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,

    Our instruction of this Lenten romantic revolution is to strive to learn how to become more ardent and holy lovers. Its focus isn’t the usual Lenten self-punishing denials but to build a pre-spring sizzling fire in your heart for God and others (since who desires to be loved lukewarmly?). So check your heart thermostat to see at what temperature it is set: Are you a mild or mad lover of the Holy One?

    True, an affectionate relationship with God is a stretch since it requires loving what can’t be embraced or even seen. Two thousand years ago that Galilean wandering troubadour and lover of God went about singing the same song: “Whatever you do to others, including loving, you do unto God.” That’s nonsense to us who are entrenched in the illusion of duality, that Grand Canyon size divide between you and me, friend and enemy, male and female. Yet contrary to the human mind’s convoluted workings we know at the quantum level everything that exists is interconnected in an unbroken seamless web of life. Mutiny against your old mind, and love intensively, confident all love shown to others is simultaneously shown to God.

    Holy loving requires a conversion of our human need to cling onto that which we passionately love. Young first-time lovers are instantly recognized by how they walk together in public affectionately holding hands. Young and old love needs to make tangible the robust energy of love that while beautiful needs some reform, needs to evolve.

                                                Two easy exercises

    (1) Open your hand palm up visualizing in it whoever you love, and then close your fingers around her or him, clutching this treasure you never want to lose. (A) Yet change is the only constant thing in the cosmos, and someday the one you love will die. So strive today to love passionately and openhandedly. (B) With that desire, unclench your fingers opening wide your palm, allowing life to be whatever life will be. Frequently engage in this practice.

    (2) Repeat the above exercise, only placing God in the palm of your hand and close your fingers together. (A) When deeply loving God we inadvertently clutch tightly what is in our clenched fist as “my” God. Yet God can’t be yours! The Divine One can’t be the possession of any religion or manipulated by any holy voodoo of praying some prayer for nine days.
(B) Open wide your palm releasing God to be God of Muslims, atheists, Christians, doubters, and totem worshiping pagans…all peoples and all creation.

    Revolutionaries of heart, let us strive to love passionately without clinging which requires affectionately caring and yet not caring. This loving madness doesn’t require the balancing skill of a circus acrobat but the grace of God. So trust, and love as outrageously as the village idiot, and that divine gift of energy to accomplish the impossible will be given to you.

Dear old and new friends,

    Last week's reflection ended promising a story to enflesh it. Here is a parable-story written years ago. I suggest you observe the classic rule of all parables: Consume slowly, chew well and ponder deeply:

    Once there was a garbage man who worked in the little Midwestern town of Pleasant Hill. He drove a battered, blue Ford pickup truck with makeshift sideboards that rose twelve feet or more above the truck bed. He worked alone except for his ever-present companion, Spot, a white and brown dog with a ring around its eye. Spot was the friendliest dog in town and barked only at the other dogs that set up a racket whenever the garbage man appeared.

    He was a familiar town character, and the only name people called him was "the Garbage Man." The ladies who sat on their porches, wearing white linen dresses, said he was of "mixed blood." He wasn't black and he wasn't brown. He seldom spoke or was spoken to by those whose garbage and trash he hauled away. He was dirty and he smelled; it was, shall we say, a by-product of his profession. The only unique thing about the Garbage Man was the tattoo on the back of his weathered right hand —a red heart inscribed with the words, "I LOVE YOU."

    The Garbage Man drove daily up and down the alleys of the town, with Spot sitting next to him in the cab of the old pickup. He took an unusual interest in his work —not only did he empty the stinking and overflowing garbage cans that stood at the back gates and garages of homes, but he also picked up trash that people had dumped along the roadsides and in dry creek beds.

    The Garbage Man had made the town of Pleasant Hill not only pleasant but beautiful. While this was reason to admire his unique profession, the townsfolk thought he was not as admirable as he was "simple." Apparently he could not read or write, for he never sent a monthly bill for his work. He would graciously accept any payment from a customer, but some didn't think to pay him for months at a time. Others simply thought the removal of trash was one of the services provided by City Hall. And this voluntary pickup of trash along the roadway? Well, it was just another sign that he wasn't too bright.

