My Thanksgiving

It started just shy of 7 a.m. on Tuesday, November 24, 1998.

It ended just shy of 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 25, 1998.

Ten years ago, during this 24 hour period, my sacramental return to the Catholic Church unfolded.

After being away 11 years, those 24 hours changed me forever, literally. I entered it one way, and left it profoundly transformed into a new person - one who thought differently, spoke differently, and ultimately, through the grace of God, acted differently.

And none of it had anything to do with me. It was all God’s grace.

My thanks are to God, my parents for praying for me, my wife for her conversion, Fathers Bill and Paul for their ministry, and the wonderful people at 6:30 a.m. daily mass at St. Ann's parish all these years for the ongoing demonstration of their faith.

November 25. It’s my second birthday, and I’m honored to share it with my good friend Dale. I’ll never have a more memorable day in my life.

Blessings and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Mike

Don’t Hide Your Talents

Today’s gospel focused on two servants who applied and grew the talents that they’d been given, and one that didn’t. One of its messages is to look at and share your blessings and graces for the benefit of others.

Think about all the blessings and graces you’ve received. Take a few moments to list them.

Go back through the list and select at least a few that you’d consider to be hidden, i.e. you haven’t necessarily developed or shared them with others. Concentrate on how you can start to unhide them and incorporate them in ways that will help others.

This season, make sure to unwrap and unhide some talents to help others.

Concession Speeches

It’s fascinating that in so many instances, concession speeches tend to be when political candidates come across as most personal and what may most be like their true selves. You can’t help but wonder why the tone displayed in a concession speech so rarely surfaces during an election.

It would be interesting to see the fate of a candidate running a campaign whose tone was conciliatory, bridge building, humble, and grateful in nature. Would that connect with people or would the candidate get chewed up and spit out in the fields of Iowa?

We’ll likely never know. And that’s truly a loss for this country and its people.

Q. What Should We Do? A. Read & Live these Verses

This is an excerpt from the second chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Philippians (verses 3 & 4). It was the first reading at Mass today:

"Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others." - Philippians 2:3-4

Next Tuesday will include this excerpt from the letter to Titus, my favorite Bible verse. It's only read every two years on the 32nd Tuesday in Ordinary time. Unfortunately, I'll be away and won't be able to be the lector for that Tuesday Mass. So, I share it with you here:

"...show(ing) yourself as a model of good deeds in every respect, with integrity in your teaching, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be criticized, so that the opponent will be put to shame without anything bad to say about us." - Titus 2:7-8

Guardian Angels

October 2nd is the memorial of the Guardian Angels in the Catholic Church. That day our priest at mass narrowly avoided a serious collision later by slamming on his brakes at just the right time. He later tied this act to his homily to us that day about paying attention to when our guardian angels are protecting us.

The week after, I received a chain email from a friend about how “angels” are placed in our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. At the end, it asked people to forward it (which I didn’t do), respond to the sender (which I did do), and expect something wonderful to happen the next day at 11:04 a.m. (which I sort of did skeptically). The following evening before heading home, I thought back through the day, checked my email, and confirmed that nothing happened at 11:04 a.m. that was exceptional.

The next morning, one of my true guardian angels returned from a conference in Las Vegas where he unexpectedly attended a presentation by a well-know business person and entrepreneur. Based on the speech, he talked with the speaker afterward and told him that the two of us need to get together in some way because of our shared perspectives on innovation. After excitedly telling me about this, I asked him when he wound up in the presentation the day before. The answer . . . just after 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time. Or just after 11 a.m. in the Kansas City area, where I was.

I relayed this story to the angel chain letter friend at dinner the other night. And within a day or so, she introduced and recommended me for a research conference-related role with a national association that’s laden with opportunity. I told her, she’s my “Fairy Godmother of Research!”

The point of all this is that no matter what you call them – friends, angels or fairy godmothers – ALWAYS give thanks for the blessing of wonderful people in your life who care about you!

That’s one chain not to break!

Blessings,
Mike

The Invisible Hand of God

Talking with a friend the other day about the economy, we discussed God's hand in it, and the greater good that may come from today's challenges. Consider that in a society where . . .

• So many people are overweight, restaurants and food manufacturers have cut back portions to help manage costs.
• So many people suffer from physical maladies through lack of physical fitness, gas prices have caused more people to walk or bicycle.
• So many people are focused on increasing their material possessions, the credit, housing, and employment situations are creating a sense of sacrificing things and reassessing what's most important.

My friend's advice was to keep praying. That's great advice!

A Hope for Today (and Tomorrow and the Next Day . . . )

Here's a snippet of a prayer from mass that is such a comfort every day:

"Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety . . ."

Today, may you have peace, protection from anxiety, and be free of sin!

Blessings!

Mike

September 11th (and an update on September 10th)

My parents gave me a book in early 2001 called “Positive Thinking for Every Day of the Year” that features daily Bible verses and commentary by Norman Vincent Peale. The passage for September 11 (remember this had to be published near the end of 2000), is about how it may appear that the evil flourish while the good suffer. It relates an anecdote from a farmer that, “God doesn’t pay all His debts on the first of January,” i.e. over time those that are good benefit from their devotion and attention to others.

Today’s gospel at mass is Lk 6:27-38 which talks about loving your enemies and doing good things for those that hate you.

It’s no coincidence that these readings both fall on today.

Quick update to yesterday’s post: Immediately after writing and posting it, I intended to copy it to the file that I keep with all the posts I’ve written since starting blogging last November – nearly 60,000 words. Word asked if I wanted to over-write the file name, and through inattention and habit, I said yes. The entire file of posts was gone – replaced by yesterday’s post about focusing on good outcomes instead of planning against negatives. With no backup to the file, it appears that God is taking me up on my commitment to change and throwing me right into situations to test me!

Blessings,

Mike

Embracing Optimism vs. Mitigating Negatives

Talking with a friend recently about future plans, she noted that she's usually too optimistic about everything turning out well. I asked her how often her optimistic outlooks become reality. She replied that they do most of the time.

I told her that in contrast, I generally envision the worst possible outcome in most situations and then use that to help plan for how to mitigate all the bad things happening. The interesting part is that I can't really recall one instance where my worst case scenario even remotely happened.

My challenge coming away from the conversation is how I can adopt an outlook closer to hers since there's great opportunity in working toward a positive versus working against a negative. Comes back to trust and faith in God's plan. A familiar theme. One I'll be praying about for help.

Blessings,

Mike

Not Knowing the Score

When you read scripture, it feels as if many of its demands for our life are completely out of touch with the reality of modern living. When it says that the first will be last, and there’s nothing better than giving up your life for others, we may wonder how all that is supposed to get us ahead.

Here’s what we all need to remember: Despite how challenging biblical messages are and all the counter messages we see in the media, the eternal rules weren’t created to make sense in this world, and our “score” isn’t kept here either.

That’s been one of the challenges of praying the humility prayer that I wrote about recently.

At times I’ve been praying it and stopped myself with the internal realization that I’m asking God to help me in ways that are completely detrimental to my professional well-being. That’s when the message comes through that we’re not playing with man-made rules and that we won’t ever know how we’re doing in this life. The rules make sense and the score is maintained outside our view.

Not sure that I have any great revelation to pass along, other than to think about our focus and to ensure that when making decisions, we’re looking beyond what matters today, next year, or 50 years from now. Focus on the eternal instead.

Blessings,

Mike