Peace Through Us

Jesus tells us first and foremost to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind.  He tells us second to love our neighbor as ourselves.*  

In these two most important commandments, Jesus directs us to love.  We are to let love flow out of us to God and to our neighbor.  God asks us to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, to help us to love Him.**  God asks us to consent to Him loving our neighbor through us.  

To love God, I must also love my neighbor.  Anyone who claims to love God but hates his or her neighbor is a liar.***  

To love my neighbor, I must not judge my neighbor.****  If I am judging my neighbor, there is no room in my heart to love my neighbor.   

We judge persons when we see what we do not like in them.  When I encounter thoughts, words and actions I dislike, I am to despise them in myself.  I am to be outraged at the appalling tendencies I notice in myself.  

I believe that the path to salvation is paved with despising my own horrible tendencies and begging God to forgive me out of His great mercy. We receive the infinite gift of God's immense mercy when we turn to look at ourselves, acknowledge our own sinfulness, and implore His mercy.  

Since I prefer to direct my energies toward how I need to improve, rather than on where other people might need to change, last week I made a choice reflecting this aspiration I have.  As I have previously mentioned, Catholic Workers regularly protest outside the facilities of a manufacturer of armaments here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Last week I was asked to choose the short writings we would read before and after our protest.  

In line with the sentiments I have expressed about trying to focus on how I need to improve, for our brief reading just before the protest, I selected a composition in which the Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote 

Instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all.  And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war.  If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed--but hate these things in yourself, not in another.  

I strive to love my neighbor, though often I find it challenging, and although often I fail.  We love our neighbor by taking an honest look at ourselves and how we need to improve so we can better love our neighbor.  

Thus I prefer to focus on what I need to do to treat people better than I do.  To help work for peace, we can examine our own thoughts, words and actions.  As Gandhi suggested, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  

Herein rests the reason why I don't protest more than I do and why I don't write about protesting more than I do.  While I find it important to speak out against injustice, I strongly contend that it is far more appropriate to try to improve myself than it is to point out why others are inappropriately acting. Since I wish to witness to peace, I want God to bring about peace through me.  For God to bring about peace through me, I must open my heart to God so He can transform me and thus create peace in the world, right now, in this very moment.  

Consequently, for our short reading together immediately after the protest, I selected the prayer commonly attributed to Saint Francis, which beseeches God 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.  

We can agree to God's plan to be channels of His peace.  We can consent to God bringing peace to the world through us.  

In every little fragment of time, in the present moment God is always extending His hand to us, inviting us to open our hearts to Him.  He is requesting that we assent to His will and open our hearts to Him, and love Him, so that He may enter into our hearts and love our neighbor through us, and thus bring peace into the world through us.  Let us open our hearts to God so He may abide in us,***** love through us and bring us peace.  Amen.  

* Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:30-31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:5; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
** Romans 5:5 
*** 1 John 4:20 
**** Matthew 7:1; Luke 6:37 
***** John 15:7 

Hoping Against Evidence

Today, on Holy Saturday, we witness to hope.  Yesterday, on Good Friday, we memorialized in a special way the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Today we especially remember His body in the tomb.  

Today we have the advantage of knowing that Jesus rose from the dead.  However, on the day in history when Jesus had been crucified the previous day, His disciples did not fully understand how He had told them that He was to suffer and die, and after three days rise from the dead.*  

In the midst of what seems like it can be nothing but tragedy, we face an immense temptation to despair.  It is at such overwhelmingly challenging moments that God calls us to hope.  
Recently I heard Cardinal Schonborn relate how our Blessed Mother Mary remained in her faith even on that first Holy Saturday.  The day after Jesus died, even then she had hope.  The Cardinal noted that tradition tells us that only our Blessed Mother kept the faith during that dark hour.  In the midst of what seemed like total defeat, she refused to give up hope.  

