Walking with John XXIII - Lord, Make Me A Peacemaker

We cannot have true peace without trust in each other.  Peace in our hearts is a necessary tool to create peace in our world.  St. Francis of Assisi knew this and the innocence of his love for all was his gift of peacefulness toward all.

We live in terrible times, is a phrase echoed down through history and the more we have tried to be peacemakers, using man's tools, the worse things have become in our world.  We aren't meant to keep peace by ensuring a balance of armaments. We are meant to create and keep peace by keeping Christ, the great Peacemaker, the one who confirmed and made complete, the message of the ancient prophets.

We are all God's children.  His son's great gift of peace is meant to be shared by us all, believers and non-believers, alike. 

In John 14:27, Jesus makes clear that the peace He gives us is not the same as the peace the world gives  God's peace is strong and everlasting.  We have seen many peaces come and go in the world but the Peace of Christ never passes and with that peace, we have unity with others.  We recognize our oneness with and responsibility to and for each other.  We have peace and love, undivided from each other.

Dear God,

Make me an instrument of your love, mercy, forgiveness and openness to your Will.

Make me a keeper of peace within myself and I might share that peace with others.

Give me the words to encourage respect for all and a willing heart to help those who cannot help themselves.

Help me to share the knowledge that helping through our own efforts is preferred to mandating help as an enforcement placed upon others.

Help us to understand that by each offering what one can do for the least of us, we can create a world of peace and unity.

Help us to understand, it isn't necessarily the poverty of the body that suffers more but rather a poverty of the spirit that spreads hate, fear, and violence in the world,  Amen

Poplar Beach at Half Moon Bay - Haiku My Heart

It's always fun when my brother kidnaps me.  I'm always a willing victim.  This day's destination kidnap was to Half Moon Bay on the California coast just south of Pacifica, CA.  We visited Poplar Beach, a popular walking, biking, riding area for locals and visitors alike.  Students from the local junior college spent not so sunny mornings painting in the brisk and windy air.  The fragrance of ocean, sand, and a sweet aroma in the area due to the abundance of flowers grown in the area creates a wonderful setting for strolling, dog walking, and horseback riding.  And unlike many place, the horses are actually allowed on the beach, not just the riding trail on the cliff above the beach.

People and dogs are a friendly bunch.  The painters like to share their work and talk about what they are doing.  All in all, visiting Poplar Beach was a great opening act to a memorable day.

However, before arrive at Poplar Beach, we discovered a little winery on Hwy 92 heading into Half Moon Bay.  Wine lover that he is, Dave had to stop.  He got wine.  I got a photo op and then we were off again.

Shade of ghostly grey

Alert hunter poised, still

Invisible cat

Door to a door to

a secret deeply hidden

behind one more door

Dave and Yolanda

Dos Hermanas

Yolanda

And who is photo bombing who?

Sis and big little Bro

At Poplar Beach, the student paints were on the cliffs and on the beach  

Some were painting together and some were alone.

A particular form of push-up that can be done when the

man is almost 6'2" and the woman is 5',

A common form of ground cover that loves to grow in sandy soil.

We called it pickle weed when I was growing up

Soft, starry surprise

A thistle passed its prime

Careful, I might bite

The first of two large groups of riders we saw 

from a local summer camp.

Yolanda scrambles over a fence to

retrieve the balloons

David stretches

I walk

And we all crowd in for a selfie.

More adventures coming up.

Walking with Pope St. John XXIII - Lord, May Your Will be Done

The Will of God, for me, is to do His work.  We are each called whether in great ways or small, to do His Will.  Even Jesus acknowledged that he was sent to do the Father's Will, not just his own (John 6:30)

To follow His Will is to love. How imperfect our love and actions are when we stumble in our efforts.  But, we are human; how could we not stumble?  Fear, the great weapon of Satan, is always there waiting to block our efforts to serve.  Prayer, only prayer and communion with He who loves us without restriction can help us to overcome and defeat Fear.

