Dear All of Us,
If you want a treat,
a grounding that lifts,
A Soul Smile,
please do get with the
Pasta Grannies
Each delightful episode
on YouTube features
a different Italian nonne
(grandmother)
busy in her kitchen
kneading dough
to its potential perfect
- pasta -
These weather worn,
long lived, endearing women,
with twinkles in their eyes
and chuckles in their words,
offer a warm, freeing
show and tell.
They share their
experience and way,
vigorously and variously
Kneading
.
They work the dough
this way and that.
They pick it up and
throw it down.
It takes shape only to be
reworked into another.
They press, pull, push
and roll the dough
again and again.
Each time it mixes
better blended.
Finally the dough is shaped
into a wonderful readiness
for the transformation into
what it's ultimately all about
- pasta -
Our spiritual lives
are a lot like that.
We get worked
and reworked
again and again.
Our Soul Scape
And Shape
is reshaped
only to be reshaped
many times over.
It can be rough at times.
There's a lot of
press, pull, push
and roll out to it.
Just like the dough,
we sometimes
get thrown down
pretty hard.
For all of that
we are being worked
to our potential perfect.
It's transformative.
There's a child's simple faith,
reworked through the
ups and downs
of adolescence.
As adults, that gets
a lot of push and pull
over the years
as we are blended,
kneaded ever more toward
our perfection potential.
We are worked through
stages of doubt, delight,
enlightenment, aridity,
ecstasy, deconstruct and
blending re-formations.
Resist it and we are like
a lump of unfished potential
spoiling on the kitchen table.
Be pliable, we are reworked,
rolled ready for
a matured newness.
We die to what was
to live to what can be.
Paul puts it these ways:
"For if we have died with Him,
we will also live with Him."
1 Timothy 2:11
"For to me, living is Christ
and dying is gain."
Philippians 1:21
It's a progressive
dying and rising,
a reshaping,
a kneading
to the ever more
real, right and alive.
Watching those dear old
Pasta Grannies
knead away gives us
a delightful lift.
They are charming.
They provide us with
a kitchen class,
an at home example of
life's working and reworking.
I suspect if Jesus
were sharing parables
these days he'd switch on
Pasta Grannies
for us
a pasta paradigm
of
needed kneading
With Love
Next to you here in
Life's kitchen,
John Frank
******
If you have
time and interest,
here's one man's
- this man's -
sharing a bit of his
spiritual kneading -
so far anyway.
It's offered as an example,
certainly not a model.
I have gone through
well more than three quarters
of a century being
spiritually kneaded
again and again,
all sorts of times and ways.
The early days as a little boy
were certainly a mix,
often a mix up.
My Dad was a good man,
a damaged man.
He destabilized our family.
A lot of uncertainty and fear.
I wet the bed until I was eleven.
Mom was love in person.
Warm, stable, caring, giving
and she believed in me,
secured and stabilized me
in the war zone of
dysfunctional fathering.
At the same time there were
the wonderful priests and sisters.
They provide a stabilizing
warmth, welcome and wisdom
at church and school.
I spent a lot of time there.
A wonderous, holy awe,
a God-Centeredness,
was born and grew.
There was a rootedness
reaching from earth
heavenward.
It's still here.
A lot of push, pull,
pain and progress.
Then came puberty
and emotional, sexual,
psychological, spiritual upset.
Father Joe Sheehan
was my "father".
He stayed right with me,
steadied me stand-up-sure,
he got me on my feet,
renewed, different
and at home with
my emerging self.
A stretching for sure.
There were the splendid years
at the Minor Seminary
all through my teens.
Good men showed me
how to be a good man.
Ideals abounded.
Lots of sports and physical work.
A classical education
you couldn't buy today.
Most of all I was fathered
ever more and deeper by
Father Anthony Vivona.
He was counselor.
He was spiritual director.
He opened the wonders
of the spiritual life to me.
He introduced me to
the writings of
Thomas Merton.
Merton spoke God to me.
He still does.
Those years were a
monastic experience
and blessing.
More shaping up.
As twenty came along
so did vocational
questioning, confusion.
Celibacy??
I spent a year and a half
as a novice with the
Christian Brothers,
a religious community
dedicated to education.
Could this be a way
to be family with children
in a celibate manner?
The Novice Master was
Brother Gabrial
and he was a master
of the spiritual life.