Our Blessed Mother Mary was hoping despite the evidence.  She hoped although what she saw was to the contrary.  We hope for what we do not see, and we look forward to it with persevering confidence.**  We look not to what is seen, but to what is unseen.***   

I hope for what I do not see with the eyes of this physical body.  And yet I can tell you that I hope for what I can see.  I can see my hope with my spiritual eyes.  I am being reassured of my goal, where I am striving to reach.  I cannot explain to you how I am being encouraged by those I cannot see, but I assure you, I am being drawn forward.  Although here is evidence which would never be admissible in any court of law, still I am presented with evidence.  On the basis of this evidence, I move forward in faith.  Thus emboldened by those who I somehow hear, and somehow I am inexplicably strengthened as I strive on toward the goal, as Saint Paul wrote, and in so writing, he implicitly incites us to do the same.****  

We proceed onward boldly in faith, hope and love, for we are empowered to do so by those who have gone before us.  Yet we also choose to define ourselves right now when we aim to think, pray, speak and act out of faith, hope and love.  We shape our own world right now, in the present, in this very instant, by our own individual choices.  

I have shared with you how Saint John of the Cross advised us, that where you do not see love, there put love, and there you will find love.  Now I say to you, where you do not see hope, there put hope, and there you will see hope.  

Similarly, I have repeated how Gandhi told us that you must be the change you wish to see in the world.  Now I say to you, you must be the hope you wish to see in the world.  

It has always been this way.  Two thousand years ago, when Jesus was crucified and was buried, His mother was faced with this choice, between despair and hope.  She chose hope.  Soon, and very soon, she was richly rewarded.  The Son she mourned rose from the dead, having been glorified by His Heavenly Father.  

In time she was abundantly rewarded in Heaven.  She was crowned in the midst of the glory of God, to the praise, honor and glory of God.  Our Blessed Mother Mary provides us with a model of faith, hope and love; through her example, she also consented to allow others to be illumined through the light shining through her.  She showed how hope is rewarded, through how she was crowned.  Upon this crowning Christians meditate while praying the rosary.  In so pondering and keeping these things in our hearts,***** we welcome the Holy Spirit to help us choose hope rather than despair.  

Each and every human being is presented with this choice, between despair and hope.  In how we respond, we determine how we contribute to shaping our world.  

We help the world become a better place through our thoughts, prayers, words and deeds.  But now is a dark hour, you say.  How can I possibly have hope?  In effect, in asking such a question, you ask how you can imitate our Blessed Mother Mary.  

Let us look at her life, then.  She was a lowly maiden.  She accepted her humble station in life.  When the angel appeared to her, informing her that she would give birth to Jesus, she obediently gave her assent to the will of God.  While she did not understand how she was to come to give birth, and she wondered how it could be so, still she promptly acquiesced to the will of God.******  God calls us too to submit to His will.  He has ordained all things for the good of those who love Him.*******  Thus we trust in Him who deeply loves us, who is loving us infinitely, and therefore far more than we can understand.  

When we realize that God's designs are far beyond our understanding, we are on the road to humility.  Once we are humble, we trust in God.  Turning over to God all that is occurring, and all that is to happen, we have hope in God, since, knowing that God is love,******** it is clear that we rest secure in the hope of the infinite love who is God.  Safe and secure in faith in God, confident in the hope of His promise, we journey surely on The Way home to Him.  Regardless of what seems to be occurring all around us, we strive on confidently certain toward the goal of resting forever in Him, in eternal love, in eternal life, now and forevermore.  Amen.  

* Matthew 20:19; Mark 8:31; Mark 10:34; Luke 18:33 
** Romans 8:25 
*** 2 Corinthians 4:18 
**** Philippians 3:14 
***** Luke 2:19 
****** Luke 1:26-38 
******* Romans 8:28 
******** 1 John 4:8, 16 

Compassionately Loving Neighbors

We show who we are in how we react when we see others suffering.  We declare who we are in what we wear and what we eat.  We proclaim who we are by what we do with the abundant resources at our disposal.  We determine our eternal destiny when we make these choices.  In choosing whether we are compassionate now, we decide where we are going.  We are to be compassionate and merciful toward our neighbor, just as God is compassionate and merciful towards us.  

And so we hear in today's Gospel that Jesus said to the Pharisees 

"There was a rich man 
who dressed in purple garments and fine linen
and dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, 
covered with sores,
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps
that fell from the rich man's table.
Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
When the poor man died,
he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham.
The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment,
he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off
and Lazarus at his side.
And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me.
Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water 
and cool my tongue,
for I am suffering torment in these flames.'
Abraham replied, 'My child,
remember that you received what was good during your lifetime
while Lazarus likewise received what was bad;
but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing
who might wish to go from our side to yours
or from your side to ours.'
He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him
to my father's house,
for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them,
lest they too come to this place of torment.'
But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets.
Let them listen to them.'
He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham,
but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
Then Abraham said,
'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded
if someone should rise from the dead.'"*    

We can go about our day meditating on how we are affecting others or not pondering how we are affecting them.  We decide whether or not we acknowledge the impoverished person standing on the street asking for assistance.  Either we give to such individuals or we do not give to them.  Do we even think about how we affect their lives?  At every moment, we choose whether or not we are going to evaluate how our actions are impacting others.  

