Gospel, Homily and Coffee

Why does it matter that God always forgives? Why does it matter to have God in our lives and even celebrate that God wants us? Being lost is a bad experience. Lost, meaning I don’t know where I am in the world. Whether up in the mountains or in the middle of Manhattan, when we are lost it is frightening, confusing, disorienting. Been there, seen it, done it. Being lost emotionally, mentally, spiritually can be the same. It is hard to think. Overwhelmed by emotions; can’t make decisions, hard to have hope; all we see is gray. Been there, seen it and done that too. To be honest, not sure which is worse: physically lost or emotionally-spiritually lost? Many of us know or have known lost people; lost in their addictions, lost in their anger and bitterness; lost in their sorrow and grief. We can feel powerless because it seems there is very little we can do to bring them home to us, to themselves. If only they would just stop drinking, doing the drugs…. If only they could stay awa...

After nearly 20 years of being with families experiencing death, it will never get easier. The more tragic and painful experiences are those persons that died suddenly; accidents or sudden health issues. Part of the tragedy is that the final words, the final “thank you”, the final “I love you”, the final “forgive me”, the final “I forgive you”…did not get spoken.   So, don’t wait. Now is the time. As we approach Easter, let's go to Christmas. Particularly the tale “A Christmas Carol.” We kind of know that tale; Ebenezer Scrooge, a rich old man, bitter and isolated, gets visited by three Spirits; past, present and future. Ebenezer is shown those moments in life when he made a choice in the past that led to his sad present; whereas the Crachitt family, poor, lived with joy; and then a future, the grave. Ebenezer wakes up and with joy realizes he has time to change the direction of his life. It was not too late. A former doctor of mine, many years ago, noted that I was ga...

In college I had a normal circle of friends that I hung with regularly. One friend in particular often received special attention from our group. She did not always have the best taste in men. We would raise our eyebrows at some she dated, all of us would get a good laugh at their expense. After college, we all maintained our friendship even though we spread out. This friend started to date someone; he was older and tended to be a bit self-absorbed, at least we thought. But she fell in love and we supported her. They got married and it was good. Then she became sick, brain cancer. And he, her husband, rallied around her. He devoted himself to her care, it was amazing! She made it through, for a few years, then it came back and he once again did everything for her. She eventually passed but her husband, I saw him in a different light. That is a phrase we use in English, to see someone in a different light, whether positive or negative. A person’s actions help us to know mor...

Every sickness and disease can have its devastation. One that perplexes and affects so many is dementia. When someone we love loses memory; forgets who they are, who we are; it can hurt. I listened to a podcast about this, and the spirituality around this, and the question was, what if the person forgets God? And the simple answer is that, it is no matter, God never forgets the person; God always remembers. God always remembers us. We remember in different ways. We remember with nostalgia; calling to mind days and events from the past, usually overlooking the bad stuff and remembering the good and fun. Nostalgia elicits warm feelings, like remembering hot chocolate on a cold winter day with people we loved. We also remember to make real today what has happened. We remember to induce gratitude, change, and to remain strong. We remember how we felt out of shape, so we go to the gym. We remember how people supported us for college, so we work to get our degree. We also remember t...

There is this saying, an adage common in religious circles, but has been applied elsewhere: If you think you know God, then you don’t got it. If you do not know God, then you got it.  It is a paradox clearly, but a true one. Anyone who claims they truly know God, and by virtue of that, the whole of faith, does not understand. We call this “mystery” in Catholic circles. More of God and of our faith, and therefore of our own selves, becomes revealed as we grow in God and faith. Mystery means we seek more and more. I heard another saying several weeks ago. If we wait to be certain to take the journey, we will never take the first steps. Certainty only can be found after we have begun to take those steps.  People can want to have all the facts, all the data, all the assurances that what they are about to do is the correct thing to do. Now, this is not particularly bad, especially for buying a car or home, or some other major purchase. But, certainly in most of life, in fai...

There is a phenomenon in nature called a death spiral. It happens when ants lose their pheromone trail that leads them back home, then end up walking in a circle until they die. Negative Feedback loops; these cycles that we get into in which negativity feeds negativity, feeds more negativity…until there is just a total collapse. A collapse of friendships, family, community, whatever. This can be how depression works: this negative loop keeps playing in our heads and we can’t shut it off.  We fall into our negative feedback loops, our death spirals, because we can become blinded to our reality, or we do not know how to live differently. There is no perceived way out. We get lost. The irony is that we as Christians have been shown the way. The Story, or saga, of King David shows so much of the human condition. Some day I think I will have to have some sort of class on that whole saga. In it, we see David struggling to be a king and a good king; he will fail again and again....

Our group of geologists in Elko had an outing with a group of elementary kids to go fossil hunting. These can be great fun as kids can get excited because they are out of the building and messing around with dirt and rocks. One particular kid stood out though. He would bring a rock, a normal rock, an ordinary rock and insist this was part of a dinosaur. He did this over and over, and over. His imagination and his desire wanted this. So we played along. I think a sign of spiritual and emotional death, or stasis, occurs when we lack imagination, when we fail to see beyond. We merely accept what is given, what is front of us. We stop looking for more. What do we desire? What do we want on a deep fundamental level, not on some trivial level such as chocolate, beer, or the Bengals to win the Super Bowl. I think we all have a desire to grow, to transcend and to find joy in life, whether we can articulate this or not; whether we are conscious of this or not.  When we know what w...