Monday, December 10, 2012
What is the most important thing in life? Is it a warm place to live? Is it Food on the table, good health, financial freedom? Yes, I think all of these things would be on a list of very important things in life. However I would put... LOVE.... on top of that list. Through love, all things are possible. With a heart full of love, the ability to be compassionate and have empathy is possible. These are the highest of all human attributes.How can one have more love in their life? FIRST, start with self. It is necessary. It is not selfish, egotistical or braggy to love thyself. We are children of God, children of this amazing planet that is lovingly cared for by the Moon and the Sun. Honor the beauty within you and you can more clearly see the beauty in others. All of those other things on the list will fall into place as they should.
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Monday, June 21, 2010
Confessions at a funeral
I went to funeral the other day. Not something I have done much of in my life. I guess as we age we will be attending these events more and more. This was a co worker. A beautiful woman..Tall thin blond model type. I would see her in the halls of our office working on deals with her handsome husband as her partner. I often found myself wondering what their lives where really like. Was it really so perfect as it looked to us outsiders? They seemed to have the partnership thing all figured out. She had her strengths, he had his and they managed to let each other do whatever it was they did best. They shared a small office that always seemed a flurry of activity. I would walk by usually in a fit of jealousy at what seemed to me to be the perfect life while mine was soooo not.
. The funeral service was at our local catholic church. I haven't been in a catholic church much since I left Italy in 1976. Sitting in that church, I had such a feeling of peace come over me. I looked around at the images of Mother Mary and Jesus on the cross. I smelled the sage and sang along the words of the hymns as they were in the hymn book conveniently located in slot in front of my pew. I don't remember the hymn books in the churches in Naples, probably they all got stolen by the gypsys while the clergy were being distracted by crying babys. . Actually I don't remember singing in church at all in Italy. If anyone sang it was the choir but the people never sang.. is this an American influence from the gospel churches of the south? I love it!
Sitting there singing and looking at her beautiful husband and children, I realized that I really didn't know Katy at all. I learned more about her at her funeral service than I ever did in life. I remember wanting to talk to her but thinking that shes too busy to talk to me or too important to spend any time with me. Had I taken the time to get to know her I would have found out what everyone who knew her had to say. That she was a warm accepting loving person. She liked hanging out in Berkeley, traveling and her family was her bliss. Oh,.and she was funny, her sister told a story of how she replaced all of her medications in her pill boxes with chocolate Easter eggs! She would NEVER have just blown me off, she probably would have been interested in being my friend. She may have had a few things to teach me had I not been so crippled by my self doubt. She did however teach me something that day.....
When the time came to line up to take communion I struggled as I did anytime I went to a catholic service.... do I go and take the communion? Don't I have to go to confession first? I don't even see the confessionals anywhere... did all these people go to confession already? Ok, so its a funeral and perhaps its different for funerals? I asked the woman sitting next to me, she seemed to know how to participate in the service with all the standing sitting kneeling Amen's peace be with you and also with you's, I didn't know any of this stuff, first of all I learned it all in Italian and second of all I hadn't done it all since I was 12. Anyways, I asked her... don't you have to go to confession before taking communion? She said, not necessarily, its really up to your own relationship with God and how you feel about where you stand. So, I did an inventory of my sins. Ok, so I'm not cheating on my husband and I'm not living in sin.. 2 huge sins that Im not committing on a daily basis anymore which had kept me from partaking in communion in the past. Everything else seemed so tame and harmless compared to that... so I got in the line to receive my communion. As I got closer and closer to the front of the church I began to feel pressure build up in my throat. Was there a sin that I was forgetting about? I mean, I can be so bad sometimes,.As I got closer I found myself scanning the past few days for sins that I had committed that might preclude me from participating... I mean.... I didn't want to mess this up.... what if I took the communion then suddenly realized that I still had some terrible sin to confess... I pictured choking on the wafer and the scene it would make if they had to call 911 to come take me to the emergency room to dislodge the wafer from my sin infested throat. By the time I was standing in front of the priest my heart was beating so fast I couldn't swallow or breath. I was frozen. He said 'Body of Christ' I said “thank you” …. thank you??... Really? What was that?? I knew there was something that you were supposed to say but I had drawn a total blank. Perhaps it was something that started with an A but I couldn't think of it so I just said thank you. Then when I got to the person who was giving the wine..... “ blood of Christ” again “Thank you” ….this time the look that I got was one of ...“ hmm how odd” ... then it came to me, Of course ! Your supposed to say AMEN, How could I have forgotten that?? Then instantly I got a vision of Katy cracking up watching me try to take communion and how big of an ordeal I had turned it into. Then I started laughing with her as I found my way back to my pew and knelt down in prayer, Katy and I were laughing and having a good time thinking about how stupidly serious all this mortal ritual was and how just a little lightness of the heart can transport you to such higher ground. I thanked her for the laugh and for the realization that....... I AM Worthy!!.
