Notes of a Young Seminarian ~ 1947

They taught us to walk

with our heads down

so as to keep our thoughts

fixed on You,

which we duly practiced;

not because of the rule,

but solely because 

we wanted You.

Notes-Seminarian

A Dying Nation ~

Where is the Commander-in-Chief ?

Covid-19 ~

What a humiliation for those who think they are so powerful.

Easter Sunday ~ 2,000 deaths

Our soothsayers -- how are they reformulating now?

Covid-19 ~

It is quiet in quarantine, but I can hear the birds chirping.

Our Own Fault ~

Many of us make our own idols-- and then, adoringly, bend the knee before them.

Wielding Power ~

Can the Coronavirus be tweeted away?

After Impeachment Failed~

Congratulations America!

Now we have a Dictator. 

His First Impeachment Trial ~

They told us, all 52 of them, that they had refused to consider the facts, and without further ado, proudly acquitted him. 

Casting a spell ~

The majority of Germans fell victim to Adolf Hitler's strong magic spell.

Abrupt Ending ~

On the town square this morning I watched them wrap a chain around the stem of the massive Christmas tree and hitch it to the back of a tractor. They then dragged it away, down along the main street. People stopped along the sidewalks and watched it passing by.

How Trust is Destroyed ~

Since in office Washington Post has listed 15,413 false or misleading statements made by the President.

The Founding Fathers ~

The good Germans didn't have a mechanism like impeachment to oust Adolph Hitler.

Never Trumper Republicans ~

What did he call his political opponents? "Human scum"?

The Greater USA ~

What about the Kurds, the valiant Peshmerga fighters, who fought and died for us? He abandoned them.

Respect for Women ~

How can a man show respect for any woman who does not loathe a President who brags: " Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."

Changes Once Held For Impossible ~

Now they make you go out front of a restaurant if you want to smoke a cigarette. Even in cold weather!

Unmatched ~

Tweet Tweet ~
"If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey."

Thinking back to Nine-Eleven ~

Nine Eleven

On September eleven
when it happened
while we watched
we could not help thinking about
our own thin brick walls
left standing around us
here, in the heartland.

Walled in between
panic and gratitude
we sat gaping,
not noticing
how our helpless tears
would not stop falling.

The Way Things Go ~

And everywhere, continuously, Positive colliding with Negative.

When Will It Ever Stop? ~

He has divided us. It is pulling us down.

Where is the Anger over the Trump Administration? ~

                                              Hamodia

What we need is the courage of an Alexei Navalny. But our boiling nation is just taking this sitting down.

What is Belief? ~

What we believe is merely that which we hope is true.

Observance ~

Over here in Germany the people would protest if you went out and cut your lawn on a Sunday.

Disillusionment ~

When the end is near, a monk who had really been a monk all his life ends up asking if he had not been deluded the whole time, and if what he believed was all made up.

Seeing ~

Let the birds be your prophets and saints,
Let the clouds be your prophets and saints,
Let the flowers be your prophets and saints.

The Thomas Merton Prayer ~

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am

following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and

in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me

to face my perils alone.

America First ~

And the world, as I have known it for the past 70 years, continues to be torn apart and destroyed . . .

America Crumbling ~

Two major American sports teams have announced that they will stop playing Kate Smith's rendition of the Irving Berlin patriotic classic God Bless America because of racist views she supposedly had.

Easter 2019 ~

And Daniel Barenboim would rather not perform Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion with the Berlin Philhormoniker because of the antisemitic passages in it.

Protestant Theologian ~

After being tortured Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging on 9 April 1945 at a Nazi concentration camp.

Prayer ~

Prayer -- is simply letting thoughts float heavenward.

The Power of Words ~

Consider what this one word can do: Socialism

Final Exam for the Graduates ~

I had taught them for years and they were obviously frightened. Written and oral exams tomorrow. I told them to relax now and forget the books. They had learned a lot of German in four years. . . Go downtown this evening and go for a quiet walk. No drinking, no horsing around. Turn in early for a good night's sleep. Come in tomorrow alert and looking sharp: boys in jacket, shirt and tie, the girls wearing their neat dresses. Have happy thoughts and be confident. If you let it, everything will meld and fall into place, but you must be calm and receptive.

Burial ~

The childen stood at the gravesite and heard them lower the coffin,  but they refused to lean over and look in. Then they broke into tears.

Hate ~

" . . . this ability he has to sense our darkest instincts and call to them, coax them out of hiding, when we'd prefer not to see them at all."
Nancy Gibbs    Time

Going to Midnight Mass?

And then this at Christmas time:
More than 500 priests accused of sexual abuse . . . public list of Chicago-area priests with credible allegation of abuse to grow . . .
Chicago Tribune

Lost Here ~

In the search for God one is always alone. And we hardly know who we are looking for, or where to look.

Laudation ~

Hail, Stalwart Souls who stand up against the Powers That Be to stop it from eating into the fabric of our lives.

Waking Me with Splendor ~

You reflect Your beauty to me through Your creatures.

From Whence Cometh Our Strength? ~

What disturbs the monk is the fact that it is the Church People who lend such massive support.

Memories ~

All the mistakes you made in your lifetime come back, with clarity, to haunt you.

The Greater USA ~

. . . And The Show goes on . . . 

Daylight Savings Time Debate ~

We can turn back the clocks, but we can't stop the months from coming on . . . October, November . . .

An Autumn Morning ~

This morning at 7:30 there was a congregation of birds on the highest branches of the trees looking out over the hill to catch the magnificent red sunrise.

Sacred Spaces ~

As a child I had my holy places where it was quiet and filled with meaning: the church on McKean Street, the Capuchin monastery not far from town . . . It was the feeling of being enveloped in a mysterious, meaningful space.

Notes of a Young Seminarian ~ 1947

12
You said things to us in silence
that fell into deep furrows
of understanding.
So changed were we
that only on reading
about Francis
did we begin to fathom
what had happened to us.

Source

Notes of a Young Seminarian ~ 1947

13
You said things to us
in silence
that fell into deep furrows
of understanding.
So changed were we
that only on reading
about Francis
did we begin to fathom
what had happened to us

 

Thomas Merton ~

This is the church at the Abbey of Gethsemani that Thomas Merton knew when he entered the monastery in 1941. 

Poem about the Abbey church.
Who was Thomas Merton?

Notes of a Young Seminarian ~ 1947

39
Who ever counted 

our myriad passages

through silent confines

of corridors and halls

in ordered rhythmic traffic

on porous yellow tiles?