REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16TH FLOOR

#1 Reflections from the 16^th Floor – Rev Dominic Grassi, March 26, 2020

So many of us find ourselves at home these days with no firm end sight. Each of us faces different challenges and different opportunities. And, truth be told, we each may be a little frightened by it all. I was asked to put something in writing.

Interesting. Like the 14^th century, we are now living in a time of 2 popes and a plague. Who will be the saints to challenge and guide us?
Let’s stay hopeful. Last night a nightmare took me to an elevator with no one in it. When the door closed, I realized there were no buttons to push. I was alone. It picked up speed going down. I woke up. The truth is: There are more questions than answers right now. Much of what we hear on the news is conjecture and contradictory. We don’t know where this is going to take us. Jim Wallis tells us: “hope is not a feeling, but a decision, not a mood, but a choice; and one based on faith.” Let’s choose to be both cautious and hopeful.
Working from home. Necessary but … Richard Carlson said, “When we die there will still be work in our inbox.” Do what needs to be done but don’t get compulsive. Coming back to the rectory after being gone for two months of surgery and rehab, the piles of work I had left behind were still there and the bell tower hadn’t collapsed.
Stay in contact with those elsewhere who may need you in some way and use your time with those home with you as a gift. Eat together slowly. No electronics at the table. Ask each other questions like what vegetable does each one of us remind the others of.
Speaking about time…It’s no longer a 9 to 5 or 8 to 3 schedule. Have tomato soup for breakfast and pancakes for dinner. Every couple of days someone else gets a turn ordering in. Set aside quiet time, a no electronics room or area. Give each other space Make that a place to pray together and/or alone.

#2 Reflections from the 16^th Floor – Rev Dominic Grassi, March 26, 2020

Thank you for responding to my first missive. The headlines remain headache inducing and the numbers are numbing. The temptation is to pick sides or to deny or to vent on those we love the most. We’re only human.

The best part of the TV newscasts are the last five minutes where they show uplifting examples of people responding to the crisis. Maybe we should turn off the volume until then.
March has always been my favorite Month. Spring has not yet exploded. Everything is still mostly brown and gray. As a teen I would walk to the “rocks” along Lake Michigan between the Belmont Harbor and the rifle shooting range (yes!) at Diversey. The waves were often wild and the skies foreboding. A perfect setting for my adolescent angst. It was only when the years passed (a lot of them) that I start to see the hope of Spring ready to burst through it all. We gotta believe Spring is getting closer. “Spring is when you feel like whistling, even with a shoe full of slush.” Doug Larson.
Speaking of Spring, next time you go on a grocery run pick up a bouquet of flowers and put them in a nice pitcher someplace where they will be seen often. A sure way to brighten up a gray day and give us a little dose of hope.
Family project. Bring home avocados from your shopping. Save the large pit in each one after the guacamole. Wipe them clean and let them dry overnight. Ask Google how to get an avocado pit to grow (hint: water, glass, toothpicks, sunny space). Have everyone write their name on their glass and see whose grows the best. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to eventually plant them in soil. A growing reminder when we look back at all this a year from now.
Go through your contact list (phone and computer) and clean it up. Update phone numbers and email addresses. Pause before deleting the name of someone who has died and say a prayer for them. Send a quick hello to someone who will smile hearing from you.
Light a candle every day and when this pandemic is over bury what’s left of it.
Make a donation to a local food pantry. I choose Care For Real in Edgewater.
Thank the next person you see who is working these days (drugstore, bus driver, delivery person).
Find a bible (hard copy or online) and read the Book of Job. It is a classic of literature as well a sacred text. It’ll leave you with more questions than answers…but they will at least be better questions.
Thought for the day: “I’m on two diets now… I wasn’t getting nearly enough food on just one.”

Invoked or not God is still present. Carl Jung

More coming, God willing, Be well,

#3 Reflections from the 16^th Floor Rev. Dominic Grassi April 1, 2020

Well, you found me somehow on my web site. I feel a little bit like the character in David Bowie’s song Space Oddity “This is Major Tom to Ground Control…Here am I floating ‘round my tin can far above the moon. Planet Earth is blue and there is nothing I can do.” April Fools Day. But no fooling, we have another month (at least) to self-quarantine. We have a choice (paraphrasing Karl Rahner here). If we choose to make it a time of isolation, we choose what is essentially hell. If we choose to remain in communion despite the physical separation, we are choosing a taste of heaven. So…

