Author: rkcdlitt

Prayer

We do not pray in vain – even when everything seems to be hopeless. We are truly concerned for salvation and bring our problems before God; He will bring us under His special care, so that – perhaps before we are even aware of it – miracles can happen, even when we had already given up. I remember the story of Jesus with the crippled man by the fountain: “When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”

The question I always ask myself, especially after feeling that the whole world is on my shoulders crushing me, is: am I ready to be cured, am I ready to be made well. This usually occurs after several days or even weeks of feeling sorry for myself, whether it is a psychological or a physical problem.

Why do I, why do we, always do this to ourselves? We know that God is on our sides, yet we continue to torture our minds and bodies.

Why is it that we are not generally living by what is happening today. We spend too much time, too much effort, worrying or planning about tomorrow. We also waste time worrying about what has already passed. Neither one of these fruitless exercises calms our souls. By living fully in what is occurring today, understanding and accepting that god is with us, we can be much more relaxed, much more focused on living our lives to the fullest. For years, I beat myself up over the fact that I let my 85-year-old father die, rather than go against his religious beliefs. Now that I am 75, I think that I can truly understand how his faith was the one true concept that he could and did understand. To challenge that, to go against his will, would have been wrong.

This is another example of holding on to what has long happened, and cannot be changed.

God is on my side. I pray that I can remember to put aside any unfortunate things that happen and realize how special I am in God’s eyes.

A Lesson from Hildegard.

Hildegard of Bingen once said, “You understand so little of what is around you, because you do not use what is within you.”

Our actions towards the younger generation borders on the criminal. What we have made of them resembles a lost generation. We have made them into cowardly little persons lacking youthfulness, courage, joy, originality, and curiosity. They fear trying anything, fear of failure. We have not given them the tools to try something new, fail, pick themselves up, and try again.

Our youth are not social creatures. Visit any school from middle schools, to high schools, to college campuses. What do you see? There are students everywhere, not socializing, not communicating. They have buried their heads in their cell phones, avoiding eye contact and conversation with the very people around them who will be their co-workers and companions in the future.

Their education has been cursory, at best. We are so enamored by standardized tests that we have forgotten to teach the youth how to think for themselves. I teach freshman composition at a community college. The purpose is to write. Most struggle, regally struggle with this concept. The most asked question is “What do I write about?”

It is bad enough that at the college level, I have to teach them the use of commas and semicolons, but when we spend two weeks discussing a current issue, be that gun control, sexuality, poverty, or education, these student lack the ability to relate to the subject at hand. “What do I write about?” I aske them what in our discussions has tweaked their interest; what in our discussions has turned them on, or upset them to the point of anger and frustration. Too often, the answer is “nothing” or “I don’t know.”

When did we stop challenging our high school students to think for themselves. Before teaching in college, I was a high school AP history teacher. My main purpose was to help my students think for themselves when approached by a question that they were not completely familiar with. I gave them the practice of writing on a topic closely related to what the question was. This gave them the opportunity to write an essay that made sense, was historically correct, and related to the issue at hand. Most of my students excelled on the  AP tests.

We don’t do this any more. And don’t tell me that the fact that I am teaching in a community college is the reason. With the high costs of a four-year institution, we see many highly rated students come through our doors, taking the core courses before transferring to a more expensive school, where the succeed getting their bachelor’s degree. These students also have a hard time discerning what to write, but they are equipped intellectually to learn rapidly. Others get left behind.

When I was in college, fifty years ago, I had a hard time getting into the grove. I was not successful my first time around, but when trying again, I was helped by understanding professors and ended up getting a bachelor’s masters, and doctorate degree. I was reminded by my professors how to read a question, how to sort our possible responses, and finally how to put my answers on paper. I repeat, I was reminded. This is important because we were taught this in high school.

I talk with high school AP teachers today, and they give very few essays; the reason – a lack of time both in class and out of class due to the requirements of teaching students to pass the SOLs. What a shame!

What a waste for our youth.

We need our youth to be able to fail; we need them to communicate; we need them to join forces; we need them to continue the communities we all grow to love. We need our youth to be as determined as the youth in Florida struggling to get our leaders to hear them. They are our future. Let’s help them succeed. We have learned something in our years together. Let them learn something in their years together.

