I should live my faith and find my fulfillment as well as experiencing salvation and eternity today as part of the ongoing act of creation, a participant in one more chapter in the ongoing development and evolution of this world of which I’m a part. 
Who am I and why do I exist are questions I’m incapable of confronting and answering. Just as the ant, day by day over the term of its existence, intuitively carries food back to its colony we intuitively function in a realm of uncertainty where we live day to day only… formulating questions, the answers to which we’re too limited as a species to ascertain. We do what we do intuitively and that intuition leads us to live like the ant, carrying food to the nest day by day, finding fulfillment in that act of survival and in how we relate to the fellow ants we support or encounter on our daily journeys, living our salvation and eternity as we go… as does the ant. 

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Too often the Roman Catholic Church projects a calcified image of Christianity as stiff and as rigid as the plaster saints we used to pray to as opposed to a fluid vibrant and dynamic concept of what it means to be a Christian… an arthrosclerotic institutional Jesus fan club lacking any vitality versus an engaged Christianity based on the teachings on this Jesus fellow and the way he lived his life.  
Ours should be a church of engaged compassion and compassionate engagement, one where our faith is based on living lives grounded in the values represented in the person of Jesus Christ rather than belief in a set of concrete facts that have little relevance to how we relate with our god… however we conceive that phenomenon. We should be focused on how we live this faith day to day rather than on how many brownie points we can rack up to carry us over after we croak. 
Jesus should be a model rather than an absolute, representing a way to live our lives rather than the front man and face of an institutional system of legalisms coming from a vindictive god who lies in wait for us to screw up. Likewise our church should not be a bastion of money and power; rather, it should be a refuge based on kindness and love, a collective of joining, of healing of compassionate collegiality and cooperation rather than a machine sucking money out of the meager assets of its adherents, often in support of a lavish and inordinate life style for its self-anointed leaders. 
Ours is a church in need of reform, one more concerned with Christianity rather than corporate opulence. It is then that we’ll be entitled to call it the Church of Jesus Christ rather than an institution dedicated to the worship of Mammon. 
We should not be a hierarchal church that seeks to develop power over its adherents through shame, belittling and fear, rather it should be a mutual organization that encourages it’s adherents to grow and thrive in emulating the life of this Christ person who should be looked to as an inspiration rather than as the advance man for a small mean-spirited and vindictive god who is just waiting for one of his followers to screw up. 
Engaged and dynamic institutional Jesus… we have a long way to go. 

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The full essence of personhood must contain an element of the divine in order to be complete. Fulfillment as a human being cannot occur without an awareness and acknowledgement of the spiritual component of our human nature. Recognizing the awe of the ongoing act of creation and living a life of compassion and service consonant with that recognition… that awareness is what makes each of us whole. 
However we acknowledge this life force within us and around us, like the air we breathe; whether we think of it as a “watchmaker god” reasoning that since we did not call ourselves into existence someone or some force must have created us… or not, whatever our concept of the divine, we are less than complete as human beings if this awareness, this appreciation is not a part of us. 
This recognition of the divine need not be based on any of the organized religions that purport to possess the way to this awareness, though for many of us they can provide the entry or portal that can lead us to this necessary element of our character, this essential component of our human makeup. 
Religion alone does not substitute for the deep and intense longing for the divine, for this necessary component of life. Frankly, some religions and some religious practices border on the superstitious, acts that purport to be spiritual in and of themselves that merely mask and cloud the true essence of divinity that can only be realized by going deep within ourselves. 
The mystery of our lives does not lend itself to definition, nor to capture through words or otherwise; it is beyond our limited powers of comprehension or understanding, and is only approachable… never obtainable… nothing to be possessed… never to be realized, but only to be aware of and appreciated and used as the fundamental component and basis of our personhood. 

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The existence of evil and suffering is something that has always bothered me about human nature. If this all-knowing, all-powerful and all-loving god willfully created human kind, why did it include intentional evil and seemingly random suffering into this very flawed system. Why is it that each one of us, though having the ability to commit totally altruistic acts through our human nature, also have the potential to intentionally inflict harm, pain and suffering on other. members of our own species and members of other species as well.. This aside from the seemingly random occurrences of harm, pain and suffering that seem to arise without being the result of human intent?
I once wrote an essay about the “little boy god” who played with his creatures the way a little boy would play with toy soldiers. Is that what our god does with us? Is our fate the result of a role of the dice on some cosmic game board overseen by both a malevolent and a benevolent player, each of them competing through our created human nature?
What was implanted in Adolph Hitler that motivated him to kill millions of people in the name of some concept of ethnic and cultural superiority? And, perhaps even more significantly, what motivated thousands if not millions of his countrymen to support his evil?
Why would an all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful god not only allow this evil to occur, but to design this evil as part of creation?
Culturally, conflict has been institutionalized by different societies throughout history. Competition and conflict range from the amphitheaters of ancient Rome through the football stadiums of contemporary America. Why as a people do we take delight and