    The Garbage Man and Spot lived alone, somewhere north of town. The gossip was that he was divorced or that his wife had left him. Small wonder—who would want to be married to a garbage collector? People did see him with a few friends at the end of the day before he headed out of town with his truckload of garbage. They were, well, the white trash of town—men and women that hung out around the bar and pool hall down by the railroad tracks.

    The Garbage Man was a mystery that aroused little curiosity, except from little children. As he drove down the alley with Spot's head hanging out the side window, the children would ask their mothers, "Where does that man take the garbage?" And their mothers, shooing their children out of the kitchen, would answer, "To the dump, dear. Now run outside and play." And that was the extent of the curiosity about the man of "mixed blood" with the heart tattooed on his right hand.

    The Garbage Man was reliable—most of the time. Sometimes he would fail to appear for several days. It was rumored that he went on drinking binges. But who wouldn't be tempted to get drunk, handling stinking garbage all day long? One day he failed to appear; that day grew into two, then four, then seven. The garbage cans of Pleasant Hill overflowed as trash, litter and junk spilled over into the alleys. The stink was terrible, and the complaints rose like high tide under a full moon.

    The part-time mayor—and full-time owner of the hardware store—and the town's police chief decided that they should go and see what had happened. They headed north out of town to find the Garbage Man. No one knew for sure where he lived, since no one had visited his small farm. The road ran through a timber of tall cottonwoods, and soon they saw a battered mailbox, half-falling off its post. Painted in crude, childlike letters on its side was "GARBAGE PICKUP." They turned off the county road on to a deeply rutted dirt track that led back into the timber. As they drove along, they could see pieces of paper and tin cans scattered along the side of the road.

    The road grew narrower and more rutted as they traveled back into the hills. Cresting a hilltop, the mayor slammed on the brakes of his car. He and the police chief gasped in disbelief! Before them was a little valley with a tumble-down, unpainted shack and a rickety, swaybacked barn in the center. But what held them in wordless shock was that the entire valley was filled with garbage—mountains of trash, cans and bottles, rusted bodies of old cars and broken-down furniture! The stench was breathtaking.

    As they drove down into the valley, between the towering mounds of garbage, the mayor kept repeating, "My God, my God—he took all the garbage home with him!" As their car came out of the end of the tunnel of trash, they saw Spot in front of the run-down house, sitting beside a giant pile of garbage. They got out of the car, but Spot didn't move or bark. She just sat and looked at them. When the two men came close, they saw it. Next to her paw, sticking out of a landslide of garbage, was a hand tattooed with a red heart and the words, "I LOVE YOU."

Too frequently the news of the day is about another disastrous case of a young person who takes his or her own life after being bullied. This merciless harassment of the weaker and more vulnerable members in a group no doubt has existed ever since young men needed to prove their masculinity. Beyond calculation are the unreported occurrences of this ageless persecution since the bully is hidden—inside you!

Everyone has one. Since childhood, your hidden oppressor has crudely taunted your weaknesses and bodily deficiencies. Your invisible persecutor enjoys making you feel deficient and to view others as superior to you, constantly pointing out your inability to measure up to that old grade school admonition:

                     Good, better, best.
                     Never let it rest.
                     Until your good is better
                     and your better is best!

No one can be the best in everything. Your interior chastiser nevertheless relentlessly requires you keep improving your work until it is perfect. After years of this endless persecution, can’t something be done about this bullying?

The best thing you can do is to convert your inflictor, and you can begin by going to the dictionary. You will find under the word “bully” that the British use it as an exclamation for anything splendid or excellent. It can also mean “dashing or gallant” and, most important, even “a sweetheart or lover!”

Today, begin the transformation of your cruel inner-critic into your lovable friend who in the act of spotlighting your mistakes provides you with realistic feedback. Critical is “realistic” since each of us is our own Minister of Propaganda who endlessly produces excuses for our careless mistakes and procrastinations. Your converted ex-bully—now your friendly adviser—helps you to achieve excellence by critically judging whatever you do. So rejoice in your new rare gift of a personal trainer and critic-coach of excellence.