Today, across all western Christendom churches have been stripped of their ornamentation, sanctuary candles have been snuffed out, and black linen covers or drapes crosses as we remember the suffering and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. For me, one of the poignant memories I have of Good Friday was fifteen or so years ago when at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church our priest at that time, the Rev. Alexander (Hendy) Webb began his Good Friday homily with the words, “So, what have you done today to crucify Jesus Christ?”. Definitely an eye-opener, for sure, but that’s how Hendy was - he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind and make people think a little. In my ill-fated process towards being accepted for ordination as a priest through the Diocese of Massachusetts, he was one of my mentors and supporters, and he wrote a very kind letter of support on my behalf which I will always feel honored to have received.

But it wasn’t his sermon that day I remember the most. After the service had ended, he asked me and my good friend Pete Jeffery if we would stay behind for a few minutes. Tradition in the Church states that all the reserved host (i.e., the sacramental leavened wafers that have been blessed) are to be consumed so that on Easter Sunday you start off with all new bread, and Hendy asked our assistance to help him consume all the reserved host that was left in the tabernacle. I just remember how quiet the church was, just the three of us standing at the bare altar, chewing on the wafers until all were gone. No words were exchanged, when all was finished we all left in silence. I found the experience incredibly solemn, poignant, and holy, no other way to describe it.

I like the ending of this homily by Barbara Brown Taylor:

I actually know people who come to church on Good Friday and who don’t come back on Easter. Easter is too pretty, they say. Easter is too cleaned-up. It is where they hope to live one day, in the land of milk and honey, but right now Good Friday is a better match for their souls, with its ruthless truth about the stench of death and the high price of love. It isn’t that they don’t care about what happens on Sunday. They do. They just don’t believe that God is saving all the good news until then.

Today, on the quietest day of the year, we have come to sit in the presence of one who was fully who God created him to be every day of his life–who loved God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind–and who loved his friends so much that he stepped into the oncoming traffic of death in order to push them out of the way. He furthermore did it all with no more than the basic human equipment–a beating heart, two good hands, a holy vision, and some companions who could see it too–thereby showing the rest of us humans that such a life is not beyond our reach. Whatever else happens on Sunday, here is enough reason to call this Friday Good. Amen.

“O Sacred Head” is one of my favorite hymns for Holy Week, here’s a nice version.

To the left of my work area is a table where I keep all my religious artifacts that don’t make the first cut for my prayer table (not seen, it’s to the left of the bookcase). The table itself is rickety and worn; I believe it goes back to Depression-era times or shortly thereafter when it belonged to my grandparents, and I was allowed to take it when I first moved out of my parents’ house - therefore, it has always had special meaning for me. On this table I keep whatever cross is not being used on my prayer table - currently, it’s the stained glass one I use during Christmastide, Epiphany, Eastertide, and the season after Pentecost; alternatively, I have a simple wooden cross for the seasons of Advent and Lent - plus some cards given to me after my reception into the Roman Catholic Church, a Byzantine Catholic Church litany for a house blessing, a cruet of holy water, and a candle I light ever Sunday.

The candle I light every week has come to have great meaning to me. I won’t lie to you - I’m not the most faithful Roman Catholic in the world and don’t attend Mass every week. But that doesn’t mean my heart and mind aren’t pursuing God and spirit in the manifestation of the earthly realm my soul inhabits - far from it. No, my candle is my prayer for the world at any given week in time. In a perfect world I would have been a monk, my calling being simply to pray for the world. Well, this candle in some small way allows me to do just that. I light a new one every Sunday, and it’s good for about six days. One week, the candle might be lit in prayer for a co-worker with health issues in her family; another week it might be for my grandparents or my godfather Milt. Still another week I might light it in prayer for friends or family members struggling through tough times; another week it might be for cats and rabbits we’ve loved who are no longer with us; still another week for the people of Japan.

This week, I lit my candle for all those in the Midwest and South who have lost loved ones, homes, or their livelihoods as a result of the severe weather last weekend. And in doing so, it also burns in a prayer for protection for those in good friend and frequent commenter Jana’s area of Louisville, Kentucky who appear to be under the gun this week.