Listening to and reading the news is always a traumatic event, one that seems to be occurring daily. It seems that mankind is again forcing a calamity upon itself for no reason other than ignorance, or at least a lack of proper analysis. Or, better yet, a lack of sufficient understanding and love to carry us over difficult times.

None of us own anything that is worth killing or dying for. Selfish ownership creates hate. When we give up this thought of mine, not yours, we rely on love and goodness to enter the picture. This goodness does not depend on ownership. No one can own goodness; it is something that is freely given to us, and in turn freely passed on by us. Just as with

Gods grace, it is given, not earned. Every one of us is born with a pure heart, free of hate, free of racism. Every one of us begins to learn this at an early age. Whether we realize it or not, all whom we come in contact with help us keep hate and racism alive. This could be in direct actions, a misspoken word, or the selection in school for teams in gym or in the classroom. Some children are selected last only because the look or act differently than others. By passing this negativity on to our youth, we are all guilty of keeping this struggle alive in our society.

We owe it to our children and grandchildren to put a stop to this regeneration of hate and racism. We need to give the next generation a head start on loving, not hating, on acceptance, not exclusion. The loneliest people I know are those who are incapable of loving someone or something other than themselves. Anyone who has truly loved another is never alone. For the one he loves is always present in his heart. He treats others with respect and dignity just because he loves another. Because I love, I am never without companionship. My love for one individual creates a fertile ground for me to love all whom I meet.

As with grace, as with goodness, this love is freely received and freely given. I pray that our leaders will step back from their closed minds if only for a chance for others to offer the gifts love and goodness.

“The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.” 
John 5:20

This passage from the Gospel of John offers a view of the view of that special relationship Jesus has with God. It is a relationship based on the deepest intimacy possible.

A married couple, be they heterosexual or homosexual, share a similar intimacy, an intimacy based on unfettered trust. This takes years to reach fruition, but when achieved the benefits for both members are immensely gratifying, providing a sanctuary for each member of the relationship to expose the ego to accept the strength that only this type of intimacy can provide.

Each person grows in self-assurance and in communally-responsible actions. Love for each is strengthened both within and outside of the relationship, offering the chances for that love to grow throughout the community, affecting each other and those around them. The support from one partner to the next assures each of the understanding that he or she is loved, respected, and cared for. Over time, this relationship grows into a bond that even death cannot defeat.

Throughout my lifetime, I have seen elderly couples face the realities of life and death with a strength that is unsurpassable. Is there fear? Yes, but this fear is not debilitating; it is accepted and the strength of their love and relationship carries each through this inevitable journey. There is both sadness and strength, love and disappointment. Tears of happiness and tears of loss. The relationship that these couples share is a thing of beauty and a thing of eternal strength and comfort.

This love is a direct reflection of the love God has for us. If we can be as Jesus is, we can share this same intimacy with God. Think of how terrific it can be, not only be trusting, but knowing that the relationship we have with God never, ever fails, never, ever is forgotten or placed on a shelf in the pantry only to be searched for in times of physical or psychological stress. The relationship we share with God is the most intimate and the most rewarding experience we can ever undergo. We do not have to wonder if God will be by our side when our semi-orderly lives get upset by societal interferences.

As with the special relationship with a spouse, our relationship with God never ends and is always in the forefront of God’s Love and comfort when we are troubled.

As with any relationship, this takes trust, at trust that is very difficult to build, at least on our part, not God’s. Many times, this can be much more difficult than forming that special unwavering relationship with our spouse. And, it can take a whole lot longer to build. Our society rears us with the necessity to question and distrust everything. But it need not be this way. Where the special relationship with a spouse involves two (sometimes) opposing viewpoints on many issues that get resolved over time, our relationship with God is instantaneous. Any hesitation is on our side, not Hers. If we listen with our hearts and not our ears, we can bypass years of indecision and distrust. I can only dream how different our world would be if centuries ago, we were entrusted with the knowledge that God is with us, not against us. That God is that special lover who cares only for our well-being, not anxious to punish us, as is written many times in the Bible. He is with us to support and nurture us, as Jesus is; as Jesus knew and teaches us. . . if we can only hear Him.

