Michael's Random Thoughts and Photos on Spirituality

To paraphrase the Gospel, what did you come here to see?  Pretty Advent decorations?  What did you come here to see?  Finally dressed people?  What then did you come here to see?  A prophet, a homilist who could string words together in a complete sentence?  Ah, yes, and more than that.  You came to see if love is really possible, to make sense out of nonsense, to feel comforted and a bit more centered by a Word of HOPE. We all need a huge dose of HOPE and we spend a lot of time and do a lot of things to try and find HOPE if not enduring LOVE.  At times we say “we placed all our hopes on (you fill in the blank) only to be somewhat or hugely disappointed.  Some of you, if you are close to my age, will remember at time when cereal box came with coupon offerings for toy and nick knacks on the back.  If the sugary non-nutritional cereal wasn’t enough they would grab us with outrageous offers.  I’d send them off and then wait, and w...

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 a...

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 ...

Trying out some B&W photography  Listening  Standing Tall Just Friends

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Hello from San Francisco.  Starting life in the City by the Sea and what a beautiful city it is.  Still moving in, but I did stop by the Paulist Bookstore at Old St. Mary's located at the entrance of Chinatown at California and Grant.  There are a couple of other neighborhood photos and I have the help of a Fortuneteller right across the street from my room I will always know what is going to happen.