I know that some might see this as a pointless gesture, something that, while making me feel good, does little else beside filling the room with a little extra warmth and light. But I believe God hears all prayers in all forms and answers them in His own way. C.S. Lewis once wrote that we pray to know we’re not alone. That’s as good an explanation as I’ve ever heard. I have incense to light as well if I wanted to, but the office area is a very small room and it doesn’t take much to turn the room into clouds of aromatic smoke, so there’s no need of going overboard!

If anyone who reads this blog would like my weekly candle to be lit and prayers offered up for someone they know, just drop me a line at richard0928@cox.net or drop me a comment. In the kind of world we live in, you can never have too much prayer - or candles.

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. … I don’t know what will go first—Rock and Roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.” — John Lennon, Maureen Cleve interview, 1966

I know what you’re thinking: what is this quoting John Lennon to begin a post about Holy Week, the holiest time in the Christian Year? Well, it’s just that, since my “conversion experience” back in 1994 I’ve come to know how to, and better appreciate, I guess, the differences between Jesus’ teachings and the way his teachings have been both promoted and corrupted by “the Church” in all of its manifestations.

Don’t get me wrong: throughout my years I’ve come in contact with some very holy people that I would say live Jesus’ teachings in a way that makes them shine above others. Just being around them makes you a better person, and you can feel the Christ-likeness in them and how they share Christ’s love with others. Unfortunately, few of these people are ordained leaders in the Christian Church. In fact, I would say off the top of my hand I can think of only a handful of priests - and only one of them bishops - that I’ve seen as living out their calling in a way that is anything close to Christ-like. In fact (and this goes for the Episcopal Church, as I’ve met no bishops of any other faith), most of the bishops and priests I’ve come to know, sadly, are either total assholes, egomanical control freaks, or dimwits. And I use these words charitably.

The fact is, if you rely on the actions of any church (small “c” or big “C”), or ordained leader of the Church as a means to your own faith or as a way to judge the teachings of Christianity you really need to seriously reconsider your faith and belief systems entirely. We all fall short of our potential as God’s created, and just because people become ordained doesn’t mean they’re without sin or have the capability to live their lives that way. There’s no “magic pill” the ordained take to innoculate them from temptation or actions that make them, well, human.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Paul was right when he said we all have to work out our own salvations with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12-13). No book, or Church, or church building can provide the road to salvation; for Christians it is only Jesus Christ. Christianity, to me, is a beautful religion with very simple teachings that can oftentimes be difficult to live out day in and day out. Personally, I became a Roman Catholic because of John 6 and Jesus’ own teachings about His Body and Blood. Were I were to find out Tuesday that somehow it was all made up, it wouldn’t change the way I live my life one bit. But that’s only me, and I’ve long given up the idea of thinking everyone ought to think like I do or practice Christianity like I do. I still believe Christianity is the most sure way to eternal salvation, but I know plenty of other good people who have chosen a different road, and far be it from me to tell them otherwise.

Well, that’s really all I have to say. Let me close with this: for those who feel a spiritual emptiness and longing for something bigger than the rodent treadmill of working, playing, paying bills and accumulating goods and wealth, consider making some time this week for a trip to whatever church or synagogue or quiet place you’ve ever considered just poking your head into but perhaps hesitated and chickened out at the last moment. Find a way this week to create an open space between you and God where you can just let go of the things of this earth for a short period of time.

As a Anglo-Catholic, I’d say you couldn’t do better than Saturday night at the local Roman Catholic or Episcopal (or Lutheran, for that matter) church for the Great Vigil of Easter (if you live anywhere near Boston, the Church of the Advent does it better than anyone, bar none. The important thing is to just do it, as a present to you. Go in with no pre-conceived notions or expectations, just play the role of interested bystander and don’t worry about all the dogma and the rules and what people tell you should or shouldn’t do - I doubt God cares all that much about that stuff anyways.

What I do know is that God is most certainly interested in speaking to you in that dark and quiet (and perhaps neglected?) recess in your soul where He resides alone, and where, no matter who you are or what you are or what you’ve ever done or haven’t done in your life to this point, you are loved far beyond the imagination of human understanding.

A blessed Holy Week to you all.

Let me first say the following: you will find no links beyond this to justify anything I’m about to say that follows. You can look them up yourselves - all you have to do is type on any Internet search engine the words “Islam women abuse”, and you’ll find plenty. I’m speaking from the heart here, and I feel no need to back them up with any kind of facts, and I do not care if anyone is offended by anything I am about to write. In fact, I hope they are. And I hope they come after me for doing so.

