Author: rkcdlitt

I have had the occasion to be on I-95 for a total of 18 hours over the past four days. I know; you are wavering between feeling sorry for me and wondering why I would do such an inane thing. Linda and I travelled to northern New Jersey to allow her to be with her high school classmates celebrating their 55th reunion. I accompanied her to keep all of her old boyfriends from her. We drove up and Thursday and back on Saturday. Today, we drove to Emporia, Virginia to pick up our son’s dog, who will be staying with us for the next two plus weeks, while he is galivanting around the world saving humanity from itself.

The funny thing about my time on I-95 is that I did not spend the entire time screaming at the other drivers. I will admit, due to my age, I am now basically a right-lane driver; but I do set my cruise control to about 5 miles-per-hour over the legal limit. Occasionally, I do go into the middle and left lanes to pass a slow moving old person (like me) or a truck laboring up a hill.

Regardless of what lane I am in, I am constantly being passed, cut off, or tailgated by one of my fellow human beings who is hell-bent on becoming an organ donor. For instance, while heading north on 295 today, a car in the middle lane passed me on the left, cut in front of me to pass the car ahead of him, and then sliced back in front of the other car. I think he missed me by less than a foot, although it appeared to be a lot closer.

Now, Linda will tell you that my immediate comment is “Really?” or some other shocked verbiage spewing from my mouth. This shock and anger do not long, however, and I realize that I used to be that way myself when I was much younger. You know, last year when I was 73. I know that people are impatient; have to get to their destinations before anyone else; and, thankfully, have much better reflexes than I now possess.

I now pray for them and all the people they encounter on their journeys. I also tell God that I love these people, too. I am reminded that it is easy to love your family and friends, but not so easy to love your neighbors, no matter how far they live from you. The challenge is to love those who seem determined to do you harm, due to their bad habits.

God, I pray that you allow me to continue to love my brothers and sisters who are rushing so much that they do not have the idea to slow down to appreciate those around them. Protect them from themselves, and keep them in comfort, as you do for me.

In my meditations this morning, I discovered this gem by Martin Buber, Israeli philosopher known for his form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship:

Rabbi Barukh’s grandson, Yehiel, was once playing hide-and-seek with another boy. He hid himself well and waited for his playmate to find him. When he had waited for a long time, he came out of his hiding place, but the other was nowhere to be seen. Now Yehiel realized that his friend had not looked for him from the very beginning. This made him cry, and crying he ran to his grandfather and complained of his faithless friend. The tears brimmed in Rabbi Barukh’s eyes and he said: “God says the same thing: ‘I hide, but no one wants to seek me.’”

As with most people, especially those in my ancient generation, I have had many times that life was completely overwhelming, both good and bad, both up and down. This can be very confusing and unsettling at times. This story by Buber brings me back to reality, the reality of my relationship to people and things that matter.

The counsel of Rabbi Barukh, “God says the same thing: ‘I hide, but no one wants to seek me,’” allows me to think that the more I recognize that I have a support system that cannot be replaced by anything that I face in my day-to-day life. God is with me; God is within me. I cannot run and hide from God, because She* is within my very essence of life. She is the very essence of my life.

I pray daily that She knows that She cannot hide from me. She has become a most vital part of my existence, supporting the physical, the psychological, the philosophical, and the emotional sides equally. How can I possibly forget Her constant presence in my life?

*To my many male friends, I deliberately use the feminine when referring to God. I firmly believe that God is neither male nor female, and at the same time, God is both male and female. Reflecting on the teachings of the ancient masters, both in the Old Testament and the golden age of Greek intelligence, I accept that the universal name for wisdom is Sophia, the feminine. And who am I to argue with my intellectual ancestors?

May all of us walk with God today.

I have entered a period of quietude; I no longer am concerned with trivial matters in my life. For years, I have been so wrapped in my own vainglory that I have forgotten everything my Father taught me. Everything I understand is from my Father and his Love for me. Yet, I always seem to fail in my response, whenever challenged, which is often. I feel this miscreation makes me a fallacious person, for the reason I am not being truthful to myself, my family, or my Father.

When I was very young, maybe even before I was ten years old, I fell into a ground yellow jacket nest. Receiving over 100 stings to my young body. My family and friends were spending two weeks at Shanks Village, the former Camp Shanks, located near Nyack New York. There were no doctors handy, so a friend of my parents drove me in the only car we had to the local fire department, where I was unceremoniously stripped and hosed down to rid my body of all the dead or dying bees.  I spent the remainder of our vacation lying on a chaise lounge watching all the other children playing baseball, going blackberry hunting, and running through the cold water of a garden hose, held by the same father who took me to get help.

Reflecting on that lost summer, I appreciate that since then I have used that as a self-justification to fail. That’s correct, fail.

