August Heat

As I struggled with the stubborn copper wire in the stifling August heat and humidity, sweat saturated every stitch of my clothing. I pursed my lips in an effort to keep ugly words from escaping and strained to suppress the feeling of aggravation as I forced the bulky conductor into the main lugs of the electrical panel. The perspiration fogged my glasses as my frustrations grew.

The thought of spending eternity in an unbearable boiling place crossed my mind. The elevated temperature reinforced my thinking and strengthened my resolve to do whatever it takes to insure against such a scorching fate. As I torqued down the connections I thought of that Thursday night in the garden of Gethsemane. I thought of Jesus. I thought of Jesus sweating it out…without complaining or grumbling.

So I prayed

Dear Lord, thank you for this warm warning of where I don’t want to spend eternity. Thank you for showing me the way, the truth and the life. Please give me the stamina to do whatever it takes to avoid that eternal hot spot.

Amen

A Note...Just to let You Know

8/11/2009

Dear Jesus,

How are you doing? I thought I would write you a note just to say thank you, thank you for everything. It seems I am always asking You for stuff…stuff I want…stuff I think I need.

As of late it seems I have made numerous requests for rain…as, I’m sure, everyone has. I am not questioning the fact that rain is a real need, but it occurred to me while washing my wife’s car after her return from a one thousand mile trip to her mother’s, that there was only a half dozen bugs splattered across the front. I realized that the whole summer had almost passed yet I had not experienced one single mosquito. Also, I have not had to muck around through the mud on any job site, and my home improvement project (replacing the exterior siding) has not been rained out…not even once. So, I want to thank you for these particular blessings.

Please accept my apologies for any grumbling, moaning or groaning on my part in regards to what I don’t have…as I am most thankful for what I do have. I am convinced that you know what’s best.

I just want to assure you that I think you are doing a good job and I encourage you to keep up the good work.

Hope to see you soon.

Love always

Toothpaste ?

Returning home from a job readying a steam boiler for inspection early Saturday morning I remembered that I was out of toothpaste. I spied the HEB sign from almost three traffic lights away and recalled the memories of aisle # 8, a virtual shrine to the jelly bean with every color and flavor under heaven. But my resolve was strong and I was above and beyond those temptations; so I marched past the endless rows of fresh fruits and vegetables with my integrity intact. Then I was engulfed by the smells from the bakery. The essence of fresh baked breads and cookies quaffed up into my nostrils as I staggered past the displays of pastries, pies and tartlets. I regained my resolve as I passed the health food section. I recalled…we were also out of peanut butter. I did not want that organic stuff my wife buys, you know, the kind that spreads like dried stucco. I wanted the real thing with all the trans-fats, saturated fats and hydrogenated whatever. I also grabbed a large jar of black raspberry jam making sure the word “REDUCED” did not appear anywhere on the label. As I passed a “help yourself” bulk display of treats…my eye caught sight of chocolate covered raisins. I decided I needed something from the fruit group to balance my diet so I loaded a couple of large scoops into a bag…actually I added a partially filled third scoop just for good measure. I could feel my will power slowly softening like chocolate left in the summer sun. Then I passed the infamous aisle # 8…I quickly filled a bag with Cherry Sours and tucked it under the loaf of white bread as if to hide it from my guilt…but at this point I knew I was done for. I slinked to the check-out and stood there as the checker scanned the ice cream, potato chips, and pizza; not to mention all the other processed and preservative filled man-made products that delight my taste buds and leave my body mal-nourished.

I couldn’t help but think…is this the way it is going to be on judgment day…with God scanning my grocery list of sins, as it prints out for the whole world to see.

Maybe I need to start taking better care of my body and my soul.

Dear Lord,
I know once the toothpaste is out of the tube it is almost impossible to get it back in. So please, Lord Jesus, help me avoid all those places that do no benefit to my body or my soul. Please help me to just “not go there”.
Amen.

Grocery Store Parking Lot

As I loaded my numerous bags of groceries into the trunk of the car…from out of no where came a voice asking for help…just enough help to get to Cuero, TX only thirty miles away. Almost like a knee jerk reaction I reached for my money clip, pulled off a twenty and handed it over. I did consider the single one dollar bill…for a split second but it seemed a bit stingy on my part. Besides if this was God’s way of testing my generosity, I didn’t feel like one dollar would cut it. She thanked me and even pronounced a blessing over me…then disappeared among the rows of car.