I can only hope that some fire-breathing Islamist fundamentalist looks at this post and comes after me. Because, frankly, I am sick to death of the so-called “Religion of Peace” that is called Islam and the wacko protectionism being given it by the mainstream dino-media in this country. This world has an Islam problem. It does so because it’s not Hebrews, or Christians, or Buddhists, or Amish people, or AC/DC fans who are killing and torturing women, and blowing themselves and innocent victims up in the so-called name of Allah, or Mohammed, or Sharia law, or whatever freakin’ stupid reason they conjure up. It’s Islam, pure and simple. It’s the Koran, pure and simple. It’s whatever the prophet Mohammed said or wrote, pure and simple.

Was the prophet Mohammed an idiot? Probably, I don’t know. But I do know that anyone who uses his words or teachings to abuse, or torture, or kill, or demean women in his name are idiots who deserve nothing more to be treated the same way themselves. Harsh? Hell, no. As much as I want, and as a Christian am taught, to love people and respect people for who they are, I have no respect nor tolerance for people who by their culture or in the name of their religion treat others like second-class citizens or worse.

Perhaps those Crusaders had the right idea after all - where there’s evil in the world it has to be snuffed out. And Islamic law is an evil that needs to be snuffed out wherever it exists.

This world has a Muslim problem, and the only way to eradicate it is to destroy it whenever it comes to our shores. Unlike the way the Obama administration appears to be thinking, you cannot employ military power whenever and wherever you see innocent civilians being slaughtered by dictatorships or authoritarian regimes, but you can at least officially condemn those nations and heads of states (and, believe it or not, religions), wherever and whenever it does happen.

Me, I’ve long since given up on the gross hypocrisy of liberals and Democrats who will kiss the asses of Muslims in this country in the name of political correctness while turning a blind eye to the abuses of women under Islamic fundamentalism in the world. Perhaps it is true that Christianity in its various states has had its own problems, but at least we’ve gotten over long ago the practice of killing people who don’t follow some particular teaching or agenda.

This world has a Islam problem. I try to respect and love people for who they are. Treat me, and others, as you would like to be treated yourself. I live across the street from a Muslim household and have seen (without going into great detail) just how second class women are treated within a Muslim household. As a self-proclaimed feminist I don’t like it, and I don’t respect it. Islam by its very nature is a cancer in this world, and as a cancer it needs to be eradicated whenever the health of the body is threatened. Those who would kill simply because some stupid cartoon about Mohammed is printed, or because a Koran is burned by some wacko, need to be killed themselves.

I don’t know what the prophet Mohammed might have taught under these circumstances. But if he believed plowing airplanes into New Yoprk City towers or lashing a fourteen year-old girl to death for adultery was in keeping with God’s will, then he was as dim and stupid and a wacko as his stupid followers are. And if any of those followers out there don’t like what I’m saying then let them come after me. Because I’m over all of you in every sense of the word. You are a cancer in this world, and like any cancer that threatens the health of the body you need to be eradicated.

Bottom line: You burn a Bible? No one’s killed. You burn a Torah? No one’s killed. You burn a Book of Mormon? No one’s killed. You burn a Koran? You have a bunch of ignorant uneducated wackos killing innocent people. How do you deal with such imbeciles? They’re a threat to humanity, and evil, and ought to be eradicated, pure and simple.

Today we begin that solemn journey toward the Feast of the Resurrection. I’ve always enjoyed the solemnity of Lent, and associate it with my earliest memories of attending St. Anne’s Episcopal Church. While I’ve never really bought into the whole idea of giving up something for the season, I do find my mind more sensitive to the thoughts of who am I and what am I in terms of spirit and spirituality. The introspection is good for the soul, so I always try to create a quiet space during the day, whether sitting quietly or kneeling by my prayer table or laying down for a few minutes just to clear the head out.

