Friday, November 30, 2018
PEACE
Hi There !
"May she/he rest in peace."
I've offered that final funeral prayer
just south of twelve hundred times
over the past fifty years.
Rather regularly it causes me
to wonder if we have to wait
'til grave or urn to
"rest in peace."
Reading history, checking the news,
counseling all types and strips of us,
looking in the mirror,
hearing countless confessions,
people watching,
supermarket to symphony,
causes me to wonder,
indeed to worry, about that.
So many say they want peace.
Some devoutly pray for it.
Some work hard
"to get along" with everyone.
Some kill for it.
Since I was born in 1940,
how many wars, deaths,
how much devastation
and destruction,
life wounds, resources
and finance used up
have there been
"killing for peace,"
and where is that peace?
So many say they want peace.
Some drink and drug for it.
Some work for
social justice and accord
hoping for it.
Some "shop 'til they drop "
trying to buy it.
Some see shrinks.
Some binge.
Some are dedicated to
Yoga, Tai Chi,
mindfulness sessions.
Some vigorously vacation and party.
Some have affairs.
Some hike and run.
Some worship at the altar of
non-stop sports and entertainment
trying to numb their way to it.
Some go to religious services seeking it.
Some drown their consciousness
with surround sound.
Some explore
various spiritualities seeking it.
Some look to philosophy,
psychology, the arts for it.
Some do porn.
Some go on retreats searching for it.
So many seek peace so many ways.
When we don't find peace
we get grumpy, moody,
depressed, agitated, angry.
Some politicians and media moguls
parley that, driving wedges
in our hearts and between us.
Hate groups, hate media, terrorists,
young males with guns,
devastate and destroy.
Nations spend
"the kids lunch money,"
and way so much more,
incessantly arming
"for peace."
Lovers leave.
Families fray.
Trivia, factual manipulation,
gossip pollute
airways and awareness.
Corporations leave
The Common Good in the dust.
"Peace, peace,
but there is
no peace."
( Jeremiah 6:14 )
Sadly so.
Yet, happily there is peace.
Lots of it.
We all have some combination of
grandparents, Soul Friends,
coworkers, acquaintances, congregants,
who are genuinely peace people,
ones who settle us
and their surroundings
with their for real peacefulness.
I fondly and gratefully remember
the steadiness, calm, centeredness
of old Father John
back in my seminary days.
Just being in his presence
was settling and "whole-ly."
With him things were
of a piece,
a peace.
A few years ago
a deranged young man
terrorized a little Amish school
in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
He shot and killed
five, sweet little girls,
and inflicted permanent trauma
upon the other children
and the families.
In response, the Amish elders
immediately went to care
for the wife and children
of that deranged, young man.
That's peace,
"A peace that passes
all understanding."
( at least for most so far )
( Philippians 4:7 )
I recently met a zippy,
zesty young couple
in their twenties who are doing
wilderness therapy with troubled
and addicted teens,
helping them free up
and experience
a balanced peacefulness.
When we get right down to it,
better, when we're up for it,
just what is peace?
Does it come to us in positive
or negative ways,
is it a doing or a not doing?
It seems the saints,
the ones who are "whole,"
find that peace is
the result of things being as
they really are at their core -
genuine, alive, loving,
creative, restorative, real.
It took Augustine half his life
to find that peace,
to let himself accept peace.
He finally experienced that
and expressed it:
" Peace is the tranquility of order."
Now, that's worth a lot of
good long looks
and frequent revisits.
There is a calm, a freeing, a harmony
when things are in right arrangement,
are ordered and settled
in their basic realness.
Paul VI said that'
"If you want peace
work for justice."
In other words, get things
"justus"
(Latin for "right")
among you and within you.
Francis of Assisi prayed
for peace in words,
but much more in his living:
PRAYER and LIVING
of
SAINT FRANCIS
Lord, make me an instrument
of your peace.
Where there is hatred,
let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine master grant that
I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.
Amen
Now, that's an action plan,
a peace plan.
It's down right,
actually up right,
divine.
"Blessed are
the peacemakers,
for they shall be called
children of God."