Like the rich man in the parable, do we wear fine clothing?  If we do, do we consider how it was made, by whom, and under what conditions?  Was it made by young children?  Was it manufactured by a destitute person, who is living in an underdeveloped country, who is not making enough money to live in safe, clean housing and to eat a nutritionally balanced diet everyday?  Gandhi said, "There is no beauty in the finest cloth if it causes hunger and unhappiness."  If we are not mindful of how the clothing was made that we wear, we might be financially supporting unjust working conditions of extremely poor persons.  We might be turning a blind eye to the plight of impoverished persons as we wear the fine cloth they have sewn in their underpaid labor.  

Similar to the rich man in the parable, do we eat delectable food everyday?  Who helped supply the ingredients in the food we eat?  Who picked the fruits and vegetables we eat?  Were they paid a fair wage for their back-breaking work?  In the companies we patronize, we are indirectly ratifying how they treat their employees.  In the marketplace, we vote with our dollars.  We can express our values in how we spend our cash.  By consciously directing our funds to companies which fairly treat their employees, we can show real, effective concern for our neighbors who are economically struggling.  

Do we too encounter an impoverished person who is languishing in illness?  Do we do anything to help such persons heal?  I think of a doctor I met who volunteers his services here in northern California.  He provides free medical care to homeless people.  These particular indigent persons push their belongings around in shopping carts.  They sleep in tents on sidewalks.  This doctor does not see himself as being above them.  He meets with them.  He sits down with them.  He serves them.  He does what he can to help them to heal.  He sees the sores on their bodies and not only believes that they deserve better than having their sores licked by dogs, as occurred in the parable.  He welcomes them, listens to them and does what he can to remedy their ailments.  He is not ignoring them, but is doing what he can to care for them.  

We too can help hurting people to heal.  When we cross paths with a homeless person, we can apply a soothing medicine to them as we simply acknowledge their presence.  In this easily applied remedy, we restore their dignity to them.  In merely greeting them, we admit that they are human beings who are worthy of our attention.  In simply speaking with them with courtesy, we give them a valuable gift of respect.  

Do we encounter people who would gladly eat their fill from the scraps of food from our tables, as Lazarus would have done with the scraps from the table of the rich man?  Again, we can easily, with almost no effort, hand food to homeless people.  If we know we are going to be walking down particular streets where we likely will pass homeless people, we can plan so that we bring extra food with us to give to them.  On a larger scale, I have happily and joyously witnessed companies here in Silicon Valley donating their food leftovers, from the lunches they provide their employees, to charitable organizations serving needy individuals.  There are many ways for the rich man to share his scraps with the least of those among us.  

Once we die, we will be sent where we deserve to be sent as a result of who we have helped.  After we die, we will go where we deserve to go based on what we have done.  

After death, what we receive will based on what we have given.  If we want to receive, we must give.  Today at Mass, in his homily the priest explained that if we give, then we receive.   

If we give our love to someone else, then we too are recipients of that love.  The Trappist monk Thomas Merton beautifully and eloquently explained that "love can only be kept by being given away."  He wrote that if we truly love others, then their good becomes our good.  Then we truly wish the best for other people.  Then we are compassionate for other persons, because we are so identified with them that we seek our good solely in their well-being.  

When we truly love our neighbor, then when someone, when the poor man at our doorstep, asks that we have pity on him, we most certainly express compassion for such a person in how we care for him.  Truly loving our neighbor, we do not turn a blind eye to the suffering of our neighbor.  

However, after death, will we be asking that pity be had on us?  Will we be asking to be relieved of suffering?  

During our life, what have we received?  During others' lives, what have they received?   

Do we live in luxury without acting out of compassion for those who live without basic necessities such as housing, food, clothing and medical care?  Do we turn away from the agony others are enduring?  If so, we invite eternal torment upon ourselves, the anguish of others that we refuse to alleviate now, while we still can.  

