Dear old and new friends,

    Four Jewish physicians, after having several drinks, began to quarrel about which part of the body was the most important for life. Not being able to agree among themselves they decided to consult the rabbi.

    The first physician began, “Of course the heart and blood vessels are the most important since life depends upon them.”

    “Not at all,” replied the second physician, “the brain and nervous system is the most vital.”

    The third physician said, “You are both wrong, it is the stomach and digestive passages that are essential for life.”

    The fourth physician declared, “The lungs are the most important since without air the body surely will die.”

    “You are all wrong,” said the rabbi. “Two vessels of which you have no knowledge are the most important part of the body!”

    Surprised, the doctors asked, “Illuminate us rabbi, what are they then?”

    “The channel that runs from the ear to the soul,” the rabbi replied, “and the one that runs from the soul to the tongue.”

                                                        ~~~~~

    Many take their own blood pressure daily as a way to check on their health. The wise rabbi suggests we should check daily to see if our ear-to-soul channel is open or clogged. Too much noise and insufficient periods silence in our lives clog that essential ear-to-soul canal resulting in us not hearing what we say when we speak. It is imperative for reforming our unconscious attitudes and prejudices to be able hear what we say. Our ears allow us to hear what others say to us, while we can be deaf to what we ourselves are expressing in our speech.

    Next, frequently check your other vital channel from the soul-to-tongue since it can easily become blocked in our urgency to reply or speak. The need to give an instantaneous reply puts pressure on the delicate sides of the soul-to-tongue conduit squeezing them together. So pause a split second before speaking and say to your soul what you are eager to say with your lips. In a thousandth of a second your soul will critique and if needed urge censure of any words that might cause pain or offense. This simple practice also insures this spirited channel remains open.

    These two simple spiritual practices help to maintain a healthy heart, for our own Rabbi Teacher Jesus reproached the accusing Pharisees, “It is from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Dear old and new friends,

    Dostoevsky makes an astounding claim when he said, “Love creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants. If you love everything you will perceive the divine mystery in all things.” Dostoevsky’s “perceive” is such a rich word which also means to recognize or discover.

    Spring is an invitation to perceive what is hidden in a creation that is now exploding in a rainbow of colors. Don’t simply look at the majestic leafing trees; fall in love with Dogwoods or Redbuds and discover their secret presence. Spring has rolled over the earth’s dull browns and grays of winter with a lush carpet of vivid green sprinkled with countless yellow dandelions. Don’t simply look at it but fall in love with the emerald earth with her trespassing multi-colored ground cover and wild flowers…and so recognize what is hidden beneath. But while that’s all very poetic, how do you fall in love with inanimate “things.”

    First of all, they aren’t inanimate but living tabernacles of the Easter Secret. To approach their secret, begin by choosing a single flower or green leaf. With Easter eyes gaze upon it, appreciating its beauty and wondrous design. Next use your childhood magic and pretend you are falling in love with the flower, speak or sing to it of your affection. Love opens eyes and hearts. Be patient as you pretend romancing a flower or even a common yellow-headed dandelion, and your heart will soon begin to experience affection. But isn’t loving people more important than loving dandelions? Of course, so let’s return to the Easter Event.

    It is unbelievably difficult for us to grasp that our dead Galilean teacher wasn’t resuscitated! His friends didn’t recognize their beloved Risen Rabbi who was no longer Jewish, Palestinian or even a man, but now an incredible mystery that fills all creation and the cosmos. Use your Easter eyes whenever you look upon anyone, especially those unlovable and the stranger.

    His holiness the Dalai Lama has a valuable Tibetan lesson about love for us. He has often said that “he tries to meet everyone as if they are old friends.” Try that the next time you encounter a stranger and see the difference it makes.

   
    In the gospels reporting the death and resurrection of Galilee’s Teacher, Jesus, time is telescoped into three acts. Act One: Friday he dies, and just before sunset his limp body is buried. Act Two: Saturday is the day he is entombed. Act Three: Sunrise on Sunday his disciples find his tomb empty and exclaim, “He has been raised!”