The image of Pope Francis praying in the empty St. Peter’s haunts me, leaving me both chilled to the bone and called to stronger faith. So, too, the stories of brave health care workers and police and first responders…the father on the outside, his hand on the glass of his patio door and his young child, hand on the inside of the glass. It’s as close as they could get. But it couldn’t be any closer at that moment.
If you live in an apartment building, tape a flower to your hallway door with a note. “I hope you are well” or ‘God bless you” for people to read as they walk past down the hallway.
Family Project. Everyone pick a personal item to take to Salvation Army or the next parish Flea Market. Gather them. The one who donates the most valuable wins a second dessert…but realize value isn’t necessarily monetary. That should affect how you come to a group decision of the winner.
Story time: Every night gather at a specified time. All electronics turned off . Each night a different person takes a turn to tell a story…no less than 5 minutes. If you want to go longer, you must ask for group permission.
If you are alone, call someone and surprise them with a story.
Gather for lunch. Designate someone to read their favorite children’s book before Grace is prayed…Mine is “Everyone Poops” Really
Tell someone, their longer hair looks attractive. Say a prayer for barbers and stylists.
My new oral thermometer arrived. The label and box were all Chinese script Now that’s a little ironic.
Take some leaves from a Dracaenia Plant or other long leafed plant to use on Palm Sunday and wave away.
Say a prayer for the elected official you feel most needs to feel God’s presence now
Thought for today: “Aliens probably fly past earth and lock their doors.”

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living. Mother Jones

Check in soon. There’ll be more

#4 REFLECTION FOR PALM SUNDAY

Parts of this I used for an article that was published a while ago. With a few changes it fits for this Palm Sunday and this Holy Week. May the very mysteries of our faith sustain us and challenge us as we journey through Holy Week and into the dawn’s light of Easter

THE PASSING OF THE PALMS

We came home from the long Palm Sunday Mass hungry from the Communion Fast that began at midnight and the scent of Sunday Pasta Sauce wafting from the kitchen. Before we ate, we took the palms we brought home, cut them into finger length pieces, trimmed the edges to points, sliced slits in longer pieces, slid shorter pieces through them making neat little crosses. We then took the ones we made and exchanged them with each other solemnly. As family and friends came by to join us for the big lunch or later in the day for dessert, they brought their palms and we exchanged the ones we had already traded with theirs. Some were like ours. Some were just a plain strand of palm and others were branches intricately braided together. Before going to bed, mom made sure that all the dried palms tucked into the frames of pictures of deceased relatives and portraits of the Sacred Heart or the hometown saints Cosmas and Damian from last year were replaced with the fresh ones. Until Holy Week next year the palms would remain as a sign of our love, our prayers, our respect. The beauty and the mystery of where the specific one we personally made ended up – whose home, what picture – a reminder that Jesus died for all of us. Over my desk where I typed this is a picture of my mother with a piece of palm I would have replaced with one I exchanged with someone today. But that won’t be possible this year. So after I take the old, dried up palm on the picture and wave it gently in front of the pictures hanging around me, I will place it back where it was as a reminder never to take family, community, parish, each other for granted. I will also give grateful thanks for the faith that will sustain me and pray others will find the faith they need in these difficult days and nights. And I dream of next year on Palm Sunday, after processing around the church, of standing up in the sanctuary, waving a fistful of the grassy smelling palms with all in the congregation singing with full voices and fuller hearts (saddened by the losses that touched us all) “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “But Palm Sunday tells us that…it is the cross that is the true

tree of life.”

Pope Benedict XVI

This week there are so many who need our prayers. Let the mysteries of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday focus those prayers. And may Easter bring hope and solace to all.cv

#5 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR HOLY WEEK

Some are calling this the “Lost Holy Week.” It’s not lost, just different. For me, it is the “Silent Holy Week” I miss the ritual (which includes the sights with church redecorated Palm Sunday and then again Holy Thursday and Good Friday and then all the beauty of the Easter flowers and their scents of Spring.) I miss all the wonderful music. I miss the faithful who gather, the feet being washed, the stark wooden cross, the Pascal candle , the readings, the applause for those in the RCIA welcomed into the Church with the scent of the sacred oils that are still glistening on their heads and the Alleluias echoing in our hearts as we are handed a daffodil to take home. It’s all internal for me this year. And that’s not bad. I’m honestly not sure what it is, but I know it’s not bad. Leonard Cohen reminds us that it is “a cold and broken Alleluia.”