During Mass today, the priest noted that Lenten observances of more intense prayer, fasting and almsgiving are ultimately about stirring us to be more compassionate.  Through undertaking such penitential practices, we are to be led to be more merciful and compassionate toward our neighbor.  During Lent, we are to be moved to act, to ease the suffering of our neighbor.  

Now is the time to be compassionate.  After we die, we will not be able to send someone to warn others, to urge them to love their neighbor as themselves.**  

In the parable, the rich man asked Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers that they might have compassion and love their neighbor.  Abraham responded that they have Moses and the prophets, and that they should listen to them.  

The rich man realized that his brothers would not listen to the law of love that Moses delivered to the people.  He also knew that they also would not listen to the message of repentance from sin that the prophets had delivered over centuries.  The rich man replied that if someone from the dead went to them, they would repent.  Abraham told the rich man that if people don't believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe if someone comes back from the dead.  

I think of the book "90 Minutes In Heaven" and the film based on that book.  In this book and in this film, we hear from a man who died and came back to life.  He explains how, when he was dead, he went to Heaven.  He is only one of the people who have described this journey.  Persons have gone to Heaven and back: people still do not believe.  

Even though we already were given enough in Moses and the prophets, and in Jesus, who is The Word made flesh, suffering and dying for us to save us from our sins, and rising from the dead, still God gives more to us.  Although God had already given us plenty of signs and messages to convince us to believe, God loves us tirelessly.  God will keep trying to convince us to turn to Him.  God is love,*** and so God will keep on loving us forever.  

God loves us infinitely more than we can understand, since God is love, God is infinite, and God loves us infinitely.  God is merciful toward us, and has infinite compassion toward us.  

Thus we are called to be merciful, just as God is merciful to us.****  We are called to be compassionate, just as God is compassionate toward us.  We are called to love our neighbor, just as God loves us.  

* Luke 16:19-31 
** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 
*** 1 John 4:8; 1 John 4:16  
**** Luke 6:36 

Ray Of Hope

This morning, as the sun was rising, I was helping my fellow Catholic Worker, Susan, clean up our front porch.  We walked out onto the porch this morning and saw that, as usual, there were some items there that no one took from the previous night.  

Here at the Redwood City Catholic Worker House, our front porch is a free zone.  Anyone can come and take anything that's sitting on the porch.  Persons here in Redwood City have come to be familiar with this practice.  People have become so accustomed to coming to the porch that some of them identify this ministry of giving free goods, which happens on the porch, as being synonymous with this particular Catholic Worker House.  Many times I've heard homeless folks refer to this Catholic Worker House simply as "The Porch."   

Since so many people know that they can drop off donations on our porch, people regularly show up to give clothes, toys, and household items and leave them on the porch.  In the morning, Catholic Workers clean up the porch, and remove items no one took away the previous day.  

After Susan and I had finished straightening up the porch this morning, I was walking to the van I use so I could put an empty box in it for usage sometime in the future.  As I was walking down the sidewalk, a young woman came out of the apartment complex next door to us.  

Before I moved in here at the Catholic Worker House, in that building next door lived low-income individuals.  Then the building was renovated, rents in it were raised, and middle-income persons moved into it.  As Larry, a Catholic Worker who co-founded this house dozens of years ago, has noted, due to rising rents and changing demographics, we have been witnessing changes in who we serve and where they live.  We have seen impoverished people forced to move due to lack of funds.   What part does compassion play in determining whether rents go up?  

As rent prices rise, our neighbors change.  Neighbors move, yet we gain new neighbors.  Interpersonal dynamics shift in the neighborhood.  While we used to have closer interactions with certain neighbors and feel more of a sense of community with some people who have moved on, now we cross paths with neighbors we hadn't met.  Yet they are our neighbors and provide opportunities for exchanges between us.  

And so I was conscious of this young woman this morning when she exited the apartment complex next door and greeted me.  Often I notice that wherever I am, many people do not wish others a good morning.  Frequently I notice that numerous people do not even acknowledge the presence of someone else when crossing paths.  

We have opportunities in each and every interaction to display the qualities we wish were present in our society.  What do we want to see in the world?  As Gandhi has noted, we must be the change we want to see in the world.  Do we wish to witness love being shown in the world, hospitality, warmth, and a welcoming friendliness?  Do you like to see the warmth of such light which emerges when others let that light shine through them?  

