These are a few of my favorite things

I don’t mean: “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things”

No…these are a few of my favorite sins…that’s what I am referring to. This Sunday’s sermon cut a little too close to the bone. The gospel reading was from Mathew 5:17-37.
“……. it was said to your ancestors,
You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. 
But I say to you,
whoever is angry with brother
will be liable to judgment; ……. ‘You fool,’
will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
 ……………….. “You have heard that it was said, 
You shall not commit adultery. 
But I say to you,
everyone who looks at a woman with lust
has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to sin,
tear it out and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one of your members
than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna.
And if your right hand causes you to sin,
cut it off and throw it away.
It is better for you to lose one of your members
than to have your whole body go into Gehenna. “……. you have heard that it was said to your ancestors,
Do not take a false oath,
but make good to the Lord all that you vow. 
But I say to you, do not swear at all;
not by heaven, for it is God’s throne;
nor by the earth, for it is his footstool;
nor by Jerusalem,….
Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,' and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the evil one.”
Father talked about what we allow to go on in our heads, sometimes we do not want to let these thoughts go. We don’t want to get over them. We enjoy playing them over and over in our head. He talked about how sometimes we enjoy being angry and carrying a grudge. I gave some thought to the part about “but I say to you, anyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” But we do have a choice. We can choose what we want to think about. Displacing bad thoughts with good thoughts…substituting prayer for lustful looks would be a more prudent action than spending an eternity in Gehenna. So, let my “yes” mean “yes” and my “no” mean “no”. I pray, Lord Jesus, that this be so. Let Your words be the “Sound of Music” in my head.

Dear Lord, I am tired of the same old rerun.
Help me “move on” to something more fun.
Fill my heart with nothing but grace.
Take my head to a better place.

It’s not enough to abstain from the action,
But give no thought to the evil attraction.
Your words in scripture You do not mince.
So, please guide my thoughts now and hence.

Amen

Beast of Burden

I drug my “beast of burden” from my sick bed to the medicine cabinet and peered in…looking for something to relieve the sniffles and headache. It was difficult to determine which remedy of modern medicine to take…so I decided to open a can of chicken noodle soup instead. It was much more soothing than some wretched pill or nasty syrup and after consuming an entire bowlful I regained enough strength to crawl back in to bed, pull the covers over my head and nod off to sleep as I prayed.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the all the good times and good health…even if underserved. Thank you, Lord, for this tiny bit of suffering that serves to remind me that life is not always fun and games or good health. Help me accept whatever suffering you send my way and endure it with a little bit of the same grace and composure You showed us on the cross.
Amen.

Pecan Pie

For breakfast I leaned over the sink and devoured the last piece of pecan pie…a pie, which a friend had brought over…expressing concern that I was not being properly nourished while my wife was away taking care of her mother.
I couldn’t help but think how thoughtful and kind some people can be and perhaps I should work toward being more like that…as I licked the pie tin clean. I’ll start on that diet tomorrow.

Thank you, Lord, for pe-can pie.
Thank you, for friends nearby.
With all of this that I spy.

I can not maintain a dry eye.
It’s quite enough to make one cry.
When contemplating the By and By.

For you, O’ Lord, I can not deny.
You, O’ Lord, are my Rabbi.
It is you, O’ Lord, I hold on High.
Amen

Uncloudy Day

After several cold and cloudy days I begrudgingly relented to my wimpier side and turned on the breaker to my electric water heater. At last I had to admit that my precious solar water heater had let me down. So at the end of a cold, windy, and cloudy day of working outside I caved in and turned on the electricity, went inside and took the most wonderful hot shower ever.

Thank you Lord for Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison.
Thank you for whoever invented all the stuff that makes life comfortable.
But most of all, thank you, Lord Jesus, for the really important stuff.
Amen

Four Advil

Four posts, four post-holes and four Advil later, I crawled into bed. Thanks to my son Jason and the two-man post-hole digger we cemented in the structure that will hold the new gate for the new driveway. I fear I’m getting too old for all these projects but doing them gives me an emotional boost. I feel more alive…the excitement of doing something keeps me young…at least in my head. And such is my life…it is lived mostly in my head and has little to do with reality.

Please forgive my waxing and waning/
Also forgive all my constant complaining.

All of my straining, my aching and paining/
I am sure it’s good for my spiritual training.

Give me strength to pass the test/
For you, Lord Jesus, are the best.

Amen

"Thank God And Greyhound"

After 43 years of marriage the day finally came. The day my wife announced that she was moving back to her mother’s house…going home to mother...moving out…leaving… and I was OK with that.