Who and what are we

I believe that we are created by an entity who made us in Her image, His likeness. Although our bodies are not perfect, our images are. What we sometimes forget is to walk the walk and talk the talk. We are to impressed by our own imagined importance to remember that we are all created this way, not just a few of us. We ignore the Christian teachings of loving our neighbor and we love ourselves. Or, perhaps, we no longer love ourselves. We are all creations of God, and therefore, we all deserve to revel in Her image.

To understand this fully, we must listen to what is right in God’s eyes. We must stop listening with our intellect and begin listening with our hearts.

Just because someone looks different from us, speaks a different language, or worships God, calling Her with a different name, we must accept that these others are not our enemies; they are our brothers and sisters. We need patience to fully realize these differences mean nothing.

One of my regular concerns and regular displeasures is that our leaders are more caring about what their own images are than what the images of the people who voted for them are. They forget that they are hired to work for us, not work for themselves. This bothers me . . . always. However, our leaders are also made in the same image as we are, and therefore we cannot treat them as if they are our enemies, even though it seems that they are. I am not passing the buck here, but when we continue to elect the same people year after year, no matter how well they perform, these people lose respect for us. They see that we elect them regardless of their performances. We get what we deserve. With the power that they have, and the seeming lack of interest we show in their performances, it is no wonder that they seem to be corrupt in all that they do. The fault lies with us. We must change to have them change.

Presently, we are on the precipice of a tragic future, both nationally and internationally. We are standing looking at a great divide between ourselves and others living around the world. We are not showing respect, to them or to ourselves. We blame them for our problems.

We are continually being subjected to mass shootings by people who are in no condition to own any gun, much less one that is designed to rip a body into an irreparable condition. This is what assault weapons do. They are designed to completely destroy, and/or immobilize, an enemy on a field of war. They are not designed to be owned by inexperienced teenagers who really have no idea what they are doing and what damage they can cause.

I am overjoyed to see the students in America rallying to bring awareness to our leaders that this has to stop. I am not confident they will listen, but I am confident that these students who are demonstrating today, will elect new leaders when they can vote in a few years. And voting is the key; they will vote, while we are often too lazy to stand in line to vote.

I despise the constant slaughter occurring on our streets and in our schools and churches. Stop pointing the finger at these mentally deranged people; stop pointing the finger at our leaders who are concerned only with their positions in government – power. Look in the mirror and then point your fingers. We get what we elect; we get what we pay for. Shame on us for repeating and repeating this over and over.

Personally, I turn to God for my own comfort; I pray that others will also. There are many who say that prayer does not work. I am living proof that prayer does work. God listens to my prayers. I don’t always get what I want, but I do always get what I need. Please notice the difference!   God acts among us only to the extent that we ask for his action and accept it with our hearts and lives. This is the secret of God’s intervention in history. Ask, believe; believe and ask. She will listen. She does not want us to fail. We can only fail ourselves.

We are made in God’s image; let’s act that way.

Love in Our World

Jesus brought Love into the world. We should emulate Him. I don’t mean that we have to literally die on a cross to bring this to others; however, we can allow our materiality-driven existence to wither away to nothing, and instead, adopt a life of service to others. Think of the advantages that would be realized by giving up a minor physical luxury and giving the money we would spend on that to a cause that would benefit our less advantaged brothers and sisters.

In our life of Keeping up with the Joneses, we feel that we must have the greenest lawn, the largest SUV in our driveway, and the 66” curved-screen tv, displayed so that the neighbors can see our affluence.

No, we cannot give up these luxuries; we are too programmed to do that. But, if we scaled down just one of these and gave the money to a cause to help a person living on the streets, or a family of 4 who cannot afford fresh vegetables, that money would go a long way helping these people.

To paraphrase Isaiah, the ox knows its master, and the donkey its manger, but we do not know, nor do we understand. We are weighed down by injustice and act atrociously; we have abandoned Love. We have abandoned respect for each other, respect for ourselves. We need to defend the poor, help them achieve a level of living that is worthy of a human being, worthy of a brother or sister, worthy of a child of God.

The choice is ours to make; God will love us regardless of our actions. But will we really love ourselves. Love’s self-offering means that we love ourselves; after all, didn’t Jesus mention that when he told us to love others as we love ourselves. We do not take the teachings of morality in the Bible seriously; I’m not talking about religion. That is the culture we are forced to be a participant. We can change it.