It is easiest to justify failure. I’m not good enough. I lack the talent. See him, he has so much more talent that I have. I’ll just do my own thing. Remember that from the 1960s and 1970s? Doing our own thing. For many that meant facing life, defeating defeat; that is, until you justify why it is acceptable to fall short of your own self-imposed goals.

Over this past weekend, I fell climbing the stairs at Shrine Mont Episcopal Retreat Center in Orkney Springs, Virginia, a beautiful place, a place to get lost in a world that we are unaccustomed inhabiting. Linda and I have enjoyed our times there, relaxing lake side, watching the children enjoying true freedom, watching the young one hunt newts.

Well, I fell, and many on hand assisted me, showing true concern, no true Love, for my wellbeing. These brothers and sisters are the angels that God sends to comfort us, to assist us through the difficult ties in our lives, when all goes awry. Naturally, being the egotist that I am, I admitted my stupidity, thanked all for their Love, and proceeded with my weekend. Until I couldn’t. Linda and I left Shrine Mont early. I was in pain, but not the physical pain that one imagines. Mine is a more psychological, a more personal pain; one that both wrapped me in a cloak of denial, and spring from me as an explosion of molten rock from a mountain top. At three o’clock this morning to a dread of such magnitude that I feared that I was dying; I also feared that I was not dying. Although not afraid of death, I do not want to leave just yet. I love Linda, my two children, Megan and Cordis, all my friends, and God. I also do not know what lies ahead, except that I know what God has planned for me and I am assured that it is wondrous.

God, I know you are listening. I am yours forever; I know that I will rejoice when arriving at my destiny. But I also know that you Love me and all my family and friends. So why do I fear so much. Why do I fear living, and why do I fear dying? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I am loved. Loved by Linda, Megan, Cordis, my grandson Carter, my wonderful, loving friends, and above all, I am Loved by God.

As I sit here at my computer, writing this psychological dictum of nonsense at four-thirty this morning, I know that this unending Love, gratefully received from my family and friends, is s direct gift from God. And this gift, this realization, is comforting me.

Thank you, God, and thank you, all my angels. We share the greatest Love there is.  

Present in God’s Love

For us to accept the reality of the presence of Jesus in our lives, we must be truly present to our own life, or present in our Life with God. Now. Maybe we have forgotten where that place is. We have forgotten where that place is.

I have always been a multi-tasker, and I mean always.  When I was 12 years old, I was delivering newspapers on a rainy Sunday morning in East Orange, New Jersey; I was two blocks from home. Now, picture this: I was pedaling up a hill to deliver the bulky Newark Sunday News. One of the forever wars between Egypt and Israel was burning itself out, and I was reading the front page of the paper lying in the front basket of my fat-wheeled Schwinn. And BOOM! I ran right into a parked car, breaking my nose and two front teeth. I was definitely not present in my life at that point.

I promise; I am much better now than I was 62 years ago.

How do we slow down the hot Alfa-Romeo we are driving? How do we learn to be present in our lives? By starting small!! Put down the cell phone this morning at breakfast. Leave the Post on the lawn until after breakfast. Sit with your coffee in both hands; both hands; to prevent you from eating a crumb-bun while drinking the coffee. Take a sip; savor it; smell its aroma; feel its warmth travelling from your throat to your stomach. If you are lucky enough to be on your patio while doing this, close your eyes and feel the birds and squirrels as they search for food this early morning. Smell the sweetness of the hyacinth and the musky odor of the freshly-laden mulch.

Take a full 15 minutes with this cup of coffee, avoiding any thoughts of occupation, family, and friends. Savor this moment, and slowly return to the harsh self-imposed reality of our poor existence. If we start this once a week, and then progress gradually to every day, then twice a day, we will, in short, be truly awakening to our true life; you know, the one God and our parents gave us. The one Love produced!

Can we afford the time to do this, to return to being present in our lives, the one given to us by God? Can we learn to love ourselves again? And will this love spread to our family and friends? Will we, can we? Let us bring Love, God’s Love back to our lives.

Retreat of Love

I am enjoying the first evening of a weekend retreat at Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, Virginia. It is our once-a-year gathering for a weekend of enjoying the beauty of God’s creation and the Love of our fellow man.

Presently, I am sitting in the lobby of the main building listening to the youth of the church sing Compline. What a beautiful way to end the day. The young girls and boys are leading song, prayer, scripture reading, and sharing personal love and prayers for each other and the world. When I see events such as this, I know that the world will be in good hands; the young people are so encouraging in their belief and lack of fear sharing their faith with each other. I wish that their parents were similarly inclined. Not to pick on the immediate parents, but the parents I general, who tend to forget how simple, child-like faith can move mountains.