It wasn’t like Roy Clark’s “Thank God And Greyhound she’s gone”. While I am pleased that she is leaving it’s for an entirely different reason. Her almost one hundred and four year old mother needs her. Almost blind and almost deaf she still lives at home but someone needs to be there and I am pleased it can be my wife.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for a loving mother-in-law and her daughter.
For such a wonderful and undeserved gift is not fodder.
I will miss her…and it’s only a pittance to pay for the hereafter.
Thank you, Roy Clark, for making me chuckle and all of the laughter.

12/23/10… Happy 43rd Anniversary… Mary Owen…I love you.

The Shortest Day

On the shortest day of the year…the winter solstice…I pedaled into a strong headwind and struggled to make the 6 AM Mass. It was T-shirt weather and the brisk breeze carried off the heat and sweat generated by the vigorous turning of the crank. After the readings I was able to catch my breath and listen to what Monsignor Harold said. “Christmas makes no sense…nothing about Christmas makes any sense,” says he. Finally someone admitted what I had been thinking for a long time. Christ coming into the world the way he did is not what I would expect God to do. If I were God I would have flown in on Air Force ONE, had a big limousine and a bunch of Secret Service men waiting to take me to a four star hotel. But God chose to come as a baby…born to an unwed mother in some retched barn full of stinky animals.

What do I know? I do not understand why, but I am glad He did it. I am glad he came for the poorest of the poor, for the lowest of the low…for me.

I’ve decided that it does not have to make sense. I am comfortable being the most foolish of the foolish…the fool of fools…a fool for Christ.

God’s nonsense makes more sense than the wisdom of the wisest men.

As usual, my preparing for Christmas was limited to eating lots of Christmas cookies and Christmas candy. So again this year you will not receive a Christmas card or gift from me.

Merry Christmas to all

Some Things Never Change

As I sat on my tailgate…I lifted the tab to the rim and pulled back slowly…per the instructions on the can of Van Camp’s Pork and Beans which had spent the morning on the dash of my truck warming in the December sun. I wiped off my spoon with the clean underside of my shirttails and dug in. The taste of that first spoonful took me back to my childhood…just as if it were yesterday…the memories flooded back…memories of a blissful time when all was right with the world. It was a simpler time before fast foods…before TV…a time when the family all ate dinner together. Those pork ‘n beans found their way on to our table with amazing frequency and I loved them. They were especially good on the family vacations when Mother would put the can in the back window of the car…by noon we would find a roadside table and enjoy that wonderfully warm tomato sauce and pork flavored bean. My dad referred to those beans, as “the musical fruit” and he would recite his favorite limerick. “Beans, beans the musical fruit…the more you eat the more you toot.” What great times. Our caring parents kept us kids on a short leash and well sheltered from an ugly outside world. Life was not so messy back then. As a “grown up” I tend to do what I want to do…and that’s what gets me in trouble.

Well…some things never change…our Father’s love and Van Camp’s pork ’n beans.

Dear Father God…give me the wisdom to stay on that short leash, listen to your words, follow your rules and enjoy this blissful life as a child. Amen

Burr...

The Weather Channel reported thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit, calm winds and a clear sky. So I jumpstarted my day with a bicycle ride to morning Mass. It was a wonderfully refreshing morning with a heaven full of stars. I was able to locate the “Big Dipper” high in the northern sky…inverted with its outer rim pointing down toward an indistinguishable North Star…supposedly lower down in the haze toward the horizon. I couldn’t help but wonder how the old sailing ships ever got to their destination without a Tom-Tom, Garmin or Magellan. Fortunately I knew the way to church and then on to the “W” for breakfast…breakfast with the old men who sit around drinking coffee and discussing the world’s problems (myself not old enough to drink coffee).

As I pedaled home the sun’s rays pierced a crystal clear blue sky and glistened off of the snow white frost covered roofs. I took a deep breath of cold morning air and thought…this is a day the Lord has made.

You’re the star and guiding light
You’re the one who lights the night.
Thank you Lord for this day
It is You that shows the way.

Amen

Mental Health Days

Monday I decided to take a mental health day. It seems that if I go to work too much…I start taking everything too seriously and get all bogged down in stuff that isn’t even my concern…and that diminishes my productivity. So I was going to hang out at home and work on my writing…hone my skills as a serious writer. After several hours of staring at a blank page, sharpening every pencil I owned and making multiple trips to the fridge to look in…I decided I could never be a real writer. Fortunately the phone rang and a customer called with an emergency…so I gathered up my tools and spent the day doing stuff I was more comfortable with.
Today is Friday and my wife wanted to know how many mental health days I was going to take. Well…that’s the beauty of being self-employed…working for yourself. You can make your own rules about mental health days. As long as my belly button is not touching my backbone I can take as many days as I want.

You are the one, who answers my plea,
Thank you Lord Jesus, for taking care of me;
Back in the day, when I had not even a clue,
Now I realize that it was you.

For all of the times when things were fine,
For all of the times when I was blind;
Thru all of the trials and all of the test,
Now I realize you’re the best.

Amen