Then it dawned on me. This is not the road to Cuero. This road goes to Hallettsville. I wonder…was she just asking for directions, not a hand out.

Then all the second guessing started, I began to think…what if I have been panhandled? What if she was a drug addict? How was she going to misuse the money? What if? What if? What if? Wait a minute, I did my part…what she does is her problem. I was asked and I complied with the request. That should be all I have to worry about. The rest is in God’s hands and He works in strange and mysterious ways.

Thank you, Lord Jesus
For blessing me with money to share
For knee jerk reactions beyond compare
Please help me, Lord
Not to over-think a situation
That only leads to consternation
Please give me, my Lord
The wisdom to pass Your tests
And the strength to do my best

For this I pray. Amen

Into The Dark

As I stepped outside into the dark early morning, wearing nothing but my under garments, on a mission to deploy the water sprinkler…I stubbed my toe on a pile of construction materials left from my current home improvement project. The pain shot up my leg as I recovered from my stumble without completely falling. As I hobbled back inside to doctor my bloody toe…I couldn’t help but think how this stupidity paralleled the stupidity in my spiritual life. How many times have I allowed the “evil one” to lure me into the darkness where I would stub my toe and sometimes fall? How stupid, when…with just a little effort, I could have dressed myself and turned on the light?

O Lord God I praise your name
I bow to you in all your fame

Thank you for your gifts so many
For these indeed I have a plenty

Please, Dear Lord, light up the dark
For You’re my everlasting spark

Dress me in your protecting grace
And keep me safe ‘til I see your face

Amen.

Prayer and Fasting? Ouch!

In an effort to step up my campaign in the “good fight” as St. Paul called it, I volunteered to go on a three day “Desert Retreat”. Although volunteering is in direct violation of my strict personal policy to never volunteer, I thought it was necessary to improve my spiritual growth. I guess they called it a “desert retreat” not to be mistaken for a “dessert retreat” because it is like going into the wilderness away from all the everyday distractions and temptations to fast and pray.

Our leader, who by no stretch of the imagination could be described as a small man, announced we would all gather at a common point in order to caravan out to the remote isolated retreat location. So we all met at, you guessed it, the “all-u-can-eat” Golden Corral. Well…this makes sense…as any athlete knows you want to “carb-up” before any marathon. In recent years I have learned to avoid these “all-u-can-eat” places due to the fact that I feel a moral obligation to hold up my end of the bargain. Plus being a member of the “clean your plate…there are children starving in China” generation, I have decided these eating establishments are places I need to be kept away from. But, I decided to take one for the team and “soldier on” thinking the next three days I would have to exist on stale bread crumbs and water.

We arrived at our camp site and immediately got into some heavy duty praying and spiritual exercise; the Liturgy of the Hours, the Rosary, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and around the clock Eucharistic adoration.

My stomach rumbled during the silent prayer. It didn’t need nourishment it needed a bicarbonate of soda. Finally by the next afternoon things settled down and I looked forward to the possibility of a hunger pain as some sort of sign of my spiritual progress. But as evening fell our leader produced a meal of spaghetti and meat balls that any decent Italian restaurant would have envied. So, for me, once again the line between sustenance and gluttony was blurred.

Fasting and praying…the praying didn’t go much better. My mind wandered and wondered back and forth, in and out, from the spiritual world to the worldly world. I couldn’t stay focused. I worried about my fault and failings, my “should have dones” and my “could have dones”. I needed to get out of the past and into the present, the here and now. So I pulled my chair up close to the altar, right up next to the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord, physically present in a special way. I just looked at him and thought “I can’t believe it”. It’s hard to believe I am sitting here in this little room with God…the almighty God who created heaven and earth, My Lord, My Savior. I worried that it strained my faith. I kept thinking…I can’t believe I am sitting here in this little nothing room, nothing more than a lean-to on a pump house in the middle of nowhere, with God.

I wondered…I questioned…how this can be. I had to keep reminding myself that I choose to believe. That’s faith, choosing to believe.


I clenched my teeth and held my breath in an effort to suppress the tears as I thought, “How gracious of my God to allow me this honor”.