pleasure at seeing individuals compete and triumph over other individuals. In truth society forces us to compete. Everyone of us has, at one time or another, competed for a job. We have won some of those competitions and have lost others but the essence is the same: two or more people are competing for one position. As a result of competition and conflict there are winners and losers. We compete to get into college we compete to get into professional school after college we compete for positions after professional schools we compete within organizations for promotion. This competition is more or less benign in that the losers don’t die and the winners don’t have to kill the losers in order to win. 
This competitive aspect of human nature is not always benign though. 

Witness the incessant warfare that has engulfed our planet since the beginning of recorded history up through the present day. Men women and children are routinely killed in these competitions… competitions that grow out of the evil nature that is a part of our makeup as human beings, an evil nature that our creator imbued in us.
So am I wrong, or is it a patent contradiction that an all-loving and all-powerful creator created beings who possess such a potentially evil nature?
If our creator is in fact all loving and all powerful how did we end up as such imperfect and defective creatures, creatures with such a great potential for evil encoded within our very souls?

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We went to Peter Morrisey’s funeral this morning Peter was 59 and died from a brain tumor. Yesterday afternoon we went to Ray Murphy’s wake. Ray was 86 and died of congestive heart failure. They never knew each other and I didn’t know either of them very well. But, I knew them both well enough to experience the one thing they had in common: they each had a dynamic view of life that greeted each day as a wonderful opportunity to live… to experience life to it’s very fullest… to live with gusto… to experience the joy and wonder of creation as it opened itself to them. 
These are two men who didn’t die they just stopped living as the mechanism of their mortal clocks ran down and stopped ticking. For each of these men life was an adventure They engaged their lives each day as well as the people they encountered on their journeys. 
One of the eulogist’s at Peter’s funeral said that Peter openly and genuinely treated you as his best friend he engaged with the people he met rather than treating them as a perfunctory acquaintance or a bother to move on from. 
We had met Ray when he was in his. Late 80s and on a cruise to Bermuda. Full of life, he too was engaging warm and welcoming when he met you; he shared himself fully for the time you we’re together…no reserve…no polite façade. When you were with Ray… you were with Ray he was open to you to the fullest And as with Peter, Ray invited you to be fully alive with him at the moment that you were together. 
I remember running into Peter a couple of years ago on Charles Street in Boston as he was coming out of his office and getting ready to bike home to Weston. He greeted me as his eulogist had said as if I were his best friend, showing no anxiety to begin his trek home,and talking with my wife and myself as if we were having a prearranged meeting. 
Both of these men shared the gift of their lives with the people they met on their journeys and all of us who knew them are better off because of that. 

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Stacked like cordwood, waiting to be fed into a fire, frozen and stiff, legs sticking out from under a grimey canvas tarp, ten pairs of shoes were smeared with blood and mud. Twenty shoes were laced and tied that morning as their owners awoke from a cold restless sleep, preparing to resume the combat that would end them up together that evening. It was a rag-tag collection of footware in varying states of condition, a couple of pairs of military issue combat boots, laced tightly and double knotted around the ankle, one set of shoes torn in random patterns by the shrapnel that had shredded it’s owners legs, strips of brown leather dyed a deeper darker shade by the dried blood of its owner. 
These shoes, waiting for their ultimate disposition as the battle either ebbs or moves on, to be disposed of by whoever ends up ontrolling the ground on which they rest. 
As the cold deepens and the howling wind intensifies these shoes stand as silent sentinels to the madness, the deviance in human nature that set their owners against each other in battle, opponents in life their owners are united in, death, united as in a pile of cordwood. 

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  At Mass today Father Dan, as part of his homily referred to the “three personalities” of God in the Trinity, which sparked me to wonder if the concept of the Tridentine God is merely a metaphor to describe and attempt to capture the essence of the inscrutable nature of this life force we call “God.”

The personification of this life force or creator has always troubled me as being an infantile attempt to conceptualize something that most clearly is beyond understanding, categorization or conceptualization. 