    The first written account of Jesus’ life is Mark’s Gospel which in its original text ends with a mystery: the tomb of the dead Jesus is found empty! In another gospel, that of Luke, a clue is given to this mystery of the empty tomb in a unique promise of Jesus. Dying on his cross he turns to the kindhearted rebel prisoner being executed next to him and says, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

    Since childhood we have seen countless images of the Easter Risen Jesus coming forth out of his cave tomb. Later additions to Mark’s Gospel, along with other Gospels, report sightings of the Risen Jesus that solves the mystery. Yet, let’s return to his extraordinary promise to the rebel dying near to him as we prayerfully ponder the possibility of yet another account— the Easter Gospel.

     The Easter Gospel begins shortly after the dying Jesus’ promise to the rebel, when total darkness covers Jerusalem and the earth, as Jesus breathes his last breath on the cross. Instantaneously, his dead limp body explodes into a blinding blaze of light. From him a luminous tsunami streaks outward filling all the earth, then races upward into the billions of shimmering stars and on into the hundreds of billions of galaxies, then outward beyond them into an ever-expanding universe.

    Witnesses report that those with Easter eyes now see every yellow flower as a saint abloom with the Risen One. They see all rivers shimmering with a sacred brilliance, and ordinary shrubs and bushes ablaze, and every animal, small or large is haloed as blessed. Stunningly, each of us discovers that we have been Easter-Canonized as saints, more alive now than ever before. Easter’s challenge is to see all things as new and to daily respond accordingly to the wonder of being incorporated into that Easter Cosmic Event.

 Dear old and new friends, 

    Scientific studies of human population estimate that since 50,000 B.C.E. over 100 billion people have died! This Friday, April 18th, out of those 100 billion deaths one will be remembered worldwide—the death of Jesus of Galilee. It is also estimated each day between 150,000 to 250,000 people die, and one day we know for certain our own death shall be included in that number! That being an unavoidable reality, we should prepare for our final exam.

    The Galilean Teacher taught his most important lesson as he died on the cross. Are we, his disciple-students, asleep or playing hooky whenever we see a cross? Each year we have the opportunity to learn that final lesson on the Friday of his death. Among Latin nations it is called “Holy Friday,” and by Slavic peoples, “Great Friday” and by the English or Dutch, “Good Friday.” If we have become good students of his Last Lesson then whatever day we die will truly be a good day. But excuse me for forgetting again that in our culture it is bad taste to speak of “death or dying.” So, should we rename this Friday, “The day Jesus passed”?

    For so many, dying isn’t any gentle “passing” but a fierce, determined clutching onto life since the possibility of nonexistence after death is so terrifying. The Teacher’s final lesson is contained in an easily remembered two word expression, “Let go.” These two words sum up his life, teachings, spirituality and death. Giving away anything deeply valued or loved is a small death, so check the list below to see your progress as one of his students.

            Let go of hated and harboring anger.
            Let go of seeking revenge, even by speech.
            Let go of always having to be right.
            Let go of needing to be important.
            Let go of irritation and impatience with others.
            Let go of fear of strangers, aliens, and those different than you.
            Let go of prejudices and judging others.
            Let go of trying to control life, others and God.
            Let go of your greatest fear of dying.

    If daily we practice letting go, embracing each as a small death, then when it’s our time to die we will pass our final exam by dying gracefully. The spirituality of Galilean’s teacher is “Do not cling!” Do not clutch the moment regardless how beautiful, or anything or anyone, for in this life everything is short-lived! You have two choices: (1) you can let go of what you tightly cling to or (2) you can wait until old age, financial disaster or terminal illness rips it away from you.

    From his cross Jesus taught us to just “let go,” as he did of protests of his innocence, of accusations of those who had tortured and crucified him, of denouncing his disciples for cowardly running away…and even God for “seemingly” to have abandoned him. Then, with his final breath, he let go of his life.

Note:

This Friday, April 18th, a special Easter reflection will be posted here.

Dear old and new friends,

    The Galilean Liberator freed us from the need for sacred temples or churches in order to experience God. We were taught this deliverance by the events in his life, death and resurrection; none of which occurred within sacred sites. Paradoxically, we now go inside church buildings to celebrate what initially happened outside in nature and ordinary places. Churches exude a magnetic pull even for those who rarely or no longer enter them. Does this gravitational power flow from the fact they are “God Houses,” or is their attraction a remnant of childhood religious memories? Regardless, God doesn’t need majestic church buildings to draw us!

    The Divine Author inscribed in everything a powerful, irresistible gravitational energy towards all that is beautiful, lovely and handsome. Whenever you involuntarily feel attracted or erotically drawn to a beautiful or handsome person know you are experiencing the same mysterious magnetism that gives birth to stars and created the universe. That same magnetic attraction awesomely permeates everything that exists!