Presently, they are singing, “Jesus Loves Me.” I am seeing the innocence and love expressed in all their faces; those of the two and three-year olds; those of the teenagers; and those of the parents, who are considerably older. The beauty of the faith of a child, the child in all of us, is truly a promising, uplifting experience to observe and to anticipate.

AS this first day closes, I thank God for giving us the opportunities to love one another, as She Loves us.

Although I am not Catholic, I do read what Catholic leaders write. I believe that these words also come from God.

Pope John Paul II wrote, “So, in beholding the glory of the Trinity in creation, we must contemplate, sing, and rediscover wonder.” Right John Paul, we must wonder at the glory of God when he allows a crazed terrorist to smash a window on the 32^nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel and kill 59 concert goers and seriously wound almost 600 others. However, let us not forget the thousands of others who will be forever traumatized by this event and suffer with PTSD for the remainder of their lives.

Last night, at our Lectio Divina contemplative prayer group, we discussed a passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where, among other things, Paul speaks of the undying Love that God gives us. I sometimes find it impossible to live a life of rapture, basking in God’s Love, when I awake to the horrific news from Las Vegas. I posted a prayer on Facebook, almost immediately, asking for God’s Love and forgiveness for the victims and their families, for the politicians who are too cowardly to face the gun lobbyists, and for ourselves, who keep electing these traitors to our society, unless of course, the truth is that we are actually the very barbaric nation of loveless people we seem to be.

I pray that we are not. As a society, we are over-programmed to shun God’s Love in favor of a more seemingly comfortable acceptance of our distorted societal values.

Are we really this way? Are we so numbed by the daily recurrence of gun violence in our communities? I am all for voting these deceitful politicians from office; but I cannot hate them. They are also children of God. I must offer God’s Love to them, as I would to my friends and family. By loving freely (not free love), I am fulfilling Paul’s message: he writes in his letter, and I paraphrase:  God gives us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know Him better. I now must extend this Love to include the man who committed this violence, knowing that he also is a child of our ever-Loving God.

Of course!! Have a Loving day, even amidst this horrifying news.

Let all that you do be done in Love. 
This profound sentence is an OMG moment in my life. When I realized what Paul is telling me in this letter to the Corinthians, I experience an AHA moment. This is not possible.

After all, I teach and am constantly confronted by the unfortunate fact that many students attend class totally and completely unprepared. They just do not complete the assignments, resulting in my monologue, not a discussion of main ideas from English prose. I’m supposed to be angry and reprimand the class for the poor performance. I guess when I was learning how to teach I cut the class that told us to be mean and avoid any signs of understanding that today’s students are under a great deal of pressure.

The simple fact is: I love my students. Even if they have not performed to the best of their abilities, I do not show anger toward them, simply because most of them are struggling both physically and psychologically by attending class four or five times a week, and work half or even full time.

I also find that I love all people. The other day, I was approaching campus on a road with a very strict 25 MPH rule, so much that there is often a police car, just sitting there. A little pseudo-sports car passed me on the right in a right turn only lane; he then cut in front of me, turned right into the parking lot, and race across the lanes to grab the first available space. I verbally expressed my love for this young man, feeling sorry for his lack of preparedness to be in class on time.

Love and laughter, not anger, will bring a happier day to this young man.

You and I are God’s beloved children; we are way more effective and influential when we turn to each other and not against each other. The only way that we can succeed, tear down the walls that separate us, and, defeat all forms of injustice, anger, and hatred is when we celebrate our diversity, not condemn us for it. 

May all we do, be done through sharing God’s Love, paving the way to a Life of Love.

Have you ever been to a place that seems familiar, but you can’t quite remember if you have ever been there? Life can be very vexing at times. There are more things in our world that ask questions that we are incapable of answering, at least on an intellectual level, but are very answerable on a spiritual level.

If there are no answers on an intellectual level, where can we find answers. I am reminded of Yogi Berra’s comment, “It’s Deja Vu all over again.” Funny, isn’t it? But maybe not. Have we been there before, or is it a place that just reminds us of somewhere we’ve been?

I am reading William Walker Atkinson’s A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga, published in October 1906. It is the Eastern view of how Western religious philosophy has drifted so far away from the teachings of first century Christianity. There are explanations explaining some of the mysteries that are not answered in the King James Bible, or any modern translation. I have done considerable reading about first century Christianity; what the Apostles of Jesus taught throughout the then-known world. These are the men who traveled with Jesus, or traveled with those, who did travel with Jesus.

