The View Up Here

 In no particular order: 1. God is not "the universe" nor is the universe God. God is a personal being who is defined as Love and who has revealed himself as Trinitarian: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This community of Love begets all of creation and all life. The "universe" doesn't create itself, nor does it reward you for being a good egg or making a vision board in your home office. 2. Putting man at the center of everything and relegating everything to man's thought is tantamount to declaring war on reality. "I think, therefore I am" (the foundational battle cry of rationalism and the un-deification of the Western World) means we create ourselves and our reality, which we do not, and that the human power to understand and manipulate the created world is the Ultimate Supreme (i.e. who needs a God and all those pesky morals?). The power of the mind to understand is posited as the only marker of humanness. Rather, "I exist, therefore I think...

I just finished a marvelous week with my family in Massachusetts and would be feeling refreshed if I weren't so tired. Actually, I do feel refreshed. My mind is clear and my spirit is refreshed, even if I need to go to bed earlier than my grand nephews' and grand niece's bedtime. However, I feel the need to blog since a couple things hit me during the past week that deserve airing. A close family member of mine is asking the tough questions about God, including, "If he's all-loving, why does God allow suffering of innocents?" The question was asked not as a philosophical exercise, but with righteous anger. Appropriately so. We should be angry at injustice and suffering. If we're not, we need to take Human lessons. Tonight as I was washing dishes in a daze, the answer rose up in my mind in a phrase: God allows suffering so that we can love. Allow me to 'splain. God has given humanity free will to either love each other or hurt each other. Thro...

Every human being suffers. There is no escaping it. Some more than others. Some because of natural means, some because of the cruelty and neglect of other human beings. Suffering exists.  I've written about this recently , so I won't go on and on about it here. But I want to stress one thing: Jesus is with us in our suffering. He suffered beyond human telling. He suffered not just the physical torments of his Passion and Crucifixion, but He also suffered the inner torments (emotional, spiritual) that every person feels at various points in our lives--times a thousand. He also suffered in knowing how many would reject Him throughout time, even to this day and beyond. He saw our age as well as he saw His own, how we would continue to break His commandment of Love. And still... He chose to suffer. He could have called on the powers of Heaven to whisk Him away. But he chose to accept this fate for you. For me. Right now, He offers you His Love.   I won't waste...

A friend posted this on Facebook today, and it took my breath away with its honesty and exactitude. All I can say in answer to this 11/17/15 blog post by John Paplovitz is: YES. THAT. WHAT HE SAID. http://johnpavlovitz.com/2015/11/17/freeing-christians-from-americhristianity/ *NB I had copied the full text of his post and put it up here, but then I decided it wasn't cool to do that without permission. Please visit the link to read his statement in full.

10 ways to love, according to the Scripitures. Dust off your #Bible and start loving! pic.twitter.com/Ct4kTSFaAT — CatholicLink English (@catholink) November 17, 2015 Loving is a way of being in the world, a disposition, and a choice. Similar in concept and practice are  The Four Agreements .

CNS Rome bureau: Catechism, yoga, Zen cannot open people's hearts to God, pope says:  http://t.co/utL2Y7geou #CNSstory — Catholic News Svc (@CatholicNewsSvc) January 9, 2015 I cannot agree more with this little article, as a person who tried all kinds of ways in my younger adulthood to be healed and connect with...SOMETHING...I tried Buddhist meditation, EFT, Reiki, even pagan moon rituals. Nothing led me to the Love of God. The moment of my "resurrection" or conversion experience had absolutely nothing to do with my own effort. It was the Holy Spirit, a shaft of light piercing the darkness that had become my inner world, and the Spirit showed me the Heart of Jesus on fire for me. For me!  I'm not talking down to Buddhists, pagans, Yoga and Reiki practitioners, or anyone else... I know that those practices come from the same desire to be loved and to love. My own experience is that those are limited forms that do not do the "trick," and only God c...

At long last, I've finished something.  Happy Valentines Day!

On the wave of exactly the same theme of my last few days, I found this quote on my Facebook feed this morning from Fr. James Martin : "For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self."   -- Thomas Merton Thomas Merton was an American monk, mystic, poet, artist, teacher, and inter-religious dialoguer before it was a cool thing to do. Today would've been his 99th birthday.  I haven't spent an enormous amount of time reading the 20th century greats of theology and spiritual writing (Merton and de Chardin, mainly), though I've read smatterings of both. One of the ideas that resurfaces in both of their work seems to be this notion of living into the self that God made each of us to be. That requires discernment, self-knowledge, and humility. This is really the process I've stepped into  these last couple of years, led by the Holy Spirit....

Ah, there it is. The first "Zombie Jesus" post in my Fb feed this Easter. Every year, even before I came back to God, I would cringe at those stupid, tasteless jokes. This year, I sort of dreaded seeing them, to be honest. Apparently some folks still think it’s good fun to ridicule other people’s beliefs as the butt of insulting jokes. But hey, it’s okay ‘cause we have this thing called free speech, an aspect of free will. So whatever. I’m jus’ sayin’… But that’s not my main point. My main point is this: I'd actually like to borrow this insulting joke and turn it around. Consider that it is actually a reality, not a joke, only in reverse. And mind you, this is from a Christian perspective, so I don't expect everyone to agree. Here's what I'm saying: we are the zombies without the Resurrection – literally the walking dead – stumbling in a hazy twilight from our own self-absorbed, self-righteous, yes, sinful, state. Before you get your back up about that...