Gospel, Homily and Coffee

An annual ritual, a rite of passage, will start to take place soon. The annual ritual of kids leaving home. High School Graduations will take place and then these newly minted “Adults” will move on to college or to jobs, out of the house and into the world (a lot of them anyway). Parents have spent some 18 years preparing their kids, or trying to, for this next phase of life. Trying to teach them adulting skills; like taking responsibility for banking and money, cleaning and ironing clothes (always separate whites from colors), how to boil water so that at least the instant ramen will be cooked enough. The hope is that somehow this has all sunk in, in some way, shape or form. So that as they go out the front door and begin to leave, parents, you can quickly shut the door and lock it so that they can’t get back in. And our young adults will not starve nor freeze, and sleep on clean sheets. As Parents, Teachers, extended family, we hope that lessons we have instilled are in there so...

Managed Expectations - a phrase we can hear about an event or situation, when somebody does not want to get disappointed, when somebody does not want to disappoint others. I first came to Nevada in 1988 on a geology trip from Cincinnati. And I was not impressed. I was thinking I would see cacti and a desert landscape as in the John Wayne movies I grew up with. We were going from SLC to Ely, and I saw no cacti, just sagebrush and more sagebrush. Then we went onto southern Utah and the parks there and were blown away. When I returned to work in Nevada in 1989 I had realistic expectations and that is when I began to love the State. In the United States, Priests, if they leave ministry, usually do it within the first 5 to 7 years. And anecdotally, those who tend to leave more often are those who are Roman trained. The thinking is that these young men are told they are the cream of the crop, the best of the best, and they go to Rome and study; yet they receive very little parish expe...

“You’ll shoot your eye out!” A classic line, prediction in our culture.  Parents are prophets, are they not? At least in some fashion. You parents can see a situation and assess, and make a prediction: “Don’t do that or you are going to hurt yourself?; He/She is not nice, don’t come crying to me when he/she breaks your heart….” Prophets see a situation, make observations and then call out the probable consequences and can provide a different way to act. Prophets have a degree of wisdom and insight. Now prophets are not just doom and gloom. Prophets, especially religious ones and in our Jewish/Christian tradition, actually want to lead people to security, to joy; ultimately to God. They declare a way to avoid one path, so as to choose another. Think of Parenting again. Those prophetic warnings to kids really comes down to teaching kids about actions, consequences and how to choose. And they can mature into healthy stable adults. As we ourselves continue to mature though, who ...

Where’s Waldo? We remember those books; the funny looking dude with glasses, hat and striped shirt hiding in plain sight amid a crowd of others. Our task was to find him, to recognize him amid all the other people. It teaches attention and concentration; and frustration!!!!!!! At times we can all get into a too comfortable position in life and become numb to our world, our reality. We do not truly see what is around us. We all notice the snow on the mountains when it first happens, but by January we become “meh” about it.  We can also get overwhelmed by situations that wear us down, and we become less able to see the positive around us.   We can fall into the trap of thinking God is not here with us. God is not working with us. God is not in our world. We can think this as we get confronted in the news by all the bad news; gun violence again and again; earthquakes, wars, drought, the divisions.  Where's God? This thinking is not sinful, but it is also not help...