Good Morning Digital Neighbors and Friends! Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, mine was beautiful, the weather, the people, the experiences. Not that anything really stood out as unusual, just the goodness of the people I meet in real life, parochial and virtual. I'm with Bob from Sesame Street, I love the people that I meet each day.

No protestors showed up, being out in the rural part of the diocese has its perks. My personal life & attitude often seems in contrast to the continued fracturing of our culture. I am not sure there is any path of reconciliation when emotions of anger & fear are the main attributes of the moment. There is no rational discussion, only more fear or anger, choose your feeling of the moment, get ginned up about your cause, and then find people to hate. 2020 was the great testing ground of how well many will comply with herd-think and group-feel.

Hating another gives one tremendous freedom to treat others however you wish. It is a sad mockery of actual communion & community. The bond of hatred leads to oppression and retribution. It is far easier and much quicker to build bonds out of fear, anger and hatred than understanding, respect and patience. Humanity is beautiful and terrifying. I am thankful for the personal sphere of my life and how good it is, and I am mindful of the larger context which is fragile and faltering at the moment. The first one occupies my active attention, the second often occupies my exploration on the internet. I try best to be informed without being consumed by the "thing of the moment" be it something proposed by the Enemedia or a reaction to it.

I am not certain what this week will hold, on a personal level I am ever hopeful. More beauty of human life, more goodness with neighbors I love and appreciate. On a National level I am weary and doubtful about how we will ever find a sustainable new normal that everyone can abide. I don't think it exist any longer. If we find an actual path to renewal, it will be very painful and costly. Meanwhile a war continues in Ukraine that seems to have no quick resolution, few good players, and a massive amount of suffering of the people of the Ukraine. I pray that it does not become the Balkans of this century and we await another July Crisis.

FOR A NEW BEGINNING

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander, T
his beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

To Bless the Space Between Us - John O'Donohue

Hebridean cottage somewhere in Scotland