I found this Ash Wednesday page at a site called “fish eaters”; it includes this brief homily:

In Genesis 3:19 we hear God tell us “for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return,” but nowadays, when someone dies, they are rushed from deathbed to funeral home to be embalmed and to be worked over by a make-up artist so that that “dusty reality” is hidden from us. Their deaths are spoken of as almost an embarrassment; “he passed,” they say, or “he is no longer with us.” These comforting but sterile luxuries weren’t an option in the past when plagues felled so many people that there weren’t enough survivors to bury them, when bodies had to be stored all winter until the ground was soft enough to dig, when most of the children a woman bore died before they were able to grow up. In our culture, with our medicines and “funeral sciences,” we are afraid to look at death, and we are a poorer people because of it. No matter how long science can prolong life, no matter how much embalming fluid is pumped into a corpse, nature will have her way. This is Truth. And when nature has her way, we can either rest in the knowledge that the ultimate Victor is Christ, Our Lord, Who walked out of His tomb 2,000 years ago and offers resurrection to us, or we can believe that decay is all that is left. This is the meaning of Ash Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday is the day for being reminded of and contemplating our mortality, of which Ecclesiasticus 1 reminds us:

What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh…

When a new Pope processes to St. Peter’s Basilica to offer his first Mass as Pope, the procession stops three times and, at each stop, a piece of flax mounted on a reed is burned. As the flames die, the Pope hears the words, “Pater sancte, sic transit gloria mundi” (”Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world”), to remind him not only that he is a mere man, but as a man, a mere mortal whose end is like the end of all other men. The things of this world are transient, and Christians must always keep one eye on the world to come.

Recalling this Truth is one of the principles behind the use of ashes on the forehead today: to remind us that we are mortal, subject to the rot and decay our Western culture now desperately tries to euphemize away, and that we are radically dependent on — solely dependent on — Jesus Christ to overcome this fate.

They are like a yearly contemplation of the tombstone inscribed with:

Remember friends as you pass by,
as you are now so once was I.
As I am now so you must be.
Prepare for death and follow me.

While death should, of course, be avoided as the evil it is, we should accept the reality of it with the attitude behind the words attributed to the great Sioux warrior, Crazy Horse: “It is a good day to die” (”Hoka hey”). Death should not be feared in itself; what should be approached with trepidation is the judgment that follows — not because God is a malicious Father who wants to inflict pain, but because He is as just as He is merciful. We need to repent, accept the reality of death, and not only consider our judgment, but be ready for it.

Have a blessed and spiritually introspective Lenten season, everyone.

Every now and then you find yourself recognizing and appreciating you’re in the right place at the right time. Yesterday was one of those days while attending Mass at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church. The just recently-opened church was decorated beautifully for the Christmas season, with two evergreens with white lights and bright pointsettas decorating the altar area. The colors of the season, gold and white, were everywhere, and those who arrived early were met with the sounds of Gregorian chant being played softly over the sound system, providing just the right setting. The music performed by the band during Mass - a mix of Christmas carols and contemporary music - was exquisitely performed. Fr. Greg’s homily, equating the transformation of the Three Wise Men’s faith after bringing gifts to the Christ child with the opportunities every New Year brings for a new start and allowing our hearts to be transformed by God’s grace in a spirit of faith renewal, was spot on and well-delivered.

Sitting there and taking the whole experience in, I was amazed, as usual, at the size and diversity of the crowd. And what a crowd it was! St. Mary Magdalene has grown so rapidly in the last couple of years that they don’t have room for the people who show at the 4:30 PM Mass and are adding a fifth weekend Mass in just a few weeks, so people were standing along the walls all around the side and the back. To see so many people attending such a joyous and solemn occasion was to feel the spirit of Christmas in all its true wonder and awe.

Heartlander at Red State has an interesting take on Epiphany and the politics of religion that is well worth reading, I hope you enjoy it. I think he’s spot on - the Founding Fathers defintely knew what they were doing when they created the so-called “separation of church and state”. Religion must not be legislated or imposed on upon people - it took Christianity 1,900 years to learn that painful lesson, Islam will learn it sooner or later as well. At any rate, the USA remains the absolute best place to practice whatever religion brings you closer to God, and those who choose to have none would have their own cause best served by simply accepting that not everyone believes as they do and “live and let live”, instead of using the judicial system to impose their views and personal agendas on the rest of us.

As this 2011 unfolds, my prayer is that all who seek a deeper understanding and relationship with God find a way to be more open to the incredible things God can do in life, if only given the chance and the space to do it in. What religion, or lack thereof, is chosen as the vehicle to enable that to happen is less important than the effort involved and invested. It would certainly benefit this country and its culture if more people would consider taking that chance - because only good can come from it.