( Matthew 5:9 )
Imagine
personal life,
social life,
international life
lived like that.
Peace is love let loose!!
How do we out here
on the street of everyday living
find our way to peace?
Probably the best way of all
is to "catch it," is to share
in the life, the spirit,
of the most peaceful person
you can find.
For me that is Jesus The Christ.
He has it together, embodies
"the tranquility of order."
He is the incarnation
of Cosmic Love - God.
He is Love let loose
in the most personal way.
Happily Jesus is more than willing
to welcome us into a union with him
so complete that
his spirit becomes our spirit,
that his peace becomes our peace.
We are invited into his realness,
his flow, dynamic in peace,
powered by his love;
"My peace I leave you;
my peace I give you.
I do not give
as the world gives.
Do not let your hearts
be troubled and
do not be afraid."
( John 14: 27 )
What a source and sharing.
We let Jesus draw us into himself
by meditation, prayer, sacrament,
worship, modeling him, joining his love
of all people and all creation,
and being active in their care.
That opens us up to his flow.
Peace is the result of being:
- rooted right and real
in love and life,
- and that vibrantly active
in thought,word, deed,
action and attitude,
through and through
- personally and communally
letting love loose
in all affections and actions.
We don't have to wait
'til grave or urn
to "rest in peace."
Right now,
we can experience and share
a vigorous living of love, of justice,
and the resultant "tranquility of order"
in our heads, hearts, souls and society
as love is let loose.
"Peace be with you!"
John Frank
**********************************************************************************
If you are willing to invest
a healthy portion of time,
"Pacem in Terris"
by John XXIII
is a masterful, brilliant treatise
on peace so suited to our time,
need and potential.
It can be sourced through Google.
See" Combat High, America's addiction to war"
Harper's magazine, June 2018,
Forum, beginning at page 25.
*********************************************************************************
We are blessed with new folks
joining us regularly.
Thank you for the gift of you.
Please share this blog with others.
WELCOME !!
Please invest a bit of time
and soul going over
What's Going On Here?
and
Consider Your Source
( right column online posting )
for an orientation to
"frankly speaking."
It is
*posted each Friday online at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
and can be bookmarked
for easy access.
*available automatically each Saturday
by email - sign up top right column
online posting
*Past postings can be accessed at
Blog Archive
found at the right of the online posting.
THANK YOU
*************************************************************************************
Friday, November 23, 2018
JUST RIGHT
Hi There !
So, when things turn out
JUST RIGHT
it's a right turn for sure.
Things like:
- two perfectly connecting flights
and you get to Chicago
ahead of schedule
- that first date that means for sure
there's plenty more to come
- your signature souffle
that was perfect at
last night's dinner party
- securing a spectacular contract
for your firm
- scripting a poem that
speaks your soul
- a winning slam dunk
in the last two seconds of
the championship final
- restoring that
1932 Ford Coupe to a "T"
So good when things are
JUST RIGHT
As we widen our focus,
we see the same is true
in our spiritual lives
out here on the street
of everyday living -
our individual part
and the universal whole
we share with all.
This, by the important way,
bares absolutely no resemblance
to any sort of puritanical or
perfectionistic arrogance
in our spiritual living.
They are not at all right.
Rather, and ever so better,
is our oneness in
God's Work
of
getting things
JUST RIGHT.
Pardon my Latin, but
"just" and "right"
are identical twins.
"Just"
from the Latin
"Justus'
means
"Right,"
as in getting things
JUST RIGHT.
Our spiritual lives are
a continuance
in this time and place of
God's
"Justus"
the work of getting things
JUST RIGHT
- if "God" is not your
accustomed appellation,
please insert
Existence, Reality,, Being,
Cosmic Energy Field,
or your own particular word for
The Whole Enchilada -
Justice
.rights wrong
rights creation.
*********
JUSTICE RIGHTS WRONG
Some times things are not at all right.
Rather, they are dead wrong,
as dead wrong as the
Pittsburgh Synagogue Slaughter
as dead wrong as the
economic/social imbalance of
99% to 1%
or the rape of Mother Earth.
Evil is energy gone wrong -
people playing God,
social systems structured
to the advantage of a selfish few
and the degradation
of painfully so many,
the abuse of peoples and places.
