Dear old and new friends,
 
     If you believe as you pray, “Our Father who art in heaven,” then last week’s reflection regarding God and Christ making their dwelling within you won’t have created any change in how you pray or relate to God. This is an example of a central law of life:

      Unless we change the way we think, we will not change the way we act.
 
     This is a fundamental law for not only personal change but also global. Franciscan theologian Ilia Delio says we must make loving the basic element in any change. If our desire is to change anything negative about our behavior, the place to begin isn’t with our behavior but our thoughts. And our minds likely are crowded with thoughts and ways of thinking that need to change, so let’s explore a few.

     Regardless of having seen that historic NASA photo of our earth floating in space, and the intellectual knowledge we live on a round planet, we continue to think, speak and act as if we lived on a horizontal flat earth. Since we think in “flat earth” terms daily we use expressions like “sunrise” and “sunset.” In reality, of course, our daystar the sun does not set or rise. But you object; what difference does it make if we rely on some old ancient terms? First, it’s not reality; secondly, it imprisons the concept of who we are. In reality, as evident in that NASA photo of earth, we live as a global, tribal community on an earth without borders. The consequences of this are awesome.

     Let’s consider another common experience. If you easily get angry when caught in traffic delaying jams or by rude drivers who cut in front of you, re-think: “Traffic flow often does not match my desires, and the highway can be the playground of the immature. Drive with patience and constant care.”

     If you become irritated by glitches in your computer or another device, rethink: “Technology is still in its infant stage; sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Be patient with it as with a child.”

     If you are frustrated that you aren’t as good at prayer as you desire, rethink: “Prayer is as easy as a conversation with a good friend; just let your heart talk and listen more than you speak.”

     Whatever you desire to change in yourself, examine what your limiting thoughts are about it…and then exchange those with loving and affirming thoughts.

     Lloyd George was British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922. He served in that critical position during the harsh difficulties of World War I and a national economic crisis, while dealing with the Irish liberation Sinn Fein movement and other problems. When he was asked how he always remained so cheerful and pleasant, he replied, “I find a change in nuisances is as good as a vacation.” Any annoyance or bother is a nuisance, so a change in how you see them liberates you like being on a vacation.

Dear old and new friends,

    As you read this reflection our world suffers from raging bloody conflicts in the Middle East, Israel, Ukraine, Russia and Africa that cry out for peace on earth. We pray for peace, yet our prayers seem impotent since perhaps God wants more from us than lip prayer. What can we who are helpless spectators watching the killing and bloodshed on television do while globe traveling diplomats and the United Nations work to resolve these bloody local wars. We are spectators because we feel impotent to change these global realities or the horrible gun violence in our own cities and country. But we are not powerless—only dreamless! So let us dream of being ‘empowered’ peacemakers inspired by the verse from the popular song of the 1960’s, Let there be Peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

    Mahatma Gandhi reiterated the challenging lyrics of that song saying, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Whatever changes you want to see in the world you must first make them within yourself. Those who desire to be peacemakers should develop the forgotten virtue of equanimity, the ability to be even-tempered and at peace in the midst of life’s turbulent chaos. Being so composed is the living prayer of being acrobatically balanced while being buffeted by the strong winds of change, failures, mistakes, injustices and disappointments.

    If you desire that peace flows out of you into the earth, how does one do that? Begin with the greatest intensity of heart to be at peace with yourself, with all of you, including your mistakes, faults, virtues and often turbulent emotions. Secondly pledge to strive to live as a poised person who is unaffected by outside influences. The poised or balanced person is able to remain calm when their plans blow up or things go haywire. This state of equilibrium is only acquired by failures followed by the discipline of returning to the practice of living in peace.

    Contrary to common thought, such people are not indifferent to what is happening to them; they are not “sang-froid” (unperturbed) since literately in French that means, “Cold blooded!” They are the opposite…hot blooded, passionately dedicated to peacefulness and can feel intensely their pains or disappointments. Still anchored by their inner-peace they remain calm amidst the raging storms swirling around them. Their calmness isn’t being level-headed; it’s being level-hearted as the nucleus core of their heart-soul is peace.

    To be inspired to be a peacemaker, reflect that this August 6th is haunted with the memories of the first atomic bomb dropped in 1945 by America on Hiroshima, Japan, leveling 90% of that city and killing 130,000 Japanese! While atomic and nuclear weapons were thought to bring to an end all war, they have not, nor have they produced world peace. And on this August 6th Harold Brown’s invention of the electric-chair in 1890 was welcomed as the greatest deterrent to murder and capital crimes. Over a hundred years later our cities aren’t any safer or more peaceful as we continue to violently take the lives of those guilty of capital crimes.

Dear old and new friends,

    My first letter-reflection to you for 2014 is on January 1st. On this day in 1892, Ellis Island opened as an immigrant reception station for the United States. Let this 122nd anniversary remind us that we are all descendants of immigrants. We imitated them on December 31st as we set with sparkling fireworks from the old world of 2013 for the bright new world of 2014, so filled with promise and dreams.

    But the next morning when opening our eyes on January 1st we discovered to our disappointment the new world looked exactly like the old one! Our bedroom was the same and our world was just as full of brutal wars, fighting, homeless people, famine, hatred, and racial, religious and sexual discrimination as the old one!

    Wait a moment, you say! It’s romantically naive to think beginning a New Year is entering a new world! Let’s be realistic—other than the new date of 2014 on calendars there’s nothing new about us or anything else.

    You’re correct, but shouldn’t a truly new year be fresh and we be new and different? The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (500 B.C. or B.C.E) taught that everything was ever-new and changing. Plato twice quoted this theory in his writings. Heraclitus maintained that the world—creation—was constantly changing and summed up this reality in his phrase, “You can’t step into the same river twice!” Twenty-five thousand years later, science confirms that Heraclitus was right. For beneath the unchanging exterior world there is a sub-atomic world where atoms are always in constant flux (we know this intellectually but do not experience it). This newness includes you and me, all of us, and astonishingly—God.

    The Jewish prophet Isaiah, who lived about the same time as Heraclitus, along with the author of the Book of Revelation, quote God as saying, “See, I make all things new!” All things! That would include us—if we choose to be new! To choose, however, requires repeatedly redesigning yourself anew in imitation of the on-going originality of God. It means seeing your surroundings with new eyes, freshening up your vocabulary with new idioms, and that truly thorny task of redesigning your prayers so they are more personally original! But why change them when I know them by heart? Because the Mysterious Holy One to whom you pray is hourly, minute by minute, ever new and changing.

    To paraphrase Heraclitus, “You can’t step into the same year twice!” So begin this New Year joyously as an immigrant striving to find beneath your and the earth’s skin the wonder of Eden’s fresh newness. Indispensable for living in a new world is loving those you’ve loved for years differently, including God, now with the passion of a young lover newly fallen in love.