Keep On Keeping On

In desperation I strained to move my seemingly paralyzed legs as the approaching locomotive bared down on me with frightening speed. With its mammoth size only inches away… my visions of a devastating impact were imminent. A deafening horn sounded and in a fit of panic and disorientation my flailing arms managed to land a disabling blow directly on the snooze button. I struggled from my unconscious state into the early morning reality. Admittedly I was glad to be awake…and alive…but I found very little interest in getting ready for the day. The warm bed still held a certain allure that I couldn’t seem to shake. But I knew if I did not force myself to get dressed, get on my bike and pedal down to daily Mass…the day would be a complete train wreck with nothing to show for it but feelings of guilt and regrets over my laziness.

So I pressed on…thinking and questioning… how do people with real problems get though the day? How do drug addicts make it? How do people without homes or without food carry on? Here I am with every blessing imaginable and I struggle to keep my sanity, to keep focused on what’s important and to keep Jesus as my number one priority. I have heard it said, “You may have to live in this world…but you don’t have to be a part of it.” I prefer this analogy, “Your boat has to be in the water but you don’t have to have water in your boat.”

Well…I don’t need a boating disaster or a train wreck.

Dear Lord, please give me the strength to keep bailing water today.
Amen

Oh #@*% !!

Yesterday I overheard someone speak the “#@%* word” and it brought back memories of my time spent “in the service of my country”. I use that phrase “in the service of my country” very loosely. I was enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and stationed at Camp Pendleton, California on active duty. This was in the late 60s and Vietnam was heating up…yet back then they rarely called up the Reserves. The joke about the Reserves was “the unwilling being lead by the unqualified to do the unnecessary” and there seemed to be a lot of truth to that statement. Either Reserves or Regulars the “F word” was spoken fluently. I myself never heard such words as a child. My parents used proper language and expected us to do the same. Therefore, I had little practice in the art of cussing and cursing. Whenever I attempted such speech it just never seemed to flow or come out quite right. But thanks to my military training I managed to blurt out that aforementioned word on occasion with the required emphasis and emotion.

At some point I decided to give up my pursuit of foul language…not necessarily a decision to improve my moral status but more of an academic issue. I was on a quest to express myself better and expand my vocabulary. For it seemed “that word” was a bit over used. It’s not just used as an adjective or noun but used as every known part of speech: verb, pronoun, adverb, conjunction, interjection, and preposition. This makes for some very interesting sentences but not very descriptive or technically accurate when trying to converse above the level of a cave man’s grunting and groaning.

Well, I haven’t made much progress in my pursuit for academic excellence as I still end my sentences with prepositions and let my participles dangle but I have managed to eliminate most of the bad words.

Thank you, Lord, for parents that expected better of me.
Amen

Summer’s End

Dragging myself from the couch I turned off the TV’s depressing news broadcast and cranked up my wife’s lawnmower. There was a noticeable and amazing change in the weather. In South Texas some people tell me that the 15th of September is the end of summer. This doesn’t exactly agree with the Gregorian calendar which designates September 22nd as the autumnal equinox. This is the day that the earth’s axis has zero degrees of tilt and the north and south poles are equidistant from the sun…the beginning of autumn. Even though the days have been getting shorter for the last three months…due to the thermal flywheel effect it is only now I can actually go outside without collapsing from heat exhaustion or having to use supplemental oxygen to breathe. While not exactly a “Blue Norther” the northerly eighty degree breeze made being outside quite pleasant.

I could not help but think that in this nation gone crazy… with all the crazy people calling the “new north” south, calling evil good, and calling economic decline progress…that God is still in charge. God still makes the world go around, makes the seasons come and go and makes sense of a nonsensical world. After all…this is nothing new…history has recorded that the majority of political leaders were bad or evil people…so why should I think this is a perfect nation.

God’s north is still north, God’s truth is still true, God’s power is still sovereign.

I need to increase my determination to follow my moral compass no matter what direction the rest of the world goes.

Thank you, Jesus, for being my north star.
Please give me the ability, the courage and the strength to follow You on my journey to a perfect world where evil and crazy are not allowed.

Amen.

Indulgences

I’ve gotten in the habit of trying to say a Rosary to start off my hour with Jesus on Friday mornings. As I finished it off with my “how to” leaflet in hand I noticed a paragraph titled ROSARY INDULGENCES. My take on indulgences has always been a bit skeptical. It seems too much like a game show with rules of when and if it counts or whether it is a plenary or a partial indulgence. Anyway…I decided to see if I had scored any points and read on.

A Plenary Indulgence may be gained (under usual conditions) when the Rosary is prayed in church, in a family group or in a religious community.

Cool! I am in church…this is encouraging. Wait a minute…what’s this word also.

Also:
(A) five (5) decades of the Rosary must be prayed continuously.

Hum! I wonder if daydreaming breaks the “continuously”.

(B) The prayers of the Rosary must be prayed vocally and one must meditate upon the Mysteries of the Rosary.

Well…I did not say them out loud that would disturb the others in the chapel spending their hour of adoration. And that “meditate upon the mysteries” does it have to be continuous or can it be interrupted with frequent sojourns into my minds attention deficit disorder playground.

Do I even need to read part (C)?

(C) If the recitation of the Rosary is public, the Mysteries of the Rosary must be announced.

There’s not much point in reading on. I think I‘m out of the money, no points scored and no gold star. But that’s OK…I did not do it for the points anyway. I know God loves me. I know I can’t earn my way to heaven. Salvation is a gift. A gift I accept. A gift Jesus gave me.

Dear Jesus, I just want you to know I appreciate the gift and look forward to seeing you face to face to say thank you.

Amen