Michael's Random Thoughts and Photos on Spirituality

This is a very good and very scary read: HITLER, The Assencion By MICHIKO KAKUTANI How did Adolf Hitler — described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a “half-insane rascal,” a “pathetic dunderhead,” a “nowhere fool,” a “big mouth” — rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred? How did this “most unlikely pretender to high state office” achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror? A host of earlier biographers (most notably Alan Bullock, Joachim Fest and Ian Kershaw) have advanced theories about Hitler’s rise, and the dynamic between the man and his times. Some have focused on the social and political conditions in post-World War I Germany, which Hitler expertly exploited — bitterness over the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles and a yearning for a return to German greatness; unemployment and economic distress amid the worldw

We’ve all heard the adage “what goes around comes around.”  Everything is going around around and coming around — EVERYTHING.  From the macrocosm to the microcosm.  Do you realize that at this very moment we are traveling at one million four hundred thousand miles per hour? Think about it, everything is turning — flowing continuously.  Our planet, spinning, the moon and all the other planets — spinning, our galaxy and all galaxies — spinning, EVERYTHING spinning.  The blood rushing through our veins, times and seasons constantly changing — atoms and all subatomic particles all spinning around each other; it is the DNA of everything. The God we put our faith, hope and trust in is also spinning; Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a constant dance of pure relationship.  It is God’s DNA, and so all that God creates, all the Son does, all that the Holy Spirit does is one huge cosmic dance of pure loving relationship.  Are you on board, or not? When we are not on board a great and terrib

W25C-OSM We live in a magical, luminous, a wonderful world with love and mercy abounding.  No?  Well how about:  we have problems, the world has problems — we are the world.  Better?  No, worse. I’ll go with the first, but live with the second we live in a magical, luminous, wonder-filled world … with a lot of problems.  I was born and raised in California, Venice Beach to be exact, and I now live, as of this past Wednesday in the beautiful City by the Bay.  One of the perks of being a Paulist priest is that I get to live in places I could never afford to live. Speaking of perks, we have the parable of the “Unjust Steward” in today’s Gospel.  It’s probably one of the most difficult parables to understand, let alone apply to our daily lives.  One of the key ingredients are the asking of questions . In our first reading from the prophet Amos, Amos is railing against the rich and powerful who ask no questions, they just trample upon the poor and the needy.  Never asking how ar