Would There Be News?

So, today, I ran 7.4 miles on the treadmill.  That puts me up to 26.6 for the week and 266.6 for the year.  In terms of my virtual pilgrimage it puts me on the west size of the Ohio River to on US 40 again.  I would have crossed the Ohio River running across Wheeling Island today.  I would also have run a bit on a trail in Wheeling and along the way today I would have passed the Wheeling Catholic Elementary School.  

So, I ran my 7.4 miles in exactly 1 hour.  It was a mid-day workout that started at 12:33.  After the run (yet another day on the treadmill), I weighed in at just under 158 lbs.  I have now been weighing in at just under 160 consistently.  I'm getting toward my goal.

So, what lessons do I pull from today?  Well, I decided to play the numbers game a bit today.  I noticed that the lesson in my religious education text book that I was covering today focused on Psalm 133.  Interestingly (although perhaps just completely coincidentally), that is exactly one half of the whole number of miles I've run for the year.  And if we just take my 26.6 for the week and ignore the decimal point, we have an exact half relationship.

What was it from Psalm 133.  Well, in the kids text book it was adapted a bit, but here is the the first verse after introducing the Psalm:

How good and how pleasant it is,
when brothers dwell together as one!

We talked about this in relation to the final 7 commandments that focus on respect for each other.  Then, in the readings today during mass (which came right after Sunday school this week), I heard the 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 that talked about the fact that God has some pretty amazing things for those who love him.  No eye has seen.  No ear has heard.  No one can imagine.

So, how does this fit together?  Well, it occurred to me as I sat through the mass that may we can't imagine what life would be like if we could dwell together as one.  My 3rd grade students certainly couldn't imagine it.  I asked them, how nice would the world be if everyone just got along.  I asked them how different it would be.  I asked them what we would not hear about in the news.  The eventually came up with things like war and murder.  They even asked, "Would there be any news?"  Clearly, they have been acclimated to the constant news that makes it seem like the whole world is going wrong all the time.

So, today's run was an interesting one.  Bringing me to think about what it is that I can't imagine.  (I guess that seems like an odd thought.)  And being driven to think about what would happen if people could all just get along.  If I could imagine it.  

There would still be nature to deal with.  Having been to a viewing today for a 26 year old who died suddenly last week, I realize that life would not be perfect.

But I probably couldn't imagine what it would be like to have everyone just get along.  

One other numbers thing from today--if I can find a flat hal-marathon and I still want to focus on breaking 1:30 at some point, 1:29:10 (from the Corinthians verses) would not be a bad time to aim for.   

The Spirituality of Advent, Day 5, Week 1

This week of focusing on hope has also been focused on mortality.  This is a very interesting pair.  Although in the church, it is not a pair that is surely an oxymoron.  Mortality brings hope for resurrection for those who believe in such things.  

The experience of mortality can take multiple formats.  Mortality can be experienced as just knowing that someone passed away.  Mortality can also be experienced as a funeral with all the emotions that brings.  

Listening to the readings and the music on Monday made me ponder--if I had a choice, which readings and songs would I want to be chosen to represent me.

The readings are somewhat easy.  I would go with the reading from Ecclesiastes that Sherry and I had at our wedding.  Not because I associate the wedding with death, of course.  But because it is timeless and it matches well with one of the songs that was sung at the funeral mass on Monday: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  

The Psalm, also easy.  Psalm 23--the Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.  In any of its many forms either spoken or musical.  

The second reading--focusing on hope, as well as faith, and most importantly love--1 Corinthians, 13:1-13.  This ends with the verse that started me writing my personal blog.

Finally, the Gospel would be an interesting choice.  I'd actually go with Luke 23:33-43.  Not because I think that the focus on death would be the right thing.  But because of Jesus's forgiveness no matter what the soldiers did and because of the criminal who asked Jesus, "remember me, when you come into your kingdom."  I like the focus on God's kingdom.  And I like Jesus's response.  As Father Sam once pointed out, the criminal is the only one Jesus actually told he would be brought into heaven.

Songs: Amazing Grace, Be Not Afraid, something with Psalm 23, Take My Hand Precious Lord, Take Me Home.  All easy.  All typical.  I'd really have nothing to add on this one.

If there were a communion meditation song that was potentially non-religious, also a theme from Sherry's and my wedding--"Don't Know Much."    Maybe most would see it as a throw back to a "sappy" 1980's love song.  However, I would see it as a song of hope.  There may be many things I don't know.  But I would hope that everyone who showed up at the funeral would be someone to whom I had shown love.  I would hope that everyone who showed up at the funeral would be someone who felt love for me.  Love in a broad, general, friendly sense, of course.  

The key is that it is a song of hope and simplicity.  I only need to know that there is love.  Once I know that, everything else will follow in some way, shape, or form.  And that is a message that I hope others will have seen in my actions.

Comes back to the question of "if I were on trial for being Christian would there be enough evidence to convict me?" I hope that my actions of love and acceptance would be part of that evidence.

