Soulful Muse

Living in the past and reliving the past is always the easiest because there is rarely, if ever, a change. It is also among the worst of our habits, both physically and spiritually.

Thoughts and sentences inevitably begin with two dreadful words, if only.

“If only I didn’t say that on the phone or written it in that note or email.”

“If only I was a different person back then…”

And included in any “if only” list is, “If only that person is who I want that person to be.”

If cancer spreads throughout your body, just imagine how our “if only” thoughts eat away in our minds and slowly consumes our souls. Perhaps we don’t need to imagine it. It may very well be an easily digestive pattern to aging lives.

Regrets are one thing. Admitting there’s no second chance, regrets are tossed into the garbage with a strong resolve not to be repeated.

“If only” thoughts are the easiest because they’ve found a house to haunt instead of a home of comfort and peace. You wants to live in a house?

Jesus found a way to deal with those scary, “If only’s”. The demons are placed in pigs and thrown off a cliff. He found a place to reduce the past and replaced with this day of peace and the day after that filled with hope.

“Who are those guys!?” It’s repeated so often in the film to make its point poignant. It’s this mysterious posse in dedicated pursuit far away but still in view to these two culprits.

It’s Paul Newman and Robert Redford in the movie, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Trying to run away, these two are galloping up and down mountains, quickly riding through lowlands. Very often pausing, these two stars look behind them saying that repeated, but unanswered, question. “Who are those guys?”

With all due respect to our Blessed Trinity, don’t we very often think but never say out loud, “Just, who are those guys up there!?” 

There’s our unseen Creator, His once-visible Son and making it a trio is the sidekick, the ever nagging and inspiring Holy Spirit. That’s our holy posse chasing after each of us. Catching up to us is not to be arrested for our failures, foibles, and failings but to hug and embrace each of us. 

That’s the gesture of love that “those guys” created and the love we are able to share both within and about ourselves and then extended to others. 

But that’s about horses. What about cars?  The best movie car chase ever is “Bullitt.” Better than any after it. Eleven minutes of terror and thrill. No music, no dialogue, just the sounds of revving engines and  squealing tires up, down and around the San Francisco streets. There’s Dodge Charger, bad guys – evil chasing Mustang, good guy, Steve McQueen – goodness.

Zooming away, bad guys have that sly smile of catching someone as though they’ve got the upper hand. The spiritual twist to this chase is Dodge Charger, bad guys, lose sight of Mustang, good guy. “Where did he go?” is the look on both faces. Driver bad guy spots Mustang McQueen in his rear view mirror. The chase continues but now has switched sides. 

Psalm 23 anyone? “You set a table before me in the sight of my foes.”  Mustang guy now knows exactly where Dodge Charger guys are. Who, now, is chasing whom?

But now back to the horses. The best scene in that movie is Newman and Redford caught and cornered on a cliff needing a way out. The only solution is by jumping into the deep, rocky water below. Hesitatingly, Redford admits to Newman that he can’t swim. Newman responds, “Hell, the fall will kill ya!”

They jump. They jump out of fear and to simply escape. We jump. We powerlessly jump to give up our selfish powers to be empowered by the power of God. We die to ourselves and allow that heavenly posse to capture, embrace and hug us into the life the three of them created for us. 

Sound scary? It is and it’s not. Don’t ask me. Just jump off and feel and see who captures and embraces you. And, thanks to Steve McQueen, who’s chasing whom?

Close enough. Close enough.

In the hospital, after opening up your heart, the heart surgeon says to you in the recovery room, “Close enough,” as you choke on your tiny ice cubes.

“Close enough.” Never said out loud, but it can so easily be expressed in so many different ways.

For us Catholics, as it may be for other religions, it’s often safely, narrowed down to formulas People say, “I said my rosary!” “I went to Mass!” Nothing transforming or enlightening with those statements or recitations. Please note those sad two verbs, “said” and “went.” They are words showing completion, finished, and being done. “Praying” is the correct verb and our response to the meaning of this Christ-Cross.

Where’s the personal formation found in those recited formulas? Or, does it easily remain recited formula prayers, said again and again, without the accompanying Christ-challenging ongoing personal formation?