A metaphoric Trinity as an expression of this life force in poetry rather than as a concrete expression of faith makes much more sense to me. The three personalities of this life force, Saint Patrick and his shamrock analogy notwithstanding, is in a poetic sense certainly less obtuse and confusing than a literal concept of Siamese triplets joined at the hip and yet being three distinct individuals.
 

The Trinity concept flows much easier in an intellectual sense as a metaphor for the aspects of this life force as it affects and interacts with each of us. 

The concept of “father” for many of us induces parental feelings of structure, security, strength and at the same time love. 
The image of “son” evokes the relationship each of us who come from a father have and the elements of that relationship: images of love, structure, protection, of someone who is always there for us. This Jesus fellow, referred to as the “Son of God” models the relationship we have with this life force of which he is apparently a part. We literally turn to our biological fathers for love , support, comfort and strength as part of our human development as we progress through life. Even after their deaths our human fathers leave the gift of who we are, who we have become and who we are continuing to become in major part as a result of their tutelage, support and example. 

In like manner we look to this “Father” aspect of the life force we call “God” in much the way we look to our natural fathers, though more in a spiritual way to help us drill down within ourselves to center on the third poetic personality of our god, the life force or spirit within each of us which is both unique to us and in common with all beings in creation, sentient and otherwise. 

Faith as poetry; “God” as metaphor, and our lives as the realization of both of those make more sense to me than a severe, dogmatic and literal explanation of beliefs and events that far transcend our human abilities to understand. We can experience the beauty, joy, pain and suffering in our lives and accept in graciousness that which we cannot understand. To do otherwise, I suspect, would merely be an exercise in self-delusion, one that would be ultimately unsatisfactory frustrating and unfulfilling. 

However we individually conceive our god, we must live and experience that life force within us, accepting the fact that we can never define it, capture it, corral it or otherwise box it in. 

Our faith must be one of poetry grounded in metaphor, a faith of participation in life rather than one of fact, fear and an indecipherable concrete god knowable only in death. 

If you’re centered or grounded in your God then all of your actions and interactions will emanate from that point. 
The awareness of the God within us is central to a faith of meaning in contrast to a mechanical faith, one based on the acceptance of a series of allegations purported over the ages to be factual, a faith of rote belief, an unquestioning and unrealized faith. 

This force of creation which we Christians label as “God” is the object of worship for millions of people throughout the eons of that creation.  

We conceptualize and subsequently define this force in different ways and it’s those definitions as well as the way in which we worship this phenomenon that constitute the basis for a particular religion and which have been the basis for untold conflicts over time. 

We create word pictures in our own minds of what this entity… this “God” is and as time has passed those shared concepts have evolved or morphed into the various religions of which Christianity is one.  
Each religion has its own creation story and most have developed a collection of sacred writings over millennia that purport to set forth the tenets of that groups’ beliefs. These tend to be stories about or on behalf of this ostensible creator usually attributed to it by a person referred to as a “prophet”, one in in direct communication with the force of creation, charged with the task of relaying this “godhead’s” wishes to the masses of humanity who subscribe to whatever common belief the prophet represents. 

Beyond their writings or “scripture” most collective religions have “rituals” or peculiar actions shared and performed by the group, which are called “worship” and which are deemed by each group that performs them as satisfying to their creator. 

The group beliefs, embodied in scripture and the form of its rituals have been the basis for suuspicion, hostility, conflict and war between and among the various religious groups over the millennia. 
Many of these religious groups have historically defined other persons who practice other religions holding differing beliefs as infidels, apostates or non believers who must either be converted or subjugatedt because the group holds the only correct beliefs and performs its ritual in the only way that is appropriate and pleasing to the creator . 

The Christian God is a God of dual personality, a God of love, yet also, reflecting the vengeful gods of pre-christian times, a God of power and might ready to consign the souls of people to eternal damnation in the fires of Gehenna for eternity if they act against “him” during their lifetimes or who don’t worship in the only appropriate and correct way. 

Assuming the creation stories of all the religions have a common beginning and rely on a force that brought the world into existence for its pleasure or enjoyment, then doesn’t it seem likely that whatever beliefs or form of practice each group ascribed to would be secondary and of little importance to this God who they all share in common or more accurately to whom they all owe their existence and allegiance. 
Sunnies versus Shites, Christians versus Muslims or Huguenots versus Roman Catholics or any of the the other intra-Christian or other religious wars over time make one question either the motivation of this “God force” or its power for good over evil. 

Does this force of creation view the objects of that creation as it’s personal playthings who give it pleasure as it manipulates them through the various conflicts and sufferings it inflicts upon them as men fight and die over the word pictures they’ve created in their own minds? Does it even possess the power to do that… the power to overcome Evil?

