the development of more scientific farming techniques, which allowed for the growth of concentrated populations, viz., cities. Now people started to think of my land, your land, my group, your group.  The Cain and Abel saga resonates again because the farmer could not share the land with the shepherd.  After his murder of his brother, “then Cain became the founder of the first city”, according to Gen 3.   

If we have recognize anything of ourselves in the three observations of the sociologists, then we need to listen to Jack the Dipper and “snap out of it.”  1) We do not have to go along with conventional wisdom.  2) Our particular cultural story collapses into the Human Story. 3) We need to stop the downward spiral of violence.

The System (aka the “City of Man”, named by St Augustine) has created a dysfunctional, imploding system that so many idolize.  Many years ago, sociologist, Anne Wilson Shafe, wrote a book, “When Society Becomes an Addict.”As one can gather from its title, the book never became a best seller. She warned that the System had become addicted to the System.  Do nation-states really  run the show? We half-sense that we cannot keep living as we live forever (be it economically, environmentally or energy-wise.). However, most folks feel that we can’t make adjustments.  Also, most folks ask “Why should I do so when my behavioral change would be a drop in the bucket?”  

We need God’s System, Jesus’ System, God’s City, a “Kingdom of God – consciousness”. God is triumphant – even now, but not yet.  As a result, we remember that everything is a gift (for which we say thanx periodically), that we need to be in touch with the Other responsible for the gift, the process of paschal change in the universe, the relational matrix in which we all live family, planetary and cosmic lives, the real responsibility we have for “our brothers and sisters in need”. The NYPD patrolman last week reminded us of that.   John the Baptist was Jesus’ advance man out in the Jordan. Each of us needs to say, repeatedly, in the words of Cardinal Dolan that, even if we don’t like it, “Remember the “un’s,” the unborn, the unwanted, the undocumented, the uneducated, the unwell. They are God’s children, as much as I am.”  

Advent is an invitation to snap out of a dysfunctional worldview into a worldview endorsed by the Creator of the Universe and the Creator’s Son Incarnate.  However, a vital first step is introduced by St John the Baptist today.  Into human history, calculable by imperial and religious dates, John’s call to snap out of it is predicated on our acceptance of the fact that we even need to snap out of it.  How can we snap out of a dysfunctional worldview when we don’t even realize that we live in one? Christ came in history.  Even now, everyday, He comes in Mystery. The only difficulty is that some many good people get caught up in the ratrace of the System. Sadly, the big question becomes “What am I getting for Christmas?”, not “how can I respond to God’s daily call to transcendence?”  One theologian recently said, “Sadly, our longing for things is a mask for our longing for God.” The return of Jack the Dipper (not Mr Grinch, remember) is a necessary and blessed wake-up call.  120912AD jfq