Thank you Lord Jesus

For letting me believe
What I cannot conceive

Strengthen my faith
And quicken the pace

Lord, take my hand
That I might stand

Be my guiding light
Throughout the fight

Don’t let me roam
But take me home

For this I pray
At the end of the day

Amen

The Summer Drought

With each step the brown grass crunches under my feet, the summer drought has not only left the ground parched and cracked it also dried my soul…dried it to the point that all my thoughts and feelings have shriveled up. I just exist in a state of spiritual lethargy with no sense of God’s presence. I force myself to Mass almost everyday but it is like a habit…a habit I’ve gotten into… with no apparent emotional charge or recharge. I feel as lifeless as the dry brown grass. I am ready for a little grace to fall like rain and a little rain to fall into my field.

Perhaps I just need to keep turning the crank, pumping the pedals and finish “the race”…not go with my feelings…but do what I know has to be done.


Please Lord Jesus
Send your grace to quench my soul
and send the rain to make things whole
You’re the one who makes it right
To You I pray this prayer tonight

Amen

Awake

As I lay awake listening to the occasional light snore coming from my wife I peered at the clock ticking off the minutes of wee morning hours. It wasn’t the noise keeping me from sleep…but it was…the flow of tiny electrons through the circuits of my brain…it was the mental activity that would not subside. I kept thinking about the words from Sunday morning …the same words we always repeat at each and every Sunday mass. It was the Confiteor: “I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned thought my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do…” I couldn’t help but ponder all the “what I have failed to do” moments in my past…all those missed opportunities that I really never considered to be an offense to God.

The beggar on the street…I would roll up my window as I passed in an effort not to be seen. The collection plate at church …I would close my eyes, as it was passed, as if in deep prayer.
Not making the sign of the cross and saying the blessing out loud before public meals.
And the list goes on.

My policy is to never volunteer for anything, never do more than required, but never break the rules. Well, I have got to change my policy, I have to extracate myself from the mushy middle, get out of my lukewarmness, I’ve got to be proactive in this fight, and I have to get out front in this race.

I pray, Dear Lord Jesus, please give me the wisdom to recognize my faults and failings and give me the strength and courage to correct them.

As Amen crosses my lips…I nodded off to sleep.

Minding My Own Business

As I sat in the pew listening to the readings…just minding my own business and feeling quite good about myself…perhaps even a little smug and self-righteous. The priest read the last lines from Matthew’s chapter ten quoting Jesus: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father. But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father”.

For some reason those words struck me…struck me and stuck in my head like some catchy tune playing over and over. I could not purge the thought from my mind.

I could not help but think of the times that I felt self-conscious about making the sign of the cross in public…when eating out. Oh! Sure! It is no problem in church. I’m the perfect Catholic in church. But to bless myself in public makes me uncomfortable.

Then it hit me…it hit me as if I had heard the cock crow for the third time. My heart wept with a mournful sorrow as I envisioned Peter on that fateful Thursday night.

Well! I’ve got to make some changes uncomfortable or not…I have to acknowledge Jesus. If I don’t…being “ill at ease” in public is going to be the least of my problems.

Thank you, Jesus, for your very poignant words.
Please, Heavenly Father…please Lord God...send the Holy Spirit to give me the courage I need.

Amen.

Final Answer

Who wants to be a millionaire? Who wants to be rich? Who wants to be happy?

Is being rich being happy? Do riches make me happy? Do I want to be happy for all eternity? Do I want to distract myself with the pursuit of riches now… only to find out…I will be eternally unhappy?

It all boils down to choosing the correct answer…choosing…between heaven or hell, between Jesus or No Jesus…and the clock is ticking.

I know there is a hell because I’ve been there. Using the scientific method of trial and error, I have, over the course of many years, tested each and every one of God’s commandments. If I have not broken the commandment…I have, for the most part, bent it to the breaking point. Each and every experiment, each and every incident, each and every testing produced the same results.

The result was the bottomless pit of depression, it was the incessant grinding and gnashing of teeth, and it was the crippling and excruciating pain of guilt…it was…pure hell.

Living without Jesus is by definition…Hell.
Therefore, Hell is not my answer…I am certain of that.

So…..My final answer is…be…be with Jesus. Jesus is my final answer.


Dear Lord Jesus

Forgive me for/ the fallacy I believed
Thank you for/ the grace I received

I ‘m humbled by/ the patience you’ve shown
As I stumbled about/ the great unknown

Forgive me for/ the trials I’ve blown
Please give me strength/ to press on

Thank you Jesus/ for your guiding light
Allow me the courage/ to stay in the fight

No other answers will suffice/ it’s clear nothing else will do
For nothing compares/ to the promise I… have… in… You

Amen