I am creating a new set of section comments here since I discovered that I can add sections at the top of a page!  That means my latest comments will be first and as you scroll down will be my previous comments.  That should make it easier for those who return to the site and don't have to hunt for the latest comments.  I want to point out that generally my comments have two dates associated with them.  The latest date is the date I put the comment on this website.  An earlier date reflects the date I created the comment in my personal storage.  This may help see that my thinking may have changed somewhat as time has passed if you compare different comments on a related subject.  In any case, I hope this helps understand how I am trying to manage this site since I update it somewhat infrequently. Sorry for any confusion I may cause.

20221003 I have reached a roadblock. And hope to just put down my thoughts as they come to me. After over 80 years of trying to walk a defined road (full of potholes and bumps), I find myself off the road in a desert. A dry desolate desert yet not barren. Rather like a dump, it is filled with many things, papers, books, columns, snakes, cacti, buildings, towers, etc. seems to have little rhyme or reason. My thoughts flutter around seeking the profound and finding no direction. My background treats this as a problem to be solved, but no algorithm presents itself. All the books I’ve read, and the stories I’ve heard seem pointless. I have difficulty trusting anything. In Physics the uncertainty principle implies we cannot know  anything exactly. It’s a measuring problem. I ask, how can we measure God? My answer is in words. But the process of measuring disturbs what we are trying to measure. How can God be all just and all merciful? What do those terms mean? Even those who comment on scripture bend their words to suit their purpose. They tell us not to judge, and yet they judge the minds of people who haven’t existed for over a thousand years, as if they know their thoughts and intentions. I find it disconcerting that even a simple question (like: who is my neighbor?) is construed to have hidden intent. Recalling to mind a quote a learned many years ago:.. a little learning is a dangerous thing...(A Pope) I am left thinking that wisdom comes in what we read and talk about. Yet when we try and measure God none of that seems to work! For now, I find myself wandering the desert and checking the items I find, hoping to find some wisdom.

20220205 There is a theme I will come back to several times. Namely what can/should we humans get from scriptural parables, specifically those in the New Testament? For instance, the parable of the Good Shepherd. In this parable, a shepherd takes a flock out notices that one of the sheep is missing, leaves the rest to search for it, finds it, puts it on his shoulder, then goes back to the village and is hailed as a good shepherd. The parable relates to how deeply the Lord cares for us (his flock). And relates to how much joy there is in heaven over one found sinner than 99 who have not strayed. It is a profound reflection on God and his care for us and for all of humanity. A message that has been proclaimed for many centuries. But, while it helps us understand God, does it help us see how we should relate to our brothers and sisters, or how the church should treat its flock? Consider a more detailed human scenario. The shepherd notices that one of the sheep has strayed and goes off to find it. While he is gone, wolves come and devour two of the remaining sheep. Two others stray and get tangled in the bushes and brambles. And three others fleeing from the wolves fall off a cliff and die. When the shepherd returns with the lost sheep on his shoulders, and returns to the village with the other 94 sheep will the villagers acclaim him as a “good” shepherd? I think not. The shepherd is tasked with the health and safety of all the sheep. It reminds one of a discussion in a Star Trek movie about the good of the one versus the good of the many. We generally commend those and even award medals to those who heroically give up their lives to save many others. So, what’s my point? While what we preach may help us understand our relationship to God better what we practice frequently results in a smaller flock! In Mark’s gospel he relates how Jesus having tried to go away with his disciples to get some rest finds that the crowd has found him, and he pities them because they were like a flock without a shepherd. So, he begins to teach them. Too often the church is so concerned with the secular environment that the flocks are left without a shepherd. I could beat this issue to death, but you don’t prove a premise with a bunch of examples. Those who understand what I am saying will have plenty of examples themselves. My message is that we shouldn’t take a wonderful example of God’s love for us and turn it into a mechanism about how a Christian community should operate and treat each other.

(20250905) I can pick out two times in my life when I was stumped as to how to respond to a question. Many years ago, a good friend looked at me and said: “Why are you a Catholic?”. I couldn’t even mumble a coherent sentence. It did, however, make me think deeply about it, and now many years later I believe I can answer that question. Recently, I was stumped again. A friend asked: “What do you do for fun?” Again, I didn’t have an answer. In thinking about it. I realize that the answer is predicated on being a 20th century Catholic. My thoughts are couched in terms that are somewhat explained in my reflection on Catholic Guilt (may not be indexed yet). Suffice it to say, if I take some time to do something like read secular fact or fiction I am conflicted with feeling I am wasting my time. I could be praying, going to church/adoration, reading scripture, feeding the poor, clothing the naked etc. etc. That is a sure way to take the fun out of anything. Did Jesus ever have fun? Can’t tell from the scripture I read, or homilies I’ve heard. It always interested me that nowhere in scripture did it ever say Jesus Laughed! Did any of his friends ever tell a joke, a fish story? Did he break out in good rollicking laughter? Don’t know, but all I’ve ever heard preached is the Jesus was fully human (as well as fully divine). Fully human and never laughed? This view of God my help explain why me and many others can’t answer the question: “What do you do for fun?”

I am always complaining about the constant noise we are surrounded with. Be it in restaurants, in meetings, and even in church. Silence is a missing element in our lives. Even when going into a restaurant restroom we are surrounded by music. There is no “rest”, in a restroom! It makes me wonder, do people like themselves? Do you enjoy being with yourself? I know that we are not perfect. I can name a number of my characteristics that are not commendable. I know we start our liturgies by saying “I am a sinner.”. However true that is, can we still say, “I do like myself despite my weaknesses”? It all goes back to our world. I am ok with saying the world has serious problems, and that our permanent home is in heaven, which will be perfect. I am not ok with saying the world is bad. At the beginning of scripture almost immediately we hear that what God has created is good. Yes we may have made much of it a mess, but underneath it is still good, because he created it that way. And if we open our eyes to that world and close our eyes to its defects we can still see that God’s world is good. I am blown away but a line in the song “Morning has Broken” that goes : “Sweet the rain’s new fall, Sunlit from heaven, Like the first dewfall on the first grass. Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, Sprung in completeness Where His feet pass.” To be there when the first sunbeams fell on the newly dewed newly grown grass is to have seen the goodness of creation and the creator. And we would have to stop saying how bad the world is and start working to make it what it is meant to be. And in the silence surrounding that wonder realize that we like ourselves as we have been created. Can you say you like yourself?