We should not underestimate the power of such little acts of love.  Saint Therese of Lisieux wrote of how she followed a little way of getting to Heaven by performing little gestures of kindness for others.  

We define ourselves by how we choose to act not only in grand matters but also in tiny ones.  In how we respond in every instant, we articulate the approach we take to life.  We call attention to the worth of every human choice by realizing the value of every action.  And in every little gesture we make, we send little signals of hope, rays of hope which emanate outward from our souls, to the souls of those with whom we come into contact.  Arising out of a consciousness of the value of every choice we make, we can proclaim with Saint Teresa of Calcutta that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.  

It may seem insignificant, but at many moments in our day we have the opportunity to welcome the stranger.  Do we do so?  We benefit when we examine our own practices.  Are we friendly to others?  Do we acknowledge others?  To recognize the presence of someone else is to recognize the dignity of that person.  

Are you concerned by how other people treat immigrants?  Do you greet others who you hear speaking in broken English?  Do you smile at them?  Do you try to help them to feel welcome?  

At other times, at first it may be less obvious when we are strongly affirming the dignity and self-esteem of someone by such warm and kind greetings.  The woman walking down the street, whose presence you acknowledge, and thus encourage to realize her own self-worth, may have been slapped in the face earlier in the day by her husband who habitually abuses her.  I am not speaking of a hypothetical scenario here.  Here in Redwood City I have met a homeless woman who, I have been told by multiple people, is regularly beaten by her boyfriend.  When others greet her respectfully, they are tending to her with a healing salve of gentle kindness applied lovingly to the emotional wounds which have been inflicted on her.  

We do well to consider the wounds borne in our midst.  When Catholics pray the rosary, Catholics meditate at times on Jesus being scourged, or whipped, at the pillar soon before He was crucified.*  Jesus was beaten not only at the pillar.  Jesus has told us that whatever we do to the least of those among us, we do to Him.**  Jesus, present in our neighbor who has been abused, is in the person walking toward us on the street.  When we acknowledge our neighbor, we value the presence of Jesus among us.  When we tend to the wounds of our neighbor, we follow Jesus.  

Jesus explained that we are to attend to others who are suffering along our path.  In the Gospel of Luke, we hear that 

There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”  

He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”  

He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”  

But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”  

Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.  A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.  Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.  But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.  He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him.  The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’  Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?”  

He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” 

Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”*** 

In hearing the parable of the Good Samaritan, we think of this parable as conveying a duty to care for our neighbor, not necessarily involving someone literally who has been beaten and is lying by the side of the road.  However, in our lives we come into contact with people who have been abused.  We might pass them without acknowledging their presence, without affirming their dignity and worth, and thus unintentionally contribute to the mistreatment they have been suffering.  Or we can greet them respectfully, giving them support which is much more valuable to them than we realize.  

Do we want to turn a blind eye to the suffering of others, especially when such small offers of warmth and kindness are easily within our power to share with others?  Do you think that you love your neighbors by acknowledging their presence and thus showing them respect?  If so, then go, and do likewise.    

* John 19:1 
** Matthew 25:40 
*** Luke 10:25-37 

Love Your Neighbor

Once again I feel the time is ripe to write.  What do I have to say?  I write about who is right in front of me.  I relate what is happening right in front of me.  Although they might seem ordinary and unremarkable, all our interactions are opportunities for making the world a better place.  When we interact with each other, we are invited to make choices in which we love each other.  

As I've pointed out before, in the end all we will have will be the consequences of our own actions.  After we have died, the time for action will be over.  Therefore, the time for action is now.  

And so I urge you to consider what you can do right now.  How do you feel you can best act right now?  As I've previously encouraged, and as Gandhi suggested, "You must be the change you want to see in the world."  

Do you feel there should be more compassion in the world?  Then be more compassionate.  

Do you feel people should be more tolerant?  Show the tolerance you would like to see.  

Do you believe persons should conduct themselves with more decorum and should respect others more?  Show the respect you would like others to show.  

Model the behavior you want to see being displayed.  Show how you feel people should act.  