Happy Epiphany, everyone!

Before I comment briefly, consider the following:

— The recent controvery over Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s comments following the brutal murder of a pizza delivery driver in the city’s Hyde Park section a month ago;

— Closing arguments are now taking place in the case of one of two men accused in that horrific home invasion and murder case in Connecticut;

— The government’s recommendation that Faisal Shahzad, the so-called “Times Square bomber” receive life imprisonment instead of the death penalty.

I mention these particular cases because, in my view, each of these warrant the death penalty if indeed those involved are found to be guilty. I touched briefly on my thoughts about the death penalty in cases of premeditated murder or intent to murder a couple of weeks ago, and I think to be not only correct and practical, but a pretty reasoned approach to a complex issue. It’s taken me a while to come around to this view - like many, I’ve struggled with the ethics behind it for a long while - but I think I have this nailed, and it’s an approach worth considering for those who care deeply about this matter (both pro and con).

The basic assumption behind my approach is that human life, all human life, is precious (even Nancy Pelosi’s - just kidding!) once you start from the premise that we human beings, even the most fallen, are a precious form of God’s creation:

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

– Genesis 1:26-27

(Of course, if you’re either an atheist or anyone who doesn’t follow this premise, you might just as well quite reading from here on, since nothing I say will change your mind otherwise!)

If we take this idea of something being precious, you have to assign some measure of value to it - after all, if something isn’t precious, there’s no inherent value to it, right? In the case of life itself, that value is the privilege of being able to live one’s life to the fullest to its natural end (whatever form that takes). And when that which is precious is taken away with intent and premeditation, the one(s) behind that act by logical extension forfeit their own “precious nature” and the privilege of being able to live their own lives to the fullest and their own natural ends.

It’s critical to note here that I’m only talking about acts of premeditation and intent. If, as the result of a fair trial where the evidence was presented fairly on both sides, those Boston punks are found to have deliberately set out to kill that pizza delivery person, or the Connecticut home invaders are found to have deliberately set out to kill anyone they found inside that house, or Times Square guy is found to have deliberately intended to set off a bomb that would kill innocent people, there is no logical reason why they shouldn’t be put to death quickly and without appeal.

I’m not talking about deaths resulting from accident, negligence, manslaughter, or even actions in war. I’m talking about evil - the kind of evil that can only explain the desire of one person to want to take the life of another for no apparent reason other than malice. And I don’t find the arguments for criminal insanity or religious practice (like honor killings) to be valid exceptions here - sane or not, Koran or not, in this society your life loses its precious value when you kill, or attempt to kill, someone with the intent to do so. You don’t need to know the person, you just need to the desire to kill someone. Then it’s “see ya”, enjoy eternity.

Unfortunately, my death penalty argument doesn’t fit those creeps who taped that poor Rutgers University student who ended up committing suicide. And that’s probably a good thing. I’m sure they didn’t intend for him to kill himself as a direct result of their actions, but it’s better they have a nice long life to contemplate what they did and live with it.

Anyways, that’s my own two cents’ worth, and I don’t think I’m way off base here. Do you?

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Pool temp: 80 degrees

Still reading Thomas Merton’s fine The Sign Of Jonas, and it continues to both inspire, humble, and hit where it truly hurts. Consider this entry from the 7th October 1949:

Spiritual joy depends on the cross. Unless we deny ourselves, we will find ourselves in everything and that is misery. As soon as we begin to deny ourselves, out of love for God, we begin to find God, at least obscurely. Since God is our joy, our joy is proportioned to our self-denial, for the love of God. I say: our self-denial for the love of God, because there are people who deny themselves for the love of themselves.

It is not complicated to live the spiritual life. But it is difficult. We are blind, and subject to a thousand illusions. We must expect to be making mistakes almost all the time. We must be content to fall repeatedly and to begin again to try and deny ourselves, for the love of God.

It is when we are angry at our own mistakes that we tend most of all to deny ourselves for the love of ourselves. We want to shake off that hateful thing that has humbled us. In our rush to escape the humiliation of our own mistakes, we run head first into the opposite error, seeking comfort and compensation. And so we spend our lives running back and forth from on attachment to another.

If that is all our self-denial amounts to, our mistakes will never help us.

