Life is WoW, but most people don't get it.

Confirmation at Assumption Cathedral, Pentecost 2023  

Too many people around me are too often negative, or that is my experience.  So much so that, at times, it is just unhealthy or unhelpful.  I do get it, as there is so much wrong in our world.  I am not going to list all the possible wrongs at play, as we know them already, and it would just be depressing, going nowhere.  This self-defeating dynamic seemingly acts so that we are overcome not just by what goes wrong, but by what could go wrong as well.  How easily, one can become stuck in a bottomless pit. 

This Sunday was Pentecost Sunday.  During mass, that day, we confirmed eight people - teenagers and older.  Gathering, I saw eight positive, excited, happy people, along with their happy families.  Their level of positive energy was contagious.  At least on this occasson, people around me got it.  Life is WoW!  

There is so much good happening in our world.  There are so many good people, doing good, spreading some hope and joy in life.  I would never say we have to be happy, but please let us not be driven by what disfigures our experience of life.  My theory is we are too easily overcome by the big issues, standing at any level, from international to personal, that are just too much for us to handle.  After all, what can we do about them?  Or so we may think.  Or we feel a loss of control, as a result, and become stuck.  

Sunday's experience was a reminder to me that we too easily become stuck or overcome.  No matter what, life is WoW!  We can jump out of our bottomless pit.  We just have to open up to what is possible, what is other in our world.  We are best to move beyond what holds us back from or blinds us to the goodness and beauty of life and people.    

I saw it this Sunday.  Eight ordinary citizens came together within our church community, for an experience of the sacred, to take a step forward in life, and the effect was obvious, contagious, even monumental.  Life is WoW!  If we just take that extra step, we can experience it and share it.  

This extra step is gospel based, for the message of John's gospel is clear.   

You don't have to be dead to enjoy life, for eternal life is with us now, in Jesus, through the Spirit. 

Truth is we are about life before death, not just life after death.  WoW!  

It is a gift to know when it is time to move on

I learnt early on that it is a gift to know when to move on in life.  Like her or not, Maggie Thatcher, a long-standing British PM of the 1980s, was a notable world leader.  It was sad to watch her fight the inevitable of having to relinquish her post.  Eventually, she fell in an untimely and unseemly manner.  I always thought she deserved a more dignified exit, but not to be, as she just would not let go.  

Now we ome to the Feast of the Ascension.  Its point is not about Jesus going away.  Rather it is about the disciples moving on and getting on with the next steps in the journey.  In the story, Jesus took a dignified exit, while the disciples graciously, if somewhat reluctantly, accepted their new role in life.  I can see a real value in saying our goodbyes at the right time.   

In moving on, it is not that all is lost.  Rather it is about allowing life to progress, letting people take their rightful place and seeing growth happen in one's own life, instead of becoming stale or bitter and twisted, while holding onto one's gained lot in life, no matter what the cost.  The latter way is so undignified.  Letting go iand moving on s healthy for all parties.  .    

On this Laudato Si' Week (a week for focusing on Pope Francis' teaching on caring for creation), it may be good to finish with a prayer for this week.  

Holy Spirit, You are God’s presence in our hearts, bringing life, love and joy, like a caring Mother. 

You are in singing birds, hidden in vegetation, in the subtle fragrance of inconspicuous flowers… You are a Mystery, invisible, but powerfully influencing our life. We open our hearts to You.

Please inspire us and give us wisdom, courage, and hope. Let us make use of our various talents and Your gifts. Please teach us patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Guide us the right way and teach us to love You, others, and ourselves. Please help us to work together in peace and respect every person, regardless of all the differences between us, but also to respect nature and everything else you have created for us. Last but not least, let us always remember about our dignity of being Your children and about our freedom to serve others, like Jesus. Amen

by Sylwia Ufnalska, Laudato si’ Animator, coordinator of Rogalin Ways of the Holy Spirit and of the project “Tree of Life” – Rogalin, Poland)

Grace us, Lord, with the courage to be ever open to letting go and moving on, in the freedom of your Spirit.  Amen.  

The journey is worth the distance

I must share that I have an identity crisis.  In my conversations, when I present positively, I am seen as being an optimist.  Then when I present negatively, I am seen as a pessimist.  I say I am neither.  Rather I am a realist, such then I take a negative or positive interpretation of life, depending on the issue at hand. 

This reminds me of once when I went to mass in Australia.  The priest began the mass with admonishing his congregation to be happy, as they approached mass.  I remember my immediate and internal response as being one of  indignation and resistance.  Why do I have to be happy?  Why do any of us have to be happy?  As we face life and its tribulations, we may have good reason to be sad or scared. No one can tell us how to feel.  Our feelings just are and we deal with them.  Otherwise, we are entering into control, a dangerous area to be.  

It is okay to have days when all we can do is survive.  There are times when we face death or sickness.  Disaster, war and poverty. all play their role in our world.  That is reality.  It surely is good to be happy but that is not always possible, nor appropriate. We have to deal with reality, where we are and when we are.    

Through it all, happiness cannot be our driving force as that can be such a fickle baseline.  Rather it is hope that endures and directs our approach and response to life.  Hope tells us that, despite all trials and suffering, life is good; that nothing will bring life down into some bad ending.  This is not being positive.  This is not making the stance of a modern, western optimist.  This is the stance that comes to us through faith in God, through knowing that God is with us, no matter.  This is a sure baseline.   

Life can be mean, life can be cruel.  Reality can be frightening.  However, none of this directs the narrative of life. Instead, it colours life.  The narrative of life is directed by hope.    

So as my dear friend sits happily at table with family and friends, to celebrate 75 years of life, he sits at a pleasant and calm table, in the midst of a somewhat crazy world.  The latter is reality, but, more importantly, he sits knowing friendship and love, and that God is with him.  Hope is real.  Hope is what we all deserve to make the journey worthwhile.  Ad moltos annos!        

Do we know where we are going to?

After ten years of befriending and supporting a refugee family here from Africa, their daughter, now a young woman, took a momentous step in life.  She has gone of to the USA where she earned herself a full scholarship to study.  What a mighty effort!  

I can ask all the questions about how she will fare.  I can conjecture about her future success, achievements and fame.  Still does any of that matter?  What matters is that she got this far  

Her leaving makes me think about life and relationships.  In so many different ways, we connect and become attached to people.  The bottom line is that, eventually, we all come and go.  That is life.  We all have our end.  

However, before we reach the bottom line, so many of those featuring in our lives come and go, and some far too often or far too soon.  Life is transitory.  Along the way, 

-I am thanked for some kindness towards another; 

-I miss someone no longer there;  

-I feel bewildered by the absence of friends; 

-I just feel lost in transit; 

-I am just thankful I am here and to be with someone.  

Life is like that.  They say it is the journey that matters, not the destination.  And the journey is awesome, never dull, thanks to those with whom we share it.  Crape diem!