Nailing and unnailing the Cross is a lifelong challenge precisely because of its power, a unifying power between you and Christ. (But that’s not true, I’ll get to that later.) The Cross is all about shaking things up. Shaking up your life. Or, better said, shaping and reshaping up your life by confronting selfishness and sin and then nailing your entire being with the grace and love given by God through our surrendering to God. We can so often think that death/cross/resurrection as though that happened only once. It happens every single day of our lives…those same three exact words sacrificed by Christ and now offered for us to copy. Can you copy Christ on the Cross? “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” or so we’re told.

The auto mechanic tells you that we rotated your tires. Handing you the bill he says, “It’s close enough.” Just tell me how you feel driving home?

How shall I spend this one brief, singular, God-breathed-in-me life? Shall I hoard it in fear or give it away in hope as Christ did for me? Shall I push suffering aside at all costs and in doing so, push Jesus aside too? Or, is it sufficient and close enough to wearing around your neck an overpriced, gold version of what Jesus did for us?

You know in our conversations we constantly misuse the word Cross. We speak of it in our lives as a burden to be carried. We even say of someone, “Just look at the Cross she has to carry…poor thing!” Doesn’t that suggest that Jesus should have told God, “No, way Jose’” in the garden? Doesn’t that understanding of the Cross erase all of salvation and redemption history? The Christ-Cross is the cross-over from death into life. The cross-over from sin to repentance.

(whispering) I think that’s you and me.

Can I freely and willingly accompany and walk with the one we call “Savior” on the only road that leads to resurrection? “Freely” without that end bargaining with God about whether it’s heaven, purgatory, or hell. “Willingly” since that is the inner yearnings and promptings common to all our lives.

And speaking about verbs, how about those personal nouns, “I” and “you?” People ask me, “If I’m doing Mass next weekend?” I reply, “You do lunch, but I don’t do Mass!” To be Catholic, as the word defines itself, is always about us…never, ever about you or me alone. The collective sacrifice of the Cross is collectively witnessed and then shared with others about our disappointments and trials and then embracingly listening to the stories from others. Transforming our horizontal hardships of the Cross into vertical heaps of hope. As usual, Jesus showed us how this life-thing is done. Transforming the suffering sacrifice of one God-man on a wooden Cross into a joy-filled resurrection.

After your retirement party, you meet with HR, and she tells you about your pension benefit program with the closing words, “Close enough.” Your car takes you to the nearest tavern.

Just keep thinking and meaning but never saying out loud, “Close enough.” Because then you don’t have to engage or take risks. Because it can be pretty risky to take risks. Just ask the guy on the Cross.

Yes, we believe, and we rejoice in the mystery of the salvation Jesus secured for us through his death. But the Cross is not a historical artifact or a necklace adornment. In faith, the Cross is the way forward. Religious wholeness. In faith, this Christ-Cross is our only way forward toward meaningful and purposeful lives.

Well, I’m done. How did I do? Did I hit “the nail on the head” of His Cross? Or was my homily just and only “close enough?

These are the things I learned in kindergarten: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.

The Savior “shall proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.”

Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

“If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you.”

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little green seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die. So do we.

“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK! Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

And it is still true (and will always remain true); no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together!

One of my favorite words that I use at funerals for an energetic person is indefatigable. I love to say it, and I love its meaning. Another gem of a word to both pronounce and to know and feel its meaning is juxtaposition. Our word today and this next week as another Holy Week approaches.

Our beautiful Christian faith is full of juxtapositional events and colorful characters. At baptism, the priest tells the cute little baby, “die in Christ.” Ummm, welcome to the Catholic church? Simple water becomes the blood of Christ. On their wedding day, two completely separate individuals are told that they have now become one. Now. You may think this is transformation stuff, but juxtaposition is a better religious description.

Adam and Eve? Thank God they ate that darn apple. Otherwise, we would not have known of God’s visit, who continues to witness Himself within our lives. So keep sinning and then bring Jesus more closely into your lives. Speaking of which, we have that crucifixion with two thieves hanging on either side of the Son of God. One is repentant,.The other is rebellious. I don’t know about you, but that’s a typical day for me.

Then there’s that virgin/birth. Do I need to say more? I could stop right there. Oxymoron is another appropriate word, but that’s not our word today, and moving us through this holiest of weeks. And, just wait. Who needed to die not once but twice? Lazarus. Only done to prefigure the resurrection? Poor guy.