I still feel his care and wisdom.
I really loved the community life.
It became clear, though,
that pastoring was the call.
Definitely a reshaping,
a clarifying.
That got me to
St. Mary's in Kentucky
for seminary college.
Again, wonderful community,
marvelous learning,
spiritual deepening.
It also involved me with
the Trappist monks at
The Abbey of Gethsemani
which was close by.
A lot of intellectual, community,
spiritual, vocational roll out.
On to the Major Seminary
at Catholic University
in Washington.
The church and theology
were in flux.
It was the 1960's and
Vatican ll.
A lot of theological,
ecclesial, spiritual,
vocational props
were knocked out
from under many of us.
An uncomfortable gift.
I had to find new ways
to move along -
new understandings,
and approaches.
Huge reset.
I was ordained a deacon
in the midst of
riot and martial law
here in Washington, DC
at the time of
MLK's assassination.
It was frightening
and emblematic -
ordained in chaos.
The church and ministry
have been rather that way
ever since.
Repetitive reformulations of
theology and pastoral practice.
My Deacon Year was spent
serving part time in two parishes.
The pastor of one was a nasty drunk.
The pastor of the other was
a happy, warm, fun-loving man,
Father Charlie Wilk.
He was also the best
at pastoral ministry
I have ever met.
He showed me how to pastor.
It wasn't so much taught as caught.
A push and a pull.
A slam down with one pastor.
A slam dunk with another.
Then ordination to the priesthood.
Served in a variety of churches
At one point I was assigned
to teach full time
at a diocesan high school.
That scarred the bejeepbers out of me.
Turned out to be a backwards blessing.
I feel in love with those crazy,
wild, weird, dear and delightful kids.
I also discovered anew that I have
a gift and enthusiasm
for teaching.
Then BOOM!!
The Bishop made me
Assistant Superintendent
of Schools for the Diocese.
We had close to a hundred schools.
I was good at it,
but hated being a bureaucrat.
During this period, I realized
I could not in conscience
continue to support and represent
much of the church's stands
and practices.
REALLY ROUGH!!
So much roiling in my soul!
Mid-forties not exactly
a comfortable time for
a denominational change.
Transferred to
The United Methodist Church.
John Wesley:
"In essential we are one.
In all else we think and let think."
The Core: Personal and Social Holiness.
Love God, neighbor, self.
It has turned out wonderfully well
these thirty-five years since.
I tease about being right at home
with the messy Methodists.
Much like Jesus and his original twelve!
Not at all perfect, very real and vigorous.
A God Gift.
A fresh, new, good way forward.
It cost a lot.
Many colleagues and friends
disowned me.
All of a sudden
I was free to marry
and did I ever!
Now there's change,
a rework and
wonderfully so.
My wife is so good,
generous and alive.
(and she is superb cook!!)
We've become
Life Companions.
I am blessed, I know it and
I am so grateful.
We have three
dear daughters,
a fine son in love,
AND
GRAND SON,
"Ollie the Younger".
Lots of learning,
give and take,
stretching and being stretched.
My wife and I have served
a number of good churches
as a team.
Over the years I connected with
Jerry May and Richard Rohr.
Great helps - wonderful spiritual guides,
a reframing and deepening
of so much because of them.
There was the development of
an extensive Men's Ministry,
one of the best things I ever did.
In all, a major and
Holy Reshaping.
I "retired" to
teaching theology at
Centenary University
and also to offering
support to younger pastors.
Things shaped up in
surprising and
wonderful new ways.
Now, the last lap.
Leaning the spirituality
of old age.
Much different and
a lot of change.
The body wares down.
My spirit and mind sore!
I get to do a little
spiritual direction.
I discovered a
ministry in writing.
So good to share here
with you all each week.
Most of all,
there's some final kneading
in the works -
just letting God have me
- all of me -
just being in Being,
just being in Love,
simple and quiet,
waiting the final roll out
and transformation to
SURPRISE
Well, there are some
Snippets of Soul Kneading.
May they encourage you
in yours.
In your ways may you
be open, pliable,
strong and responsive
as you are kneaded
forth and full.
I pray for you and
hold you all in
God's Delightful Love.
John Frank
******
WELCOME
to
frankly speaking
spirituality for the street
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
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Love to all.
See you next week.
******