When we feed on the food of God (John 4:34) we consume the food which is His Love and Will.  Our work, however small, is complete and completed when we do the work in God's name.

A recent viewing of the movie "Of Gods and Men" is the perfect illustration of men called to serve in a way that might end in their deaths.  They struggled with their personal fears privately, with each other, and they prayed, at times desperately.  They had no way of knowing their fate but they suspected and then accepted the Will of God.  With acceptance came peace.  They trusted in His love to sustain them as they continued to obey His Will and serve.

Not all of us will  be called to martyrdom but each act of service teaches us more of love and God's Will for us.  And, we are strengthened.  With this strength, we are enabled to follow in Jesus' footsteps to the knee of God, the Father of us all.

In the words of John XXIII, from his diary in 1947, we read, " . . . liv(ing) in continual obedience gives me courage and dispels my fears".

Dear Father,

Help me to greet each day without fear and with the expectation that you will show me opportunities to serve others in your name.  Amen.

Benchmarks - Haiku My Heart

Yesterday, July 11th, I read the date, July 12th.  I was reading something; I don't remember what and the date was part of whatever it was that had captured my attention.  I stopped and pondered for a moment as I tried to remember what July 12th meant to me.

This morning I found shade still laying across the front porch and my book and the chair met with me nestled in between them.  I was reading Vivian Swift's When Wanderers Cease to Roam and since it was July, I turned to July and started reading.  July 12th floated before my eyes.  Again.  And today is July 12th.  What odd bits of memories were forcing their way to the surface?  What was the significance of this date in my memory?

My parents were married on January 12th.  My mother's birthday was July 21st.  Were the threads of my memories rewiring themselves?  Did I have something to worry about?  July 12th was beginning to annoy me.

I settled into reading again, engrossed in Vivian's love affair with pretty dresses, her sweet memory of a Tunisian night at the age of 20, making me think of my own daughter's Tunisian adventure at a similar age.  We shared a love of birds and butterflies and a love of relaxed, comfortable, uncluttered clothes.  I was especially charmed by her unique solution to shaking off the blues of a failed engagement or marriage.  And there it was.  July 12th.  45 years ago

Hovering flashback

An ill-fated, marriage

Painless memory

Black confetti bed

Scattered Marriage vows

Lost in healing time

There was a time when this date never passed unnoticed.  It is a benchmark from my youth that offered up lessons long after the date had become meaningless.  Eventually the date started to slide passed and when I did think of that date, it was gone, farther away by another year.  Odd that it popped up again today but perhaps really not so odd after all.  I struggled to remember why this date was important at one time.  It took me 24 hours to remember.  I like that.

Fear and Loathing in the Valley

I spoke with Sr. A today.  I gave her a brief but complete review of the fear, loathing, and total lack of trust I feel for Muslims.  I told her how I hoped that Mission would help me but on the face of it, it only made things worse.  A little knowledge of history and clear information about Islam can be dangerous to the soul.  Prayer and struggling with this fear can come through only one Healer.

Sr. A told me she struggles with the same troubling feelings.  She sits before the cross and is speechless.  In her anger and pain she asked “why is this happening”?  She knows the sisters kidnapped from Mosul, Iraq.  One especially is her good friend.  It is deeply personal for her.  For me – I am more distant – I pray they are  saved and fear for them as a Catholic, as a woman, and as a fellow human being.

I told her that I had gotten to the point that my only solution for my inability to love as God tells us to love is to simply tell myself – as I react to persecution stories – that I love, that I will love.  Even if I am not feeling it, I will tell myself that I love.  Thus, I open my heart to love and with time, it will fill with real love.

It is so hard to consider the distance between a Muslim who is just an ordinary person, perhaps my neighbor, and a Muslim who bombs, crucifies, desecrates holy places, kills other Muslims, and persecutes and/or kills all Christians and Jews.  The list is endless.

