The View Up Here

Normally around this time, I do a wrap up of the year in my own life and estimation. Although I don't remember if I did one last year. Anyway, I'm resuming the tradition.  After spending the Christmas holiday with my family, I arrived home last night to find a pile of Christmas cards awaiting me in the mail box. I had anticipated this and was delighted to open cards from friends and family in other states as well as right here in Elmira. What I wasn't prepared for was a letter tucked into a card from my friend Fr. David, a Trappist in Utah. His letter held some sad news, including the death of their Guestmaster, lay brother Michael. Michael was my first contact at Holy Trinity Abbey, where I spent many a retreat weekend during my year in Salt Lake City, and we had quickly become friends. I will always remember his New Jersey baritone, "We all love you, honey. We're praying for you."  So last night after doing laundry and watering my plants, I made my ...

As 2015 comes to a close, I remember the joys, not the sorrows. I recall the unexpected blessings, not the disappointments.  I hold in my heart the sunrises over the Wasatch Mountains, the gift of the computer I'm typing on, my new friends in Utah whom I love, my old friends in New York and Massachusetts who have taught me lessons and supported me. I give thanks for the beauty of the ocean at sunrise here at Nantasket Beach where I stayed last night. I am exceedingly grateful for the foundation grant which will assist me in my student loan payments while I am in formation once I enter a religious community. I choose to focus on these blessings, not on the discomfort I may feel in the uncertainty of my future, my current lack of a "home of my own," and other factors.  Disappointments, discomfort and disarray are a part of life. There is nothing any of us can do to avoid this truth. The Buddha Dharma teaches that "Suffering exists." As a Catholic, I ac...

I have no good excuse for not writing here. Reasons, yes, but laziness combined with a certain obsession with re-watching the Battlestar Galactica reboot from the mid 2000s really took up a lot of time that could've been spent elsewhere. So why the BSG binging? I'd been hankering to see it again, and after listening to some of the soundtrack on YouTube, I decided to dive in. What did I glean the 2nd time around? I didn't dislike the ending as much as I did the first time. I still have some issues with plot holes you could fly a, well, a battlestar through, and it still made no sense why Cavill would off himself at the end. But seeing the mixed human-Cylon settlers on "new Earth" decide to start over made sense to me, and it resonated on a personal level. How many of us want a "do-over" in our lives, or at least in some situation in our lives? The good news is this: we DO get to start fresh. Because when you reconcile with God, the sins and mistakes o...