A peace fell over me that day. A peace that I have been able to carry with me and tap into when I'm feeling lost. Its the feeling that there is so much more than the daily rituals of our earthly lives, that if we get bogged down with the rituals and how things are “supposed” to be we miss the life and the “just be “ Thanks Katy
. The funeral service was at our local catholic church. I haven't been in a catholic church much since I left Italy in 1976. Sitting in that church, I had such a feeling of peace come over me. I looked around at the images of Mother Mary and Jesus on the cross. I smelled the sage and sang along the words of the hymns as they were in the hymn book conveniently located in slot in front of my pew. I don't remember the hymn books in the churches in Naples, probably they all got stolen by the gypsys while the clergy were being distracted by crying babys. . Actually I don't remember singing in church at all in Italy. If anyone sang it was the choir but the people never sang.. is this an American influence from the gospel churches of the south? I love it!
Sitting there singing and looking at her beautiful husband and children, I realized that I really didn't know Katy at all. I learned more about her at her funeral service than I ever did in life. I remember wanting to talk to her but thinking that shes too busy to talk to me or too important to spend any time with me. Had I taken the time to get to know her I would have found out what everyone who knew her had to say. That she was a warm accepting loving person. She liked hanging out in Berkeley, traveling and her family was her bliss. Oh,.and she was funny, her sister told a story of how she replaced all of her medications in her pill boxes with chocolate Easter eggs! She would NEVER have just blown me off, she probably would have been interested in being my friend. She may have had a few things to teach me had I not been so crippled by my self doubt. She did however teach me something that day.....
When the time came to line up to take communion I struggled as I did anytime I went to a catholic service.... do I go and take the communion? Don't I have to go to confession first? I don't even see the confessionals anywhere... did all these people go to confession already? Ok, so its a funeral and perhaps its different for funerals? I asked the woman sitting next to me, she seemed to know how to participate in the service with all the standing sitting kneeling Amen's peace be with you and also with you's, I didn't know any of this stuff, first of all I learned it all in Italian and second of all I hadn't done it all since I was 12. Anyways, I asked her... don't you have to go to confession before taking communion? She said, not necessarily, its really up to your own relationship with God and how you feel about where you stand. So, I did an inventory of my sins. Ok, so I'm not cheating on my husband and I'm not living in sin.. 2 huge sins that Im not committing on a daily basis anymore which had kept me from partaking in communion in the past. Everything else seemed so tame and harmless compared to that... so I got in the line to receive my communion. As I got closer and closer to the front of the church I began to feel pressure build up in my throat. Was there a sin that I was forgetting about? I mean, I can be so bad sometimes,.As I got closer I found myself scanning the past few days for sins that I had committed that might preclude me from participating... I mean.... I didn't want to mess this up.... what if I took the communion then suddenly realized that I still had some terrible sin to confess... I pictured choking on the wafer and the scene it would make if they had to call 911 to come take me to the emergency room to dislodge the wafer from my sin infested throat. By the time I was standing in front of the priest my heart was beating so fast I couldn't swallow or breath. I was frozen. He said 'Body of Christ' I said “thank you” …. thank you??... Really? What was that?? I knew there was something that you were supposed to say but I had drawn a total blank. Perhaps it was something that started with an A but I couldn't think of it so I just said thank you. Then when I got to the person who was giving the wine..... “ blood of Christ” again “Thank you” ….this time the look that I got was one of ...“ hmm how odd” ... then it came to me, Of course ! Your supposed to say AMEN, How could I have forgotten that?? Then instantly I got a vision of Katy cracking up watching me try to take communion and how big of an ordeal I had turned it into. Then I started laughing with her as I found my way back to my pew and knelt down in prayer, Katy and I were laughing and having a good time thinking about how stupidly serious all this mortal ritual was and how just a little lightness of the heart can transport you to such higher ground. I thanked her for the laugh and for the realization that....... I AM Worthy!!.
A peace fell over me that day. A peace that I have been able to carry with me and tap into when I'm feeling lost. Its the feeling that there is so much more than the daily rituals of our earthly lives, that if we get bogged down with the rituals and how things are “supposed” to be we miss the life and the “just be “ Thanks Katy
Sunday, March 7, 2010
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