Or, does it merely act as a person would, while viewing an ant farm in a glass container, taking pleasure while watching, unknown to those being watched, as the creatures of that creation organize and order themselves in the various groupings reflecting their own perceived self interest?  
The difference between humans and ants is that we, in our unknowing and ignorance, pay homage to that unknown force of our own creation, all the while wreaking havoc on each other in “his” name?
Rather than being a motivator or intermediary between the various groups competing in its name, perhaps the God force is merely an observer to the various machinations and religious conflicts, albeit one without the power ascribed to it. 
As long as the various religions continue to demonize nonbelievers, the power or the motivation of this force of creation, this power often labeled as “God,” will be suspect, especially when conflict leads to violence in its name. 

What role does Jesus Christ play in this faith? Is Jesus “the finger pointing at the moon?” Or, is Jesus “one with the father” as we are “one with the father”, one with the god within us?

Meaning no disrespect to the Jesus story, but his being one with the father may be illustrative of our own relationship with the father, with the mysterious unknowable force within us that we call “God,” a god with a human face through Jesus, an unknowable unreachable God who manifests himself through the person of “his son” Jesus.
 

Is Jesus divine of God as we are all the sons and daughters of that same God within us; the God of yet unrealized potential for humanity; the God who, if we are each centered in him, can bring the peace of “his kingdom” to our universe?

The Kabbalah speaks of “Ein Sof,” the life source (often described as the state of God before creation) that Christians would probably equate with the concept of the Holy Spirit. This would seem to be the life force within and among us, the breath of life, the God within us in communion with others who are also looking for their god. 
Many people find their god through the instrumentality of organized religion. To the extent that this nurtures the God within them; to the extent that it allows them to tap into this deep reservoir of spirituality, their faith would seem not in vain but rather a means, a vehicle, to reach their inner God, a method to develop a relationship with the same God who is the “Father,” the God of Jesus Christ.
Is the awareness of “God within me” an arrogance or an insight, a revelation or a self-delusion?  

To the extent that this concept, this awareness permeates my very existence and emanates from my deepest core, it gives meaning to my existence, an insight into my very being and the major purpose in my life. That purpose and insight are based on love and compassion, an awareness of the simple beauty and meaning of every creature and object in existence, an appreciation of each person, each object, each thought and feeling as well as a profound gratitude for my relationship with each of them. 

On a religious level we use words, prayers, petitions, descriptions, etc. to locate our God. But, we can’t truly find God by fumbling around with words. We cannot categorize God using the very limited boundaries of thought or language. We can only acknowledge the presence of, and our interaction with the God within us on a spiritual level, an awareness of this God, rather than a definition of god. 

This awareness, if we open ourselves to it, manifests itself in many ways as we make our way through the days of our lives constantly in gratitude and with compassion. The love of a parent for his or her child embodies and grows out of that reservoir of love and awareness and is perhaps the deepest manifestation of it. 
This experience of “God within us” is a concept referred to as mystical, that is: beyond understanding, incomprehensible; we are aware that it exists but we can’t define it or articulate it in words; we can’t grasp it, only experience it at a visceral level of our being. It is a phenomenon to be lived rather than one to be categorized and dissected through words and verbal constructs. 

We can experience this relationship, this awareness, but words are inadequate to explain it. It is, as it were, in a “little black box” within each of us, commonly referred to as the “soul,” unknowable except by its presence. 

Ours is a God of love and of mystery.  
 In the words of Adrian Van Kaam and Meister Eckhart respectively: “Life is a mystery to be lived rather than a puzzle to be solved.” and “If the only prayer you say is ‘Thank you’, that’s enough.” These say it all… The grounding of our faith… The God within us. 