    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, priest, theologian and paleontologist of the 20th century, said that the heart of the Big Bang universe was passionate love! The operating energy of the entire universe is erotic attraction, a passionate allurement that yearns for cosmic unity and more wholeness. The saintly mystic Chardin also said that love seeks not only union, but more being, and all being is primarily relational: so to “be” is to “to be with.” He also said, “I exist in order that I may give of myself for it is in giving that I am myself.”

    Next Thursday in Holy Week we keep the Memory of Memories of a consecrated meal eaten in a plain upstairs room in Jerusalem. There the Teacher and his disciple-friends gathered to share another friendship meal that would be their last. That Last Supper Memory became the galvanizing core of the future gatherings of his followers. At each of those millenniums of mystical meals they observed the Memory of how he gave away himself…body, blood and spirit to all. The captivating energy within that Sacred Memory shouts, “Remember, so you also can give away yourself in love.”

    In churches today at the conclusion of that Memory Meal do any rush to the doors to give away themselves to others? If the Last Supper remembrance now is merely a prayer service with a sermon and communion, does that mean the Holy Memory suffers dementia? If so, let those present at the Memory Meal, or a few of them, breathe life back into the Memory by pledging to live it out daily by giving away themselves in love to all.

    In this meditation we have explored love’s gravitational magnetism. Can that mysteriously dynamic energy that created and sustains the universe, and also pulsates in each of us, perhaps be The Source?

Dear old and new friends,

    The original April fools were those who celebrated New Year’s on the First of April instead of the new date of the First of January in the revised calendar of Pope Gregory XIII. In March of 1852 he corrected the outdated old calendar of Julius Caesar that no longer coincided with the seasons by removing ten days and changing the day of the New Year. Many just couldn’t, or refused, to change their thinking. Since they continued observing New Year’s on April 1st they were called “April Fools!” Don’t rush to judge them as we as well find it difficult to change our thinking.

    This Feast of Fools comes with perfect timing around halfway through Lent. After four weeks of penitential grind many are weary of it. Some finding theirs has been a lackluster Lent blame being constantly distracted by making a living and family obligations and begin to secretly nurse “if only” wishes. I could have made progress in my meditating “if only” I could have spent Lent in some monastery or Zen retreat. “If only” I could have spent these forty days in the solitude of a Benedictine abbey or convent where tolling bells mark the hours I could have escaped the noisy secular world and experienced God and move closer to being a saint! If you ever felt this way, reflect on this story.

    Once, a wandering mendicant monk made a pilgrimage to the Holy River where he had a       religious experience. He decided to actually live and pray beside the Holy River and on its       bank built a simple bamboo lean-two shelter. At first he supported himself by begging.          Then he began selling bottles of Holy River Water to the hundreds of pious pilgrims coming      to pray and even bathe in the Holy River whose waters it was believed healed both body        and soul.

    When it came time for the pilgrims to return home they inwardly envied the monk who           was able to daily live beside the Holy River, but their jobs and family duties made that an       impossible dream. So they did the next best thing and took home with them a bottle of          Holy River water they purchased from the monk busily dispensing them.

    One departing pilgrim, as he was purchasing his bottle of Holy River Water, gave voice to        his longing saying to the monk, “Isn’t the Holy River magnificent this morning? My soul            takes flight like a bird just seeing the sun beautifully glistening like precious jewels off its        rippling waters.” Handing him his bottle of river water the monk asked, “What river?”

    “If only” thinking isn’t limited simply to Lent. Those serious about their spiritual quest frequently desire to retire to some serene Zen or Trappist monastery to deepen their prayer life so to grow in holiness. While such retreats from daily life can be beneficial, this kind of thinking is a cousin-thought to “Happy April 1st New Year.” Galilee’s Spiritual Master proclaimed the Joyful News that God is present wherever we are! That Presence abiding within and around us makes having to escape from the busy congestion of life to experience God and become holy unnecessary! Touching that Mystical Presence requires faith that at this moment you are enveloped in it; wipe your mind spotless of every image you have seen of God, especially Biblical ones.

    Then go and love your Divine Beloved in doing the family laundry or dishes, in the marriage bed, in soiled diapers, in cooking supper spiced with love, in your raucous workplace, in unpleasant neighbors, even inside your parish church!