Good Morning Digitial Neighbors! Happy Friday ADD Irregulars & WSN Provisioners of Padre's, Friends & Refugees at the Report and PHAM & Misfits roaming about at Phetasy! Good Morning to all you Conversants, Lurkers and Wanderers as the day gets underway the weekend unfolds.

I've been going for morning rides in the new car and enjoying either music or silence as learn its various controls (it is clearly smarter than I am) and reap the benefit of seeing wildlife in these early hours. Many racoons, possums, and deer with occasional guest appearances by foxes, armadillos, owls and other creepy crawlers mark my drives.

Changes are coming and I will begin the process of preparing to conclude this assignment and prepare for a new one. My rides are a good time to meditate on all the goodness I have experienced in my decade here. I have so much gratitude for the blessings of this assignment. I have loved every place I have been assigned as a priest and have done my best to serve each parish. I do my best to take each parish as it is and not compare it to other ones I have served. It is not always easy, but it is the fairest one can be as they move from one assignment to another.

I have never been happier in my ministry than at IHM. I suspect I will be using this space to share some of my interior ruminations as I experience this current chapter of my life. The happiness of this community makes me hopeful than I will be able to share the same gifts of my ministry and person in the new assignment as I have at this current one. Of course I will have to filter comments and exercise tact in the new assignment, unfiltered Tom is usually reserved for this space and the people who really known me well.

Unfiltered Tom usually has to do battle with the preconceived ideas that people have of clergy, and priests in particular. While holiness (that elusive dancer and slippery mystery) is the most important aspect of my life, I am not a person of traditional piety. I like piety and love seeing it in the lives of the faithful, but I am too knee-deep in the hoo-doo to maintain a level of piety typical of my vocation. Piety & holiness are related but different realities. Piety is not naïve, and one should not think that pious persons are simpletons (some are, but never exclusively - simpletons exist everywhere.)

Holiness can incorporate piety, but does not depend upon piety to be real. Holiness, that elusive dancer, is what draws us to the Luminous and to our neighbor. The Good Book gives us some primers in what it can look like in the lived experience of faithful Jews & Christians. The Divine invites us to seek His/Their Will and actually give a crap about our neighbors, the real ones, the ones in front of us, the ones we rub elbows with on a daily basis. Those interactions, Divine & Neighborly are the stuff of holiness.

One of the real savings graces of holiness is that those who are really holy often do not know it. Their focus become so other centric that they spend little time thinking about themselves. I have encountered many holy souls, many of whom are not active Disciples or professed worshippers of the Divine. Their genuine concern for discernible truths and authentic help of neighbor are the touchstones of holiness. It comes in many forms and can bud forth in unexpected lives and situations. It is one of the surprises of the Divine that goodness is far from limited to just Believers. Believers, Disciples, Seekers ought to be about holiness, but many things complicate, corrupt and confuse that experience for many.

Sorry about that aside, I do tend to ramble. Anyway, I am always me, but I do have filters and tact mindware so that I do not scandalize those unaccustomed to me. It is not always a success, I have been lectured by some over the years on how I ought to act. SCREW THEM, er. . . . I mean God bless them. 😉I try to be mindful of my audience. Gentle souls do not need to shocked for the sake of shocking while at the same time a little nudging on the understanding of authenticity and holiness is good for us all.

Thanks for the morning read, have a great weekend my digital neighbors!