What we learn today differs greatly from the teachings of these apostles. Their lessons are far removed from the alterations and edicts from the Western Church that have come down through the centuries. For instance, women were an important part in Jesus’ ministry; after all, the first appearance of the Good News of Jesus’ resurrection was to women. The women in the New Testament play an important role in His healing and His preaching. But, throughout the centuries, western religion has usurped the role of women and placed them in the subservient position, which is not much better than the slaves in the history of the USA.

How can we accept these ancient teachings? Henri Nouwen has a classic but often forgotten idea: solitude and meditation. When we are alone and in meditation to get closer to God, we open our minds and hearts to hear God speak to us. Nouwen says that solitude is the garden that allows our heart to flourish in God’s good news of Love. Our being alone (with God) will calm our anxious minds, erasing the stressful unhappiness that seems to control our waking hours. Solitude and meditation is essential for our spirit to grow in God’s Love and accept the confines of the hectic world we live in. This is in line with what the 1^st century Christians did. It brought them closer to God.

How does this ancient set of Christian beliefs evolve from remembering a place you have never visited? Good question.

Christian teaching has always been that life extends beyond the grave. The question is, how, to what extent. We have placed little thought to where, when, and how this occurs. Are we reborn to new bodies and remember bits and pieces of our former identities? Or, do we learn a collective knowledge, such as the instinct that is so noticeable in dogs and other four-legged beasts?

 I must think more about this. Maybe when I discover a reasonable response I will return to this topic.

Have a great day.

 Why did the chicken cross the road?

We can be cute and answer, “to get to the other side;” or, we could be scientifically serious and respond with dietary and avian philosophies dating back to the time of Laozi, 260 years ago in China.

But what about us, what about the human animals that will cross a road only for a sale, or a restaurant, on the opposing side of the avenue? We are too wrapped in our own circles of influence to be concerned with crossing the street for anything other than mundanity.

If we are truly neighbors to those around us, if we truly accept that the family across the road and our family are worthy of each other, then we must cross the road for the benefit of both families. There is too much disengagement and segregation between black people and white people, between gay and straight people, between young and old, between sick and healthy, between prisoners and free people, between Jews and Gentiles, Muslims and Christians, and Protestants and Catholics.

Life’s demands make it imperative that we cross the road; we need to notice that our neighbors suffer, as we do. Perhaps, if we share with our neighbors, more than just a “Good morning, brother,” we will learn to appreciate that what happens to either of us happens to all of us.

Luke 6 says, “How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?” Do we remember how painful it is when we get a piece of sand in our eye at the beach? I don’t care how old we are; our first instinct is to run home to Mama for her to stop the pain.

Our lack of caring, or even trying to understand, what it’s like across the road hurts us, just as much as the grain of sand in our eye.

Loving our neighbor is not a luxury to be cast aside with irrational whims; it is a gift to cherish.

Lucky to Love and to be Loved 

If God truly loved us, why are there wars? Why are there fatal illnesses that kill little children before they can appreciate what love is? Why do we pray, when most of the time we can never know if our prayers are answered?

Confusing questions from a confused mind. Well, maybe not so confused. I do believe that prayer opens a conversation between me and God. I believe that prayer is the poetry that seals our relationship with something other than our mundane life on planet Earth. It links our known existence with the unknown forces that we do not and cannot understand. Prayer, and the Love that follows, brings forth a compassionate behavior that allows us to appreciate one another in this hectic world in which we reside. Without this compassion, without this Loving behavior, we would only live alone, out of touch with anyone else. We could not abide by others’ idiosyncrasies. Without this compassion and its permanent companion, Love, we would have no future to anticipate. Everything we do would be to satisfy the cravings of a shallow existence. We would be miserable; we are unhappy.

Ultimately, we have no choice but to accept that there is a universal Love that permits us to be, well, us. Love permits us to enjoy Life, the Life given by God. This also invites us to love not only God, but all people. Without this Love directed to our friends and neighbors, known and unknown, life would not be mysterious; it would be terrifying and useless.

We need each other; we need the Love we share between ourselves and between ourselves and God. This keeps us enjoying everything around us – our friends, our families, and the activities that keep us wanting for more.

To Love is to risk. I have loved many people in my life, and many times I have been hurt, felt abandoned, or depressed, unable to understand the rejection. Since I am now considerably older, I recognize that people who hurt those who love them misinterpret Love for what it is. Love is not infatuation; love is caring for others the way God cares for us. Some of my long-ago friends, and some of my current friends, are too fearful of, well, of anything that may put them in harm’s way. They are too afraid to Love, not love, but Love. I wish I were as caring at age 24 as I am at age 74. I probably would have had no hesitation in telling all my friends, my Marine buddies, my teachers, and yes, my family that I Love them, and always will. For some, it may seem too late; however, I am comfortable with the understanding that when I look back on my life and tell someone from my past that I Love them, I know they hear me. And, I am no longer hesitant to express this Love.