The opportunity to have so many messages that are dear to me so clearly communicated by word and music would be wonderful.  Of course, I hope that the opportunity to share these lessons does not come too soon.  While one of the readings on Monday was about the joy of marriage, I find the links to the same readings we used at our wedding to be a way to point out the importance of marriage.  The same fundamental ideas that have guided me for the last 22 1/2 years continue to guide me.  And I suspect they always will.

If those who come to my funeral some day can take with them the lessons that have guided me, I will be understood.  And while Saint Francis's prayer says I should not seek so much to be understood as to understand, at that point, I can't do any more understanding and the best I can hope for is that being understood will inspire others.  

Looking Ahead to Sunday's Readings

I don't usually comment on Sunday's readings in advance.  I sometimes comment on readings after I hear them and hear the priest's interpretation in the homily.  I sometimes comment on readings during the week just as the days go by.  But this weekend, I am actually doing what priests generally hope the congregation will do and encourage the congregation to do--reading the readings, processing the readings, and thinking about the readings in advance.  That way, my read, my ideas, and my interpretation can come right up against the priest's, get mixed around, and come out with even more insight at the end.  At least I hope.  It should make the readings more interesting for me to listen to.

Sunday is the second Sunday in ordinary time, the Feast of St. Sebastian (January 20), and the day when much of Baltimore will tune into a Ravens game.  So, I'll be listening to readings, thinking about how they relate to me and to the saint in whom I have taken a larger interest, and taking in the mass while many are worried about how quickly the 5:30 mass will end so they can get home to see the Ravens game.  I enjoy watching football, but in my mind the mass remains more important--particularly as someone involved in the music ministry.  So, I will just take it all in and go watch whatever remains of the game when mass is done.

I think I'll comment on the second reading first.  The second reading is 1 Cor 12:4-11.  The reading talks about how there is just one spirit but how the spirit gives many gifts.  The gifts that are enumerated include wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, prophecy, the discernment of spirits, varieties of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.  Whether the list was intended to be exhaustive or not is not relevant here.

The key is that there are many different gifts.  Gifts that I have been given.  Gifts that my favorite saint was given.  Sometimes as I have gone through my own life, I have felt as though the spirit of God (perhaps coming back to the ruach from Sunday) has given me different types of gifts.  The variations I have experienced make life incredibly interesting.

The reading also explicitly states that different people are given different gifts.  Not everyone has the same gifts.  Not everyone is asked to use them in the same way.  Everyone, however, is asked to use their gifts, but there is plenty of variation in how and when, and even how people interpret their gifts.  For this reason, I try not to judge.

I have no way of knowing what gifts anyone else has been given and whether they have been able to maximize their use or not.  It is for God to figure out.  My job is to set an example of maximizing the utilization of my own gifts and hope that others will follow suit.  It is incredible to imagine what life might be like if everyone made the effort to maximize the use of their gifts and did not use their gifts to denigrate others.  I am not saying that everyone should work together for a common good necessarily.  But if everyone at least worked for their own good and did not trample others in the process and put the gifts they have been given to their ultimate use, we might have a much different, much better, much more prosperous, much less stressed out, world.

Here's to hoping.  

What is prayer?--Or Another Thing I Learned at the Start of Another Year of Religious Education

On Sunday morning, after we discussed personality types, the next item was the definition of prayer.  Among the six tables of people entrusted to teach mostly children and some adults about our faith, we could come up with things like "talking to God" or "talking with God" or "a conversation with God" or "listening to/for God".  While all those were interesting, the director of child and youth ministry at our church wanted something a bit bigger.  Below is something close to what she said.  I could not tell whether this was three separate ideas or a single quotation she took from someone else.  But this is what I came away with

The practice of the presence of God...to change my own mind to put on the mind of Christ...enabling grace to break into us.  

There are three distinct ideas here.  The first is something quite important.  It is not just "practicing" but "a practice" (or in this case, "the practice").  The key here is that we are focused on remembering that I am in the presence of God.  Recognizing that I am in the presence of God.  Acting like I am in the presence of God.  Using the presence of God as a motivator.

The second idea mentions the mind of Christ.  There is a mention of the mind of Christ in 1 Cor 2:16.    It certainly seems to me that it would be much easier to "put on the mind of Christ" or "have the mind of Christ" or "know what the mind of Christ is thinking" (e.g., "What would Jesus do?") if I am in the practice of being in the presence of God.  Or, better yet, to be the presence of God for someone else, i.e., God's hands and feet, eyes and ears here on earth.

The third idea is that it should involve grace.

The key with these ideas is that almost anything can become a prayer.  Prayer can be loud or silent.  Prayer can be speaking, reading, or listening.  Prayer can involve meditation or activity.  Almost anything that involves God's grace, remembering that I am in God's presence, and thinking about acting as Jesus would can be a prayer.

So a life of prayer or a life lived in prayer, does not mean being in a church praying all day.  Instead, it can mean doing all the things I would do otherwise but always with an eye on God's grace.  There are some things I imagine that definitely don't show God's grace.  The goal then, for me, can be to live a life always showing God's grace and living out the implications the words I pray aloud and listen to in church.