God of snow and rain, even as we thirst for the higher truths we turn away from them. How maddeningly strange are we born of love and defined by love, creatures of grace yet separated from it. Mend us, please, from the inside out and from the outside in.
Master,
At the break of dawn help me to understand the no one and nothing is beyond hope.
In the light of the morning grant me the grace to reconnect myself with you–for our bond is connection that I sever each day by error, by neglect, or by force of will.
At the peak of noon as patience wanes and my spirit bows, allow me instead to see your Spirit in each person.
In the middle of the afternoon give me peace of heart.
As evening comes drown me in the purity of your Love and broaden the reach of my compassion that I may love everything that exists as you love it.
As I sleep may I sleep in you.
God grant me the serenity to recognize in each part of creation and in each moment of time the in-severable spirit of the Beloved.
One of the more frustrating personal challenges that I sometimes face is the question of how to find an appropriate yet functional way to integrate my spiritual life into my work life. I generally don’t face the classic “American” challenge of integrating religion into a workplace that would rather ignore it (first of all I am not classically religious, second working a Catholic University hardly meets that stereotype of a “workplace”). The overall atmosphere at my job is very welcoming to the idea of integrating sprituality with work life, if not quite so helpful on the practical end. Indeed you could argue that it is something of a requirement to succeed.
No, the real source of tension lies in integrating the expectations of the working world–fundamentally pragmatic–with those of the a comprehensive spirituality–by definition holistic. When you believe in a god that is best understood as the manifestation and the origin of unconiditional love, what does it mean to conduct one’s job in light of that love? For that matter, what does it mean to love your coworkers and your customers? Your consultants and your partners? These are questions and frames of reference that seldom get explored.
The tension comes not from the fact that the problems and challenges that arrise in the context of work are not compatible with the idea of love, it comes from the the isolationism of the standard professional responses to those problems, which were created without love as a reference…
Beloved, in the tiny space of this weak moment–in my tiredness, in my disillusionment and in my smallness–grant that I should hear your voice, as you are in all great and insignificant, remembered and forgotten, whole and broken.
With the Burndown weight-loss project official completed more than a year ahead of schedule (my final stats will be taken tomorrow, but I lost somewhere north of 80 pounds in 10 months) I have decided to turn my attention to another personal need. 2010 is the Year of Miracles, and to help commemorate this year I will post a new prayer, meditation, or spiritual reflection each day for the next 365 days.
This first prayer is loosely based on another prayer for humility that I began some time ago. (I often deliberately copy some of the patterns and phrasing from the Prayer of Saint Frances, although my work is clumsy by comparison.) Its reemergence seems appropriate to the task at hand.
Within myself I see this: pride, my deepest and most vicious enemy. For it is the most opposed to those graces I have been given and the people and truths that I was made to love.
I do not believe that my faults condemn me to failure without hope. I recall the words of Thomas Mertin who said that the desire to please you, does, in fact, please you.
Master, grant that I do not write these reflections for fame or for gain. Grant that I never believe that I can solve any problem or answer every question.
Yet also grant that I not be so arrogant as to disregard the insight that is the movement of your Spirit. Do not allow me to shun the graces which you have given me. Do not let me be so lost as to believe that the love with which you love is unknowable and unreachable.
Master grant that I may find that stable place between pride and arrogance where authentic humility resides. Grant me the grace to know my errors and to learn from my mistakes. Grant me the courage to face all truths, even those which are difficult. Grant me the persistence to continue, even when the task seems fruitless.
Remind me each day that that which I am seeking is you.
I am starting a new project today, which I am calling “Burndown: 100/730″. I am going to use the Amazing Powers of the Internet™ to motivate myself to lose weight.
With a height that varies between 73 and 74 inches depending on my mood and a weight of 280 pounds, I am more-or-less 100 pounds above the upper limit of my optimal weight (as defined by the not-to-precise method of height-wieght ratios).
My BMI (body-mass-index) is 36.9, which places me well into the obese category. (Obesity is defined as a BMI of 30 or greater. A BMI of 25.0 or greater, but less than 30, is classified as overweight and a normal BMI is somewhere between 18.5 and 24.9). A weight of 225 would place me just inside the limits of the overweight category. It may not sound like much, but it is a far more desirable place to be from a health standpoint.
I rarely discuss my weight with anyone. I find it a little disconcerting that I find it much easier to, for example, discuss my sexual orientation with a stranger than I do talking about my weight with my best friends. I have been overweight for 15 years, ever since I was 13 years old. In slightly more than two years I will turn 30 and I have come to the point in my where it is time to do something about my weight problem, or it will start to cost me the remainder of my life.
I have never been a religious dieter, and I have never believed in fad diets that aim to help you loose weight over a period of time, but which are discontinued after they have run there course. I have always preferred incremental change and fundamental lifestyle adjustment. But these things are harder.
I am a relatively healthy eater–you would probably be pretty impressed with my shopping cart on most days–and I love to cook from scratch. I don’t much like sugar, and I naturally stay away from candy, cookies, sweets, and ice cream. My weaknesses are starches (breads most of all) and cheeses, and my biggest problem is portion control. It doesn’t matter how healthy what you eat it–if you eat too much of it, it will convert to fat. My other biggest problem in lunch–I eat out almost everyday for lunch.
The Burndown 100/730 is a way for me to track my weight loss project publicly–both to help me enforce it upon myself, and so that (God willing) it might at some point be an inspiration of someone else who is at the same point in their life that I am. I am going to do this by posting a picture of every single thing that I eat, and by tracking my weight on a twice weekly basic (Sunday, and Wednesday).
I am not going to bore anyone with the details–instead if you are interesting in following my progress, please click on the Burndown 100/730 link that I will add to the left side of the page in a little while.
Consequences of Gay Marriage
From GraphJam.
I have had this blog for the better part of three years, and I have never posted anything of substance to it. You could say that I am a little apprehensive about writing anything here. Most of this is because I am afraid of submitting anything damning to the public record. (I have done that before, by the way, and believe me it is not something that I care to repeat. Anyone interested in finding out how heedless and thoughtless I can be to my friends just needs to consult Google.) I am starting up again largely because I feel like it is time to get over myself.
Blogging is a departure from my normal style of writing, which I would characterize as redactionist. Most of my past writing experience has been short essays or 800 word opinion pieces. In either case, writing is largely the act of getting something (anything) down and reading and editing it over and over until I am happy with it. (I have never bothered to compare myself with other writers to see if this is typically or not, but I would be curious to find out.) For publication, I usually spend between 30 and 60 minutes per 100 words, so I produce a piece in roughly 6 hours. In order to get this far I have already had to output words at more than 15 times my normal “for publication” rate.
Of course, writing like that is not in the spirit of a blog–which is more playful and more stream of consciousness than not.
I am not sure yet what I will write about. Generally I find that the best and most “spiritually complete” topics are those that I have been stewing on for many months–this, by the way, is why man invented driving. I have far too many interests, but really only a few obsessions, and the later are what I think make good blogs.
I also have it in my mind to try and imitate something of the spirit of journaling as it is was practiced in the 19th century.
So here we are now, beloved reader, at this place and this time. I am going to have a lot of fun with this project. Nothing else would do.