This force of creation which we Christians label as “God” is the object of worship for millions of people throughout the eons of that creation.  
We conceptualize and subsequently define this force in different ways and it’s those definitions as well as the way in which we worship this phenomenon that constitute the basis for a particular religion and which have been the basis for untold conflicts over time. 
We create word pictures in our own minds of what this entity… this “God” is and as time has passed those shared concepts have evolved or morphed into the various religions of which Christianity is one.  
Each religion has its own creation story and most have developed a collection of sacred writings over millennia that purport to set forth the tenets of that groups’ beliefs. These tend to be stories about or on behalf of this ostensible creator usually attributed to it by a person referred to as a “prophet”, one in in direct communication with the force of creation, charged with the task of relaying this “godhead’s” wishes to the masses of humanity who subscribe to whatever common belief the prophet represents. 
Beyond their writings or “scripture” most collective religions have “rituals” or peculiar actions shared and performed by the group, which are called “worship” and which are deemed by each group that performs them as satisfying to their creator. 
The group beliefs, embodied in scripture and the form of its rituals have been the basis for suuspicion, hostility, conflict and war between and among the various religious groups over the millennia. 
Many of these religious groups have historically defined other persons who practice other religions holding differing beliefs as infidels, apostates or non believers who must either be converted or subjugatedt because the group holds the only correct beliefs and performs its ritual in the only way that is appropriate and pleasing to the creator . 
The Christian God is a God of dual personality, a God of love, yet also, reflecting the vengeful gods of pre-christian times, a God of power and might ready to consign the souls of people to eternal damnation in the fires of Gehenna for eternity if they act against “him” during their lifetimes or who don’t worship in the only appropriate and correct way. 
Assuming the creation stories of all the religions have a common beginning and rely on a force that brought the world into existence for its pleasure or enjoyment, then doesn’t it seem likely that whatever beliefs or form of practice each group ascribed to would be secondary and of little importance to this God who they all share in common or more accurately to whom they all owe their existence and allegiance. 
Sunnies versus Shites, Christians versus Muslims or Huguenots versus Roman Catholics or any of the the other intra-Christian or other religious wars over time make one question either the motivation of this “God force” or its power for good over evil. 
Does this force of creation view the objects of that creation as it’s personal playthings who give it pleasure as it manipulates them through the various conflicts and sufferings it inflicts upon them as men fight and die over the word pictures they’ve created in their own minds? Does it even possess the power to do that… the power to overcome Evil?
Or, does it merely act as a person would, while viewing an ant farm in a glass container, taking pleasure while watching, unknown to those being watched, as the creatures of that creation organize and order themselves in the various groupings reflecting their own perceived self interest?  
The difference between humans and ants is that we, in our unknowing and ignorance, pay homage to that unknown force of our own creation, all the while wreaking havoc on each other in “his” name?
Rather than being a motivator or intermediary between the various groups competing in its name, perhaps the God force is merely an observer to the various machinations and religious conflicts, albeit one without the power ascribed to it. 
As long as the various religions continue to demonize nonbelievers, the power or the motivation of this force of creation, this power often labeled as “God,” will be suspect, especially when conflict leads to violence in its name. 

I channeled Ernest Hemingway in my imagination the other day. There we were, sitting in a small café on the mediterranean waterfront of a small southern Spanish town. Except, the small Spanish town had over the years morphed into a tourist haven for retired English pensioners and Russian entrepreneurs. The small Cafe really wasn’t that small and it’s menu was printed in English as well as Spanish. The Russian version was on the back. 
The October weather was warm, much warmer than New England where there were already frost warnings. 
The wedding of an Irish cousin to a Spanish girl brought many of us together from Ireland England and the US for a wonderful celebration with an international tone to it. 
The waterfront of Torrevieja, close to the bride’s hometown, was now a warren of condominiums and shops. I think this was not the sort of place that Hemingway would have enjoyed. I doubt if anyone in town had ever even seen a bullfight. 
Fortunately, the tourist season had ended about a month ago and most of the condominiums were shuttered up for the winter season so it wasn’t difficult to get about. The bus fare was reasonable; the cabs not so bad and the restaurants were both outstanding and no muy caro (not very expensive.) And, especially for someone who doesn’t eat meat, the fish and vegetable offerings were excellent. 
An explosion of firecrackers, including one that sounded like a cannon marked the start of the bride and her father processing from their house by foot around the corner to the church where the wedding was to be performed. I never got the name of the town or the church. A chartered bus had taken us from our hotel in Torrevieja to the bride’s hometown. 
The wedding was great (as weddings go) and the priest said part of the Mass in Spanish and part in English. 
The bus took us back to Torrevieja for the reception where they served a bunch of dead sea life. I must admit that I don’t relish eating anything whose eyes I’m looking into. Prawns, Langostinos, sea bass: “I hope you enjoy tearing me apart, limb by limb” they seemed to be saying to me. 
I guess Hemingway enjoyed killing things… Not so much the thrill of the hunt as much as the thrill of the kill. Ernie liked killing things, very much like Teddy Roosevelt: “it’s a good day; let’s go out and kill something.” 
But, the wedding was great; the Spanish relatives on the bride’s side and the Irish, English and Americans behind the groom. The homily in the priest’s broken English suffused with Interpretations in Spanish allowed for reflection during the course of his discourse.