Recently someone described to me how he envisioned meeting someone holding drastically different political views than he holds.  He said he imagined embracing the person.  Now I am not suggesting that we should always make such a gesture toward such a person.  However, there are other loving ways of responding to someone with whom I am at odds.  I am recalling situations where a person was yelling at someone else and the recipient of the anger replied in a calm, soft, gentle voice, and the tone of the conversation shifted.  We are responsible for what we bring to every interaction we have.  If we respond with love to someone, we can cause the overall tone of the exchange with that person to be more loving.  Do we want love to reign in the world?  Jesus told us to love each other as He has loved us.*  And so we are called to do our best to love our neighbor.  

Love the person who is right in front of you.  Each of us has responsibilities to each other.  Each of us has responsibilities to ourselves.  

I am remembering a young man who often shows up here at the Catholic Worker House.  Here I'll call him "Brendon."  Brendon is probably in his mid to late twenties.  When I saw him earlier this week, he was taking refuge here at the house from some of the rain.  

As we talked, Brendon admitted to me that he takes illicit drugs.  He looked pale.  As he often does, he seemed to have difficulty focusing.  

He asked, "I don't look good, do I?"  

One of the Catholic Workers here replied, slightly softly, shaking his head, "No, you don't."  

"Thank you for your honesty.  I appreciate that."  

"You're welcome.  That's one of the things I'm supposed to do for you, is be honest with you."  

We began to talk with him about how he could enter a drug rehab program.  He said he was getting someone's help to try to get into a program.

I pointed out to him, "You've taken an important first step.  You've admitted you need help.  You've admitted you can't do this without someone else's help."  

We have the responsibility to ourselves to be honest with ourselves.  We have the responsibility to be honest with each other.  

We are called to love ourselves.  We are called to love each other.  

Love yourself.  Love the person right in front of you.  Listen to the person in front of you.  Even though it may be difficult, especially when someone is saying things we find inconsiderate or hurtful, we can choose to try to show that person the love we wish that person would show to us.  

If we respond to hateful behavior with hate, we show the same offensive behavior we abhor.  We create more pain in addition to the pain we already feel.  We become what we hate.  We become hate.  

Instead of continuing the cycle of hate, Jesus calls us to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us.**  Then, by refusing to be like those who distress us and disturb us through their exclusionary and unwelcoming behavior, we can choose to respond in an inclusive, respectful and considerate way.  Then we create the world we want to see.  By modeling the loving behavior we wish to see in the world, we indeed make the world the kind of place we want it to be.   

* John 13:34 
** Matthew 5:44 

Do Your Best

Today is ripe for comment.  I am deliberately writing today.

As you process the events of the day, consider that you are not responsible for others' actions.  However, each of us is responsible for our own actions.  In the end, once we have passed away, all we will have will be the consequences of our own actions.  Each of us will have to answer for how we, as individuals, have chosen to act.  So make choices now which will bear good fruit both in this lifetime as well as in the next.

Mohandas Gandhi explained, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  If you are disturbed by something which has happened, then do something.  Do what you think needs to be done.  Be what you feel the world needs.  Whatever you choose to do, do your best.  In his book "The Four Agreements," Don Miguel Ruiz delineates this rule as how we are called to live our lives.  God realizes that we're not going to perform perfectly; God just asks that we do our best.

In addition to doing our spiritual duty by doing our best, it has been shown that people derive psychological benefits from choosing to take action.  When we ruminate, when we overthink about our problems, we tend to reinforce whatever degree of depression we tend to feel over the dilemma.  However, when we distract ourselves, or refocus our attention onto other matters, we tend to improve our mood.  Also, when we are more active, getting up and being mobile, we make it more likely we'll feel better.  Yet when we take a more passive, that is, sedentary, approach, we'll experience less of a lift in our mood.*

So in the midst of processing the circumstances of today, I have found that I have felt better today as I have decided to get out and take action.  Historically over the course of my life I have found this to be true as well.  There are specific moments I recall when I was an attorney, when I was feeling down.  At those points, when I reached out to help educate someone about the law, I felt better than I did before I did so.  Conversely, those who knew me in my adolescence knew me to be a rather depressed person.  That was back when I didn't get out and take much action, certainly far less than I have been taking over the last half dozen years.  Thus I recommend being deliberately active and moving to be the force you think the world needs.  In light of recent events, I don't mean to sound dismissive of how some people may feel right now.  However, what I can say for certain is that this approach has repeatedly worked for me over the course of my life, in stark contrast to when I have chosen not to follow it.