Yesterday, forty-three years the Alexian Brothers bought a troubled retirement home. They needed to buy it before bankruptcy or the residents would lose their life care plan. As a business decision, very poor, but ministerially a saving, sacred decision. Juxtaposition, anyone?

I’m sure you can think and remember your own “juxa’s.” Mine are simple. Nearing approval for ordination, several senior advisors advised against it. Nearing my soon forty-third year next month and over twenty-five years on the radio. Go figure. “And, he stutters!”

And today, we celebrate and honor the juxtapositional Palm Sunday—the day when Jesus is joyfully welcomed into the town of his lifelong, longing destination. We know the end of the story. He’s killed in that same town that welcomed him with those spreading palms, just like the red carpet on Oscar night. Those same palms are then later burnt, and then dirties your forehead with a cross as Lent begins.

Topsy-Turvy could also be another word describer, but that is not spiritual sounding. I just love the word juxtaposition because it best describes the life and times of Jesus Christ. And it best describes the lives of yours and mine.

How can any of us aspire, pray, and work toward perfection while remaining, always and anywhere, imperfect? It’s a perfectly solid question with a perfectly perfect, imperfect answer.

Let’s take the precision of perfection first. Music is the epitome of precision. Each note is carefully crafted and leads to the next until a composition, in all its complexities, is complete. Nothing is missing. Detail is the unifying rule of the day for musicians as much as a surgeon holds a scalpel. Unerring and faultless is the final product. Be it a polka or symphony, it is unity in the perfect sense of the word.

What, then, do we do with this spot-on, bang-on creation? Why it’s listened to by fragile, imperfect ears emitting nothing less than what? Emotions. Yes, that fluid, always changeable, passing feelings. Try counting your feelings one day; you’ll be exhausted by lunchtime.

Sadness, joy, wonder, amazement – this open-ended emotional list of emotions is endless. It is frankly the most mismatched marriage of life. At the same time, how could we survive and thrive without this weird conjugal bond?

What a contradiction. All the same, what a joy when perfection meets imperfection. A faultless melody is presented to fault-filled ears.

What does my little ditty today have to do with faith and religion? It’s the union of Jesus Christ with both of our ears. And, it’s a capital “W,” – Word made flesh, once dwelt and continuing to dwell among us.

“O God, who are moved by acts of humility and respond with forgiveness to works of penance, lend your merciful ear to our prayers and, in your kindness, pour out the grace of your blessing on your servants who are marked with these ashes,that, as they follow the Lenten observances,they may be worthy to come with minds made pure to celebrate the Paschal mystery of your son.Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The website for my car has the top banner words “navigate, connect, and discover.” I would add a fourth word, but that’s at the end of my little ditty.

Truer words could not describe not only that thing in my garage but that earthly thing concerning spiritual things. Three words evoke the best of any religion. All religions offer repetition and rote methods to express honoring and respecting a force greater than ourselves.

Our DNA, the core of our being, propels us toward something greater. Something or someone more meaningful than ourselves, which then provides meaning to our life’s journeys. I don’t understand how someone can be an atheist, but I suppose that “greater” is the continuing search for knowledge. Wow! Now we religious folks have something in common with non-believers. You would have imagined?

It’s those three words at the top. Rote and repetition express our religious faith. However, it’s not life’s homework of spirituality. The rote of the Catholic Mass offers publicly to God “handing in” our personal assignments. Those assignments are totally performed, honed, and acted upon outside of Mass.

The atheist personally seeks wisdom and enlightenment, prompting a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Christians prayerfully seek the same results, getting out of bed and presenting ourselves to the “greater honor and glory of God.”

For everyone, this is the melding of navigating, connecting, and discovering. Uniting the three is life’s scary yet exhilarating journey toward meaning and purpose.

My fourth word? It’s “uncovered.” All of us can do those three words relying on the mystery and beauty of my fourth. We uncover what was all DNA planted at birth to constantly navigate through all of life’s life while staying strongly connected to significant others and then discovering, again and again, the gift we call life.

Looking out my kitchen window, I see her … resting on a telephone wire. It’s been a long time watching her, for a bird, and she’s still there … probably absorbing and observing all that moves and lives and moves around her but below her.

Like me, she may be retired and doesn’t need to do the flighty things that working birds do. Probably has a solid 401K and good health insurance.