Wisdom and Love

These are two of the greatest messages we learn about in the Bible. They are also the main images of Jesus that I possess. He taught Wisdom, the Wisdom that has been taught in all cultures from the beginning of recorded history.

We still cannot get it right.

The Sermon on the Mount, one of the most spiritually uplifting messages in Matthew, should be the veritable blueprint for our lives, filled with Wisdom and Love. Yet we reject it; or, rather, we think we have mastered it because we think we got it right at the start. We ignore its teachings, because we believe that we are following its precepts and therefore, do not have to re-examine its meanings.

For many of us, we feel that God is silent; rarely, if ever, entering our lives. However, without words, God speaks to us, filling our hearts with Wisdom and Love; all we must do is listen, but not with our ears. Can we hear God’s message of His Omnipotence, His Love, His Wisdom? We can, if we so desire. He is near to all who want Him as part of life. He hears our cries of despair in this age of “alternate truths” – comforting us as no human can.

My prayer for the day is that we have more Love in our lives, more Wisdom to face the many frustrating and fearful images in the world today. I want to always be able to recognize the goodness, God, in all I meet. I pray that our lives return to the time of being when mankind was a true steward of God’s kingdom.

Heavenly Father, please help me get it right!

Many people in the world today tends to be cynical about most things; but do nothing about reversing this trend. I don’t have an answer for this; at least not for everyone. But I do know what helps me calm down. I love being out in the fresh air, communing with nature if you want to call it that.

Even with my limited ability to walk, I love to be out, watching the wild life. Even in these cold winter months, I love watching the birds and squirrels attacking the feeders we have in our own little Eden, our nature-loving backyard Garden of Eden. I remember sitting on our patio in New Jersey as I was editing my dissertation, enjoying the birds all around me, even having them land on the table next to me. They accepted me as if I were a kindred soul.

The is something very reverent about being able to share nature, being invited to participate by those who live in nature all their lives. Sitting in the Garden is similar to being in a cathedral. It is quiet; I enter it softly, breathing quietly, respecting the solemnity of the area. My yard is quiet; even the birds and squirrels vying for food, do it silently. I listen to the scurrying, I listen to the quiet. I listen to the clean colors of nature, as it blooms around me.

Time out for my complaints:

I can forget about what my world, our world has evolved into. The state-run college where I teach is a very pleasant place to work, but they do not want to pay me a living wage. Then the state takes some of that away from me in the form of taxes. Huge corporations, drowning in profits are no different, paying their average working near poverty-level wages. There is no entity in our western world that does not want me to give them money. Money. . . the mammon Jesus warns us to avoid.

The huge businesses, and even the churches, use their power to oppress the average person. These organizations press the need for money, press the desire to obtain more of it. We are told to defy mammon, but all of our social institutions only talk of the need for money. There are some churches and organizations that do stress personal time commitment to a cause, not just give me more money.

I am disappointed by the number of church leaders who are backing the debauchery we are experiencing in our political leaders. From the Crusades to present day, governments and churches back going to war. Government and religion tell us that killing is bad, but both support the death penalty, both support the waging of wars. Both do little to lower the gun violence in our country. The personal right to own and use a weapon supersedes all. Now our leaders want to allow weapons in classrooms and church naves. Wow, are we that enamored by the money that gun sales make that we allow guns in church. Is there no place safe from this madness? Other than my backyard Garden of Eden.

Back to my point of retiring:

So, I am retiring after 66 years of work, going to my Garden of Eden, watching the birds, squirrels and other of nature’s creatures enjoy the food my wife so unselfishly shares. Sometimes, I watch from the warmth of my kitchen window (in the winter) or the warmth of my patio chair (in the summer). Away from the pressure for more money, away from the threat of gun-toting, closer to God’s nature, closer to how I want to unwind from the hypocrisy and cynicism of the world around me.

This will be the first time since I was 9 years old in 1952 that I have not been gainfully employed by choice. Sixty-six years of habit-forming work that I will try break when this final semester ends in May. Wish me luck. I will need it.

I apologize for this miscellaneous meandering of a mixed-up mind.