Today once again I witnessed the truth of this approach.  Someone I know went today and brought some food to someone who lives close by.  As she took the food, she smiled and expressed gratitude for receiving the food.  The giver expressed feeling better after handing the food to her, having had a desire to take immediate concrete steps to try to be generous amidst witnessing a perceived selfishness and greed by some in our society.

The recipient of the food too shared about an important lesson she learned yet again.  In that interaction in which she received the food, she shared about how she recently was awarded custody of her son.  In speaking with the person bringing the food to her, she explained the state of her mind, heart and soul as she had been pondering her quest to be granted custody of her son.  She said that she decided to turn it over to God.  She added that God took care of it for her.

In light of this message of relying on God, which inevitably leads one to pray, here I am led to another important point, which always applies.  However, the danger of succumbing to this particular trap is especially perilous when one feels that one is helpless, and that all is hopeless.  If you pray, the worst possible thing you could possibly do would be to stop praying.  When you are in spiritual darkness, you have the greatest need to pray.  Saint Paul exhorted us, "Pray without ceasing."**

Beyond praying always, Saint Paul also urged us, "Rejoice always."***  He also told us, "In all circumstances give thanks."****  At this point, you might be thinking something like, "Doug, I was humoring you up to now, but I can't swallow this.  When inflammatory, incendiary, divisive statements are made which demean and degrade people, and then such rhetoric is implicitly approved by many, you expect me to be joyous and to thank God?"  If we truly love others, then we will be disturbed when people are debased and disrespected.  God calls us not to be pleased and joyous because others are being mistreated, but to be grateful and joyous to Him that we are presented with the circumstances in which we currently find ourselves.  Are we grateful to God for the opportunity which God has given to us?  Anything except sin can sanctify us, that is, bring us closer to God, if only we respond in the right way.  I'm not trying to suggest that we're presented with an easy task here; I readily admit this is very difficult work.  Anything worth achieving comes at great personal cost.  The greater the worth, the more it costs.  If you believe this maxim as it relates to personal wealth, why reject this axiom when applied to spiritual progress?

Dorothy Day, who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement with Peter Maurin, said, "Love is the only solution."  If we're really serious about living a life of love, then the question is presented to each and every one of us, how far are we going to go to try to love?  Jesus told us, " No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends."*****  Jesus did exactly that.  He died on the cross for us, obedient even to the point of death, allowing Himself to be humbled even more than He already had been humbled.******  He also instructed us, "Love one another as I love you."*******  We are called to die to ourselves so we can better serve others.  We are called to die to our own egos, so as to be better able to love our neighbor.  When we strive for our egos to die, we can go beyond ourselves.  Then, instead of staying inside ourselves, we can go further, to try to help someone who may have hurt us.  Then, by the grace of God, it becomes possible to do what had previously seemed impossible to do.

In light of the grace of God, it becomes clearer how Jesus directed us

"You have heard that it was said,
'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  
But I say to you, Love your enemies, 
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your Heavenly Father,
for He makes His Sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, 
what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect."********

In the end, the goal is love.  To love as God loves is to love all God created.  God loves everyone He created.  He may be displeased with certain persons at certain times.  However, God still loves those persons.  While God is loving all of the people He created, we are to strive to love our neighbor too.

We are to love our neighbor despite how he or she may act in ways we don't approve, and which we might even find repellent or abhorrent.  But although we might find someone else's choices distressing, we should not worry about what the future holds and how it will be affected by others' decisions.  Jesus instructed us, "Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil."*********

Don't worry about other people, what they say, or what they do.  We never were responsible for their actions; we never will be.  In the end, we won't be asked to answer for their behavior.

In the end, we will be called to account for our own actions.  So despite the events of the day, the question remains: what are you going to do?

* Here is an excellent example of how I have continued to benefit from my Bachelor's degree in Psychology.  While an undergraduate student, I learned that distracting, or refocusing, oneself tends to be more effective in remediating depression than ruminating.  In learning about the same psychological studies, I learned that activity tends to be more effective than passivity in remediating depression.  Prof. Jannay Morrow, one of my mentors while I was a Psychology major, had previously conducted these studies.
** 1 Thessalonians 5:17
*** 1 Thessalonians 5:16
**** 1 Thessalonians 5:18
***** John 15:13
****** Philippians 2:8
******* John 15:12
******** Matthew 5:43-48
********* Matthew 6:34