ATTITUDE

Hi There !

So, you know what?

You have an attitude !!!

You really do !!!

So do I.

So does everyone.

Even airplanes do.

The "attitude" of a plane is its approach to the ground.

Pretty critical !

I once witnessed an Alitalia flight from Rome approach the runway at J.F.K.

with way too steep a pitch.

Because of that bad "attitude," the plane literally split in two upon landing.

Attitude is critical.



For us Earthlings,

attitude is how we approach

everything and everyone,

how we come at it all,

and let it all come at us.



Over the past sixty years or so

- that's two generations -

( alright already -yes I'm well into my third one )

we've experienced  a marked attitudinal  shift.

It is all too clear, perhaps dark is a better term,

in  our attitude/approach  to

governance, leadership, economy, religion, entertainment,

community, communication, truth, indeed, reality itself.

Compare John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump.

Compare altruism to "me-ism."

Compare civility to a congressional candidate

body slamming a reporter.

Compare the middle class and the one percenters.

Facebook, text, Twitter and their cousins

have pretty much replaced the watercooler and the front porch,

and thus our attitude toward  personal and social communications.

Then there's Reality TV that isn't.

Just compare telling "... the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth"

with "alternative facts," fake news, and

unsubstantiated, truth twisting and inflammatory tweets

from the dark of night.



With these kinds of attitudinal changes free ranging up and down

the street of our everyday living,

what about the spiritual?

Spiritual means the energy and mystery

in which we exist.

Spirituality is our attitude and experience

as we approach that energy and mystery

Religious institutions are tanking,

and in  many/most cases appropriately so.

Their attitude toward the spiritual

has been to develop elaborate containers with little or no fire in them.

So, "What's a mother ( father, brother, sister ) to do?"

What's a good lead on a real, viable spiritual attitude today,

and likely for  a lot of days to come?

Let's try this on for size.

                                       Let your attitude be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

                                       Who, being in very nature God,

                                       did not consider equality with God

                                       something to be grasped at,

                                       but made himself nothing,

                                       taking the very nature of a servant,

                                       being made in human form.

                                                                                 Philippians 2: 5-7

What an attitude!!!

Put in current terms, it is like

the Number One one percenter

delighted to give

all of who he is and what he has

to the ninety nine percenters,

makings us all hundred percenters!!

Now, that's an attitude to write home about,

even better, to take home -- a keeper!!

What a spirit.

What a way to approach everything and everyone:

                 SHARE TO UNION.

When I was a teen, a very deep and holy nun

taught me this.

She expressed it in terms of

                  NONLESSE OBLIGE,

                  NOBILITY OBLIGES.

From our privilege we privilege others.



Right now the attitude out here

on the street of everyday living

makes it pretty much

Mean Street.

Yet, we get to have a  wonderfully different attitude

toward everything and everyone.

With a servant, sharing attitude,

we can navigate an expansive, unitive, counter cultural way

all along Mean Street's rough, dangerous twists and turns.

Rich, we get to enrich

with our love, time, money,

attention, modelling, caring, sharing, work, giftedness.

NOBLESSE  OBLIGE.

What a delightful attitude,

what a privileged approach

to everything and everyone:

- to people close up and far away, the same and wonderfully different

- to a life style of simplicity and hospitality

- to the environment and sustainability

- to social justice

- to civility and ethics

- to the common good

- to raising children

- to developing community

- to getting the fallen on their feet

- to both the arts and the sciences

- to socially responsible business

- to meditation, contemplation and sacred rites

- to servant leadership

- to "government of the people, for the people, by the people"

- to an economics of plenty for all



Now, the scaredy-cat in us 

objects that giving away all we have and are

will leave us broke and vulnerable.

Actually, it will free us from the partial

and enfold us in The Total.

Look what it did for Jesus.

Look what it did for

Francis of Assisi,

Vincent De Paul,

John Wesley,

Albert  Schweitzer,

Mother Theresa.





So, our street spirituality,

even out here on Mean Street,

means we are

gifted to give.

NOBLESSE OBLIGE.

What an attitude !!



Thanks for your company.

See you next week.

Holding you in

God's Dear Love,

    John Frank