I don't have the time
nor competence
to deal fully with
the problem of evil.
But God does
and we are invited
to join in,
to right the wrong
in the here and now,
to be part of the ongoing
redemptive love
and work of God.
In and with him
we return good for evil.
Thus, evil is replaced
with good
one moment,
one person,
one place,
one setting
at a time.
"Do not repay evil with evil...
do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good."
( Romans 12:17 and 21)
In the particulars and practicalities
of our living we are part of
God's redemptive love
"Righting Wrong"
until one day things are
JUST RIGHT
Some Examples:
- not to break up or back off
when someone close is being
wackie or weird -
it's called long suffering and
requires high octane love
- to have lunch with the local
and consistently avoided nerd
at work or school
- to pay day laborers $20 an hour
- to get out of the way
and let the tailgater go
- to calmly and clearly challenge
a "play it safe" pastor
who just won't address
social justice issues in sermons
- to tip big time an inattentive waiter
- to be proactive in welcoming
minority folk when they arrive
in the area (or religious community )
Yes, "overcome evil with good"
until things are
JUST RIGHT.
JUSTICE RIGHTS CREATION
So far, so good.
And it doesn't stop there or ever.
It just gets exponentially better.
Our moniker for it is
Creation
and we're all invited to the party.
We are asked to help get it
JUST RIGHT.
To put it in the vernacular,
God has ants in his pants
and just can't keep
goodness to himself.
God thrills to pour out
his enthusiastic energy
in ever new, imaginative,
spectacular creations.
Sticking with the vernacular,
God is like a gourmet chef
serving up one new excellence
after plenty before
God is like a toy maker
bursting forth with
fascination upon fascination
God is just getting started.
He's on a roll
and he wants us in on
the exuberance spiraling out
in never to end beauty.
Here's a bit of
a sampler of possibilities
as we co-create with God,
righting creation:
- whatever our orientation,
socializing, mixing it up
with folks of other orientations
- retired folks refusing
to "park" it in,
rather
re-"tire"-ing
with a whole new set
of wheels
and off they go
in new directions of
care and creativity
like never before -
*writing poetry,
*doing watercolors,
*building houses
for the homeless,
*mentoring teens
in dangerous drift,
* hosting groups for
inter- generational sharing
- simplify by shopping
in thrift stores and thus
recycling rather than land fill
everything from clothing to a
vintage Howdy Doody cap
( a cap like that would
get things going
next time on the links!!)
- being practically and
locally active in politics
so that it gets a chance to be
what it's meant to be -
high minded, warm hearted
principles put into practice
- moving away from the
trivia and falseness of so much
social media and instead
calling people by phone,
writing them letters,
sending them pictures of the kids
- selecting a career tract
that lifts and frees you
and lots of others
- taking a gap year or two
to serve in groups like Sojourners,
Jesuit Volunteer Corps, L'Arche
- starting a spirituality group
in the spirit of John Wesley's
"Ecclesiolae in Ecclesia"
( a little church within the church)
for deeper community and
substantive soul share
-securing farm and forest land preservation.
Between you, justice focused colleagues
and The Holy Spirit, The Spirit of Truth,
you are sure to get creation wonderfully
JUST RIGHT
Thanks to God and so many of you.
Our little, weekly circle of sharing
here at "frankly speaking"
continues to widen.
Let's daily hold each in God's Love.
May our love, prayers,
and hopefully this blog,
support us all in vigorously living
our spiritual lives out here on
the street of everyday living,
in whatever country/context it runs
through.
Every goodness and blessing.
Holding you and yours
In God's Dear Love,
John Frank
*****
We happily welcome those new
to our weekly sharing here.
Thank you for your company.
To get a sense of
what we are about here,
please do spend a few minutes
and lots of self with
- What's Going On Here?
and
- Consider Your Source.
(right column online)
*****
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- Online each Friday at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
( bookmark for easy access )
- Email each Saturday
for automatic,weekly delivery
sign up at the top right of
the online version
- Past Postings
go to Blog Archive
bottom right,
online version
Thank You
*****
-