The thing to do when you have made a mistake is not to give up doing what you were doing and start something altogether new, but to start over again with the thing you began badly and try, for the love of God, to do it well.

Makes you wonder what would happen if, at least to a small extent, people in this country would take Merton’s words to heart. A little less self-centeredness and narcissism, a little more self-denial. Talk about the kind of radical changes that would result.

Well it’s not really a “grove”, per se - maybe it’s more like an alcove or a grotto? - but one of the nicer little areas we’ve created on our property is what I call my prayer grove. It’s situated between the west side of the front of our house and a wall that begins our neighbor’s east yard. The prior owners had the good sense to plant two large beautiful red bougainvilleas that, when we first came here, filled the entire corner. Two years ago, I got the inspiration to turn it into something a little more than that, and it’s become my own little prayer/meditation area.

It’s amazing how a simple bench, a few religious items, a table, and a variety of stone products can do to make an area cozy, peaceful, and, yes, holy. And it truly is holy ground - last Spring, after Carmelo our landscaper did his magic trimming and I put everything in place, I consecrated the area with holy water from the Byzantine Catholic church up the street. And if it came from a Byzantine Catholic parish - I mean, you know its gotta be holy!

Here’s the view from the bench where I sit and do my morning prayers whenever I can. Sundays are the easiest, in between making coffee and feeding the rabbits, and calling my folks to see how they’re doing. Weekdays are a little tougher - here on Pacific Daylight Time, my company’s workday is well under way by the time morning coffee is made. One of these days I’ll learn to get my lazy ass out of bed 45 minutes earlier and hit the prayer grove before the rabbits demand my attention. God only asks that I love Him with all my heart, mind, and spirit (Mark 12:30). Unfortunately, that that kind of reverential love seems all too often reserved for me and my needs alone.

The best prayer offices come from the monastic breviary I got during one of my retreats at Holy Cross Monastery in West Park, New York. They follow the Benedictine tradition and I enjoy using their Matins as the structure for my morning prayers. A good balanced office with prayers, Old and New Testament readings, and Psalms that I like to chant to myself.

One of our neighbors came by one morning while I was doing my prayers and said she was really impressed that one of her neighbors would set up a “shrine” (her words) in our neighborhood, and asked me if she could use it from time to time. I said sure. (I don’t know if she has…)

One good thing about having my prayer grove in the front of the house is that, whenever the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses come by and try to convert me, I can always point to the prayer grove and politely decline. It always seems to work.

This is the best of the year for doing morning prayers inside the prayer grove. The bougainvillea are out big, but not so much that they really start to assert their space - that will come in a few weeks! And when there’s a soft breeze, my neighbors’ king palms make a beautiful whooshing sound as they stir, reminding me of how God speaks to us - maybe sometime it’s as loud as a clap of thunder, but more often than not as a whisper from the deep recesses of our souls. The morning sun filling the area with its warmth, the birds chirping, the king palms stirring - it may be just a humble prayer grove, but it’s a little sanctuary in the cathedral that is God’s creation.

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Pool temp: 91 degrees

Thomas Merton’s The Sign of Jonas continues to astound, impress, and humble. I read his words, and there seems to be so much our souls have in common - the intense desire to live out our lives in solitude, yet the complete incapability of attaining this because of our selfish wants, needs and desires constantly getting in the way. The eternally common and human battle between body and soul. To overcome is what makes a sinner a saint, I guess.

On April 25, 1948 he wrote this:

The more selfish you are, the more involved life becomes. As usual I have to check my appetite for books and work and keep close to God in prayer. Which is what He wants.

It could easily be something my soul desires from me, except rather than books it’s all kinds of words, thoughts, and actions that involve worldly desires and self-gratification. God expects nothing from us except for us to love Him as He loves us. And that means checking your attitude and selfish wants and desires at the door, if only for a few minutes a day. Why do I find that so hard?

Today I’ll be flying to Atlanta and escape the searing heat. You can really tell out here the difference between, say 98-99 degrees and a 106-107. Energy flags, the birds get less active, you can almost feel the potted plants sighing under the solar onslaught. But that’s what you have to expect when you live in the desert.

Makes me wonder how the Desert Fathers dit it. Perhaps their fervor for serving God and their love of Christ provided their own form of spiritual air conditioning.

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Pool temp: 87 degrees