Steady and quiet. Just like me sitting at my kitchen table until my getting up grab my laptop to write this. It’s a quiet neighborhood at this time of dusk, but I suspect she sees things that many of those busy birds do not see. How many minutes have passed as I look upward, and she remains perching up and away there?

There’s a stupid song by Bette Midler, “From A Distance,” the theme being that everything looks good from a distance. Obviously! My kitchen-window-bird may not be … projecting an illusion of beauty but the more spiritual gifts of seeing people and our world complete with its strivings and sufferings, setbacks, along with hopefully many successes. (pause)

She just now flew away. (pause) Flying off now to a new telephone wire to perceive and view life from a different angle?

She’s just one bird, as I’m just one person, but that distant distance is full of beauty along with everything empty of it. In a TV interview with Stephen Colbert, Prince Harry wisely said to us all, especially those of us whose restful lives are limiting, “Digital diet, not only what goes in my mouth but what goes into my eyes.” What a quote for the times we live in.

I have only my, one, only singular view outside my kitchen window. My unnamed aerial observer takes in a fuller vision of life living below the telephone pole.

I wonder what her name is? Could her name be, “Just Me,” or is it “Community?” I think I just named my bird friend on that early Monday evening’s dusk.

Now, if only I had a very, very tall ladder. Or, if I only practiced a taller, fuller, enveloping Godly faith.

A Salvatorian priest attends an important meeting in Washington, D.C. He drives from Milwaukee, attends the meetings, and arrives back home. Upon his return, he’s asked, “Where’s the car?” He flew back. True story.

That’s what Lent is all about. Lent is all about the three “F” words. Forgotten, forgiving, and forgiven. I saved the hardest “F” word for last. Because that’s what Lent’s all about in the stretched arms of the One on a cross. But it’s also the best “F” word.

With the imposition of ashes, the traditional prayer begins with “remember.” Just in case we forgot that to the dust, we shall return. I don’t think anyone living in a retirement home forgets that.

Lest we do forget sometimes, Lent begins with us and culminates by God making an earthly wooden object meant for death and destruction, the sure, divine symbol of our redemption. God’s forgiving word? That’s the second “F” word.

That cross is now worn around how many necks and dangles at the end of countless rosaries. We begin each Mass focusing on ourselves in erasing those pesky small sins, and the rest of the Mass steeped in the hopes and promises of God living and breathing within and among us.

Our toughest, best, and last “F” word? Forgiven. Past tense. We know it applies to those who have hurt us in whatever way. “I forgive you,” we either say to the person or quietly say it to ourselves. That’s the best part. The hardest part is forgiving ourselves. Scripture talks about the enemy as though it’s something or someone outside ourselves. But as the saying goes, “We are our own worst…”

Can we find and experience forgiveness for the sins of our lives – be they huge or minor? Can we honestly first empty ourselves and then allow the grace of God to fill in all those cracks and crevices in our lives? That’s Lent. So go ahead and think of yourselves in Lent’s early weeks, but then slowly and willingly immerse yourself in the fulfillment of the crucified Jesus, who is then known to us as the Christ at Easter. I say “immerse” because we all die to ourselves and then rise because of Him.

I hope this holy season, this year’s Lent, is especially spiritually helpful to all of us in both our bodies and minds.

However, to this very day, somewhere hidden in Washington, D.C. is an abandoned car belonging to the Salvatorians. And we want it back.

View – See
Hear – Listen
Touch – Grasp
Travel – Walk
Travel – Journey
Taste – Savor
Sip – Swallow
Grin – Smile
Venial or Mortal Sin? – Judge Yourself
Distractions – Focus
24/7 News – Discernment
Nap – Never a Chair
Shrinking – Growing
Foggy Secular Thoughts – Good
Quick Meal – Stick with McDonald’s
Deceased Parents – Still Talking
Dog or Cat Pet – Always Cats
Me, Myself & I – Anyone Other than You
Self-deceit – Blunt Honesty
Sleepless nights – Re-Read this List
Breakfast or Lunch – Brunch
Yesterdays – Always and Only Today
Stranger – New Friend
Unknown – Embrace
Wandering – Wondering
Doubtful – Uncover
Intelligence – Folly
Self – Others
Botox – Beautiful Aging Features
Isolation – Community
Books & More Books – Scripture
Loud & Louder – Silence
Endings – Beginnings
Death – New Life