False Beliefs:

Rene Descartes’ famous line “Cognito ergo sum” does not seem to be worth anything today. Just because we think, means nothing to people, particularly our leaders. According to them, perhaps, “I consume therefore I am” or “I produce therefore I am” may seem more important. Or at least more to the point. I have a hint for you: our leaders and Descartes are all wrong.

This way of looking at things had blinded us to reality; it has convinced us that more is better . . . a bitter car, a grander home, a new TV to watch the Super Bowl. The only thing this way of thinking leads to is a life of stressful relationships with everyone, family, friends, coworkers. It has created a false competition where none is needed. In some cases, it has created hoarding, so that I have more and you have less.

According to our leaders, there is not enough of anything to go around, for all to benefit from. This begins and ends with money; but, in between, everything else is coveted. Food and housing costs are rising by the month; costs to get a higher education are rising so quickly that even community colleges are out of reach for many.

These beliefs and these practices have produced a greed unmatched in the history of mankind, including the days of Rome’s Caligula.

Our leaders spend money on war, military hardware, and more bombs. Good grief, we have more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy life on Earth 10 times over. But we need more. We don’t have enough money to feed our people justly; we lack the funds to provide healthy options for all; we cannot afford to repair our roads, build new rail lines, or expand highways to accommodate all of the new cars. And, we ration education through higher costs. I know I said this once. But, being a college professor, I empathize with my students who cannot afford to buy the books and rely on financial aid, which many times does not distribute until the third or fourth week of school. These students begin each year that far behind. The world of education seems, no, is stacked against them.

We never have enough money in this country to raise the standard of living for all, but we can give a trillion-dollar tax cut to the very wealthy. Henry Ford gave up a little of his profit to lower the cost of his cars, allowing his employees to purchase one. In the long run, this made him a very wealthy man. Not a billionaire, but a very high-living millionaire. Our billionaires have forgotten this lesson, including our president.

Jesus said that what we do to the least of those in humanity, we do to him. What we do to our poorest brothers and sisters, we do to God.

My wife and I had lunch with Muslim friends of ours yesterday. Two women who give of themselves daily. And, when they meet someone in need, they stop to help. Good Samaritans all. Yet our government looks at the color of their skins and their religious beliefs and declares them enemies of the state, willing to take what little they have and discard them like a pair of worn-out shoes.

I laugh in derision when I hear our leaders proclaim their faith, their Christianity, as they do all of these things to make it more difficult for the non-rich to survive.

Do they think that God is proud of them?

A Kindergarten Lesson in Sharing 

I am confused about many things; but the one that bothers me most is how we live our secluded lives. We always anticipate a more glorious life. But the life we have is the only one we’ve got, composed of flesh and blood . . . just like everyone else. We share this life with all others.

I don’t care what religion we are, or if we are not religious. What I do care about is whether we are willing to let others enjoy this life we share. How is it possible to be content and happy in this life, when we see poverty and degradation all around us? Jesus, who looked at mankind and was saddened by all the neglect present in his time, teaches us to love one another as we love ourselves. But, maybe we don’t love ourselves. We can only offer hope and courage because of the hope and courage we have found in others.

There is a story about an African missionary bringing a basket of fruit to a native village and offering it to the children. The children raced to the basket, all holding hands. When they got to the basket, they emptied it and took the fruit off to enjoy . . . together. When asked by the missionary why they did not grab a lot for themselves, the children answered that they could not be happy if their friends we saddened by the lack of food.

Jesus tells us to “love one another as I have loved you.” Here is the source of this strength which we can receive from him and pass along to others. These children, who are not Christian, practice this daily.

 The gospels are filled with stories where Jesus ignores the boundaries imposed by acceptable social practices, and openly disregards man-made laws and regulations in order to show compassion. Jesus would have loved this story and would have shared this with many people, while on his journey. He consistently lets those oppressed by society know that they are wanted and loved by God, even if they are ignored and despised by everyone else.

God gives us the responsibility of doing something ourselves about the accepted social norms that are holding us back in doing good for others. We don’t have to do this alone. We have God’s promise of holding our hand and of helping us. But we must take the steps.

Our governments, and others in the positions of power, do everything they can to hoard the basket of fruit. They fear allowing others to share in the bounty. They can only be happy when they have it all.

And . . . they call themselves Christians.