In growing up in Baghdad, Sr. A was in the only Christian household in her neighborhood, surrounded by Muslims.  Interestingly, they were respected, were treated well, and one woman would only allow Sr. A (as a girl) to care for her children.  She did not trust her Muslim sisters of the neighborhood.

Once, when asked by a man, why Christians did not respect Mohammed even though Muslims respected Jesus, Sr. A told him he was looking at it from the wrong direction.  If he thought Mohammed was not respected, it was because of his followers’ own actions as taught to them in their Koran.  Jesus taught us to love all.  No exceptions.  

That cannot be said of Mohammed and Islam.  By your actions, you will be known.  Faith and works are inexorably connected.  There can be no love without the backup of actions that show love.

I went to Sr. A sensing that she would have the words to help me.  Remarkably, I had words that also helped her.  This was so unexpected that I realized that perhaps I was farther down the road to what God requires of me of loving and accepting than I knew.  So, as I close, I say this prayer:

Dear God –

Protect all suffering people, feed the hungry, free the religious prisoners guilty of nothing but holding their faith to their hearts.  Protect and free Miriam and her family in the Sudan, protect and free the kidnapped orphan children and nuns of Mosul, Iraq.  Open the hearts of men to allow Christian refugees to leave exile for the West.  Protect all children from the Hamas/Israeli conflict so that there are no more kidnaps and killings. 

In Christ’s name,

Amen.

Walking with Pope St. John XXIII - Increasing Goodness within Myself

Only one man, in the entire history of the world, has obeyed  every commandment of goodness found in the Old Testament.  God and his son are the only good and we are called to be good as they are -   Romans 8:28 and Luke 6:31.

We are told (John 6:38) that Christ was sent by His Father to do His Will.  Doing the Will of God is not easy and even Christ suffered and asked for His cup of suffering to pass Him by (Matt 26:39).  His humanity begged to be released from this final act that would renew man to salvation.  But, knowing He was called to die for our sake, He did so.  His glorious resurrection put His followers and all of humanity on a firm path to God and salvation.  Serving Him helps us, then, to work out our own salvation (Matt 7:21).

As I read Pope Francis' book, The Way of Humility, I am overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of true humility.  His words, so simple and direct, flow against our world today, pushing like hardening sap.  If Jesus can humble Himself before His destiny of physical death (Phil 2:7-8) how much easier it should be for me to bear my call to humbleness before God.  I am not being asked to die physically (not at this moment in any event) but I am  being asked to die to myself.  If we are to follow Christ fully, we need to ask ourselves what cross it is we are meant to bear for His sake.  In recognizing our own cross, we are more fully prepared to serve, in all humility, others, in His name.

Serving is no chore done out of duty or obligation.  We may feel duty and obligation but, done in love, there is no effort.  In fact, the act itself is so freeing that communion with God can only increase. Obeying a call to serve and love are the same thing but the road to that union of service and love can offer up unexpected roadblocks.

The road to a practice of good acts through service and love is fertile ground for Satan's minions - Doubt, Rear, Revulsion, Shame, and Embarrassment.  The struggle through these barriers to goodness and into the light of God's waiting love and companionship is a deeply personal road, a steep climb out of a dark pit that is always waiting there for us.  Holding to the hem of His robe, I cling to His love to stay on the path of doing His Will.

Pope St. John XXIII's motto was "Obedience and Peace".  There is no clearer road for me to follow.  The dark minions are held at bey as I look up to Him and ask His Will for me.  Once known, once answered, peace in His love becomes my shelter.  My sight becomes clear. My heart opens to receive His Grace.

A Quiet Time

It has been a quiet time for me.  I'm been preparing my first book of haiku's based on the Book of James.  This week I will print a sample copy.  Meanwhile, my meditations of St. John XXII continues.  The first one will appear here shortly.  There will be nine all together.