Gospel, Homily and Coffee

Nasruddin became prime minister to the king. Once, while he wandered through the palace, he saw a royal falcon. Now Nasruddin had never seen this kind of a “pigeon” before. So he got out a pair of scissors and trimmed the claws, the wings, and the beak of the falcon. “Now you look like a decent bird,” he said, “Your keeper had evidently been neglecting you.” One of the preeminent philosophers of the 80’s into the 90’s once said, “Reality, what a concept”. That would be Mr. Robin Williams. Reality, what we think of it as is not truly all of reality. Our minds construct reality with the information it receives. It makes intelligible what our senses perceive.  The trap is to believe that what we construct in our minds is all that is.   Conspiracy theories have plagued us throughout our history. We know they exist and people will hold onto them no matter what. We even have shows about them: X-files, Fringe, Mr. Robot. I was in Roswell two weeks ago, that is a ...

In the Eastern Rites in the Marriage ceremony both the Groom and Bride receive a crown on their heads. They become through marriage the King and Queen of their own little Kingdom, the family. A kingdom built upon divine love, meaning that each sees the good in the other, each commits to supporting the other in bringing forth that goodness; each commits to building up their family with this value. During an Engaged Encounter weekend couples preparing for the sacrament of Matrimony make a journey to be even more open to the wonder of what they will commit to. One part of that journey is for them to begin to think how they will form their family.   The family begins, not when those kids arrive, but when each says “I do”. Yet the groundwork begins way before that, with each saying this good is what is important to me and both agreeing what “good” will be valued and become an active part of the family: generosity, mercy, compassion. In the beginning, the book of Gene...

A brief history lesson.  In the 70’s, the 1970’s not the 1870’s, the United States experienced the Oil Embargo, and then later began to worry about the world supply of Oil. It would run out in the next century!!!!!!!! That was the panic. A movement began to begin to conserve, to find alternative sources and to use what we had more efficiently. Today, look at the expansion of solar, electric vehicles, of way more efficient machinery. Also in the late 70’s into the 80’s, ACID RAIN and our polluted lands. Our clothes would burn off our bodies, forests were dying. LA air was horrible, the panic! A movement began to care for our planet, to reduce air pollution, to clean up the environment. Today, look at the progress we have made. Today, Global Climate Change, White Supremacists and the rise of Nationalism, rise of Russia, rise of terrorism…Always something that can scare us. The best words my spiritual director ever gave to me: “DON’T PANIC”  When we do not pani...

Being lost can be a scary situation. I have a great sense of direction and being a geologist, who used maps and compasses, helped. Yet, one time, while hiking in Northern New Mexico I got seriously lost. Thinking I could save some time, I got off trail on a shortcut of my own devising. But when I got amid the trees, and it was cloudy, so I could not see the sun, I lost all sense of direction. I began to panic. I swear I even heard a wolf (coyote) howl. So I remember telling myself stop, breathe. I was able to re-trace my steps, got back onto the path, and eventually got to where I needed to be. My heart racing a bit, humbled a lot. These days with our technology getting lost seems less to happen, or so it seems. However, it still happens.  And there are still places where that technology will not work. Technology does not help with other and maybe even more serious kinds of lost.  How many of us get lost in our depression, our addictions, our heads?   ...