Your parish may link you with the services. They may even have music for you. Or you can google. I found a great version of “In Remembrance of Me” on Google. That’s my Holy Thursday song…actually it makes my whole Holy Week. Take a listen.
Alone or with family, as the days and weeks pass, the challenges don’t grow easier. Especially this week, it can get tougher. If you text someone or some how tell them you are going to call them…do it. Not only will it be good for them, but also for you. Put it off and they feel bad and so do you.
Celebrate Easter! Mass streamed or on TV. Fix a good meal alone or with others. Watch a movie from beginning to end with your phone and other devices turned OFF
Believe in yourself. How? Use xerox paper and a Sharpie Marker or Bic pen. No eraser. Here’s the game. Put the name of 20 or so easily recognizable items from your house on separate pieces of paper. Everyone blindly picks one. Then they have to draw it…no erasing allowed. Set a time limit (15 or 10 or even 5 minutes). Then everyone has to guess what you drew. Want to make it harder. Same concept but everyone has to draw someone else in the house. Same guessing at the end. Moral: Trust the lines we draw. They will never be perfect, but they’re ours.
Our good intentions to use this time to grow spiritually and our other goals may be wearing us down by now. In the middle ages, monks working hard would often develop what was called ‘acedia’ or the ’noonday devil’ which often was in actuality low grade depression and or its cousin anxiety. Often the cure was to not so be so tough on themselves…if the shoe fits either do something about it, set goals you can reach, eat a pint of ice cream, take a soak in the tub or if the shoe fits…you are Cinderella and that aint bad either.
Keep up appearances: Shower, shave, get out of sweats into real clothes. If you are alone that is essential. If you are with people, it is necessary.
These days I look int the mirror when I wake up in the morning and say to myself “That can’t be accurate.” But it is. With my white hair getting out of control longer, I’m starting to morph into George Washington…don’t believe me? Let’s Skype.
If you haven’t done so, take advantage of one way you can be of help to those who are really hurting right now. A donation to a food pantry. A letter to someone who has suffered a loss. A note of thanks to a member of your parish or church or synagogue or mosque staff or to your doctor.
It’s about time to settle in with a good mystery or another one if you’ve been reading. Anything Louie Penney or Donna Leon would be great. If you’re ordering online and have kids, help them order a new book for themselves. Gramma and Gramps not a bad idea for grandkids as well.
Here I thought I was all alone, but according to the box of mac and cheese I just cooked and ate, I am a family of four. And when I feel alone two individual pizzas and, presto, I am not lonely at all. Seriously, hard to do, but let’s all try to eat a little more healthily.
It’s a good time to change things about ourselves. I used to hokey pokey but I turned myself around.
I end with two quotes from Frank Cunningham’s great book VESPER TIME:

“When it comes to faith, doubt is normally my strongest certitude.”

“We are as young as our dreams, not as old as our personal calendar”

Joy is the most certain sign that God is with us. May you find joy this Easter. Even the shortest of prayers can bring us joy. Know I am praying for you all.

More to come.

#6 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR EASTER TUESDAY APRIL 14, 2020

Thanks to Mark and Mary Sunday I had a real Easter dinner with ham and sweet potatoes and more. Holy Thursday, thanks to Scott I was able to listen to my favorite hymn: “In Remembrance of Me.” I still tear up when it crescendos to “In remembrance of me open the doors.” How I hope for the doors to be open and we can hold onto each other. Holy Saturday evening I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out the kazoo I used at the Easter Vigil a few years ago to lead the congregation who had each been given their own kazoo (400 of them) emblazoned with the words “Jesus Loves You” in humming together Handel’s “Halleluiah Chorus” as the finale of my homily (apologies to the real musicians and choir who were stunned to say the least, maybe even scarred for life) . This year even though I hummed it all alone, it brought memories that filled me with Easter hope. I pray that in your own memories you found hope last week.

Find the inner artist: Eat the top of an Oreo. Then use a toothpick or an edge of a paper clip and carve into the icing a cameo or miniature face, a tree the sun or moon. Take a picture with a camera. (hint: The double filled version allows more creativity…and more to eat.) Print pictures. Sign them. Take everything else off the refrigerator door (for now) and display them. Do the same with breakfast using pancakes, berries and fruit, jam, syrup, sprinkles, etc. Then eat your art.
Make an edible rosary using Cheerios for Hail Marys, marshmallows for Our Father/Glory Bes, using a kabob stick to puncture the needed holes, For the cross cut two thin slices of a Hershey bar and squeeze them until they melt together (warm fingers in hot water to do it.) A strawberry for the Apostles’ Creed Use string to put it all together. Naturally leads to the Glorious mysteries as you pray and eat.
Now’s a good time to reread your favorite novel. Why? “Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved.” David Foster Wallace. Make it the one that made a difference in your life. Why not? A used copy on Amazon will be cheap. For me it’ll be To Kill a Mockingbird or A Canticle for Leibowitz or Blood of the Lamb (Peter De Vries).
If I don’t get some yellow daffodils around me soon, I will overdose on carbs.
If you haven’t already, listen to Adrea Bocelli’s 5 song “Music for Hope” Easter concert from the empty duomo in Milan, one of strikingly most beautiful churches in the world. It starts with Panis Angelicus followed by three other hymns in the church and ends on the steps of the church with Amazing Grace…to hear him sing “I once was blind but now I see” took my breath away. To sing is to pray twice indeed!
We all know people who are putting themselves in harms way to help others at this moment. Stop now and asy a prayer for them. Let them be the focus of our prayer this week. They are heroes for sure. If you are able, send them and encouraging text, a note, a call, some flowers. Our support will help their immune systems – that’s a fact.
Thought for the day: “You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming”

Where flowers bloom so does hope. Lady Bird Johnson

#7 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR MONDAY APRIL 20, 2020

It’s come to that point where I surprise myself with how I’m feeling. I sat in the sun yesterday and listened to the migrating birds while reading Paul Freeman’s American Cuisine and how it got this way and felt at peace. Then I woke up today and the old Grassi premonition kicked in making my anxiety level soar. I drove to Walgreens drive to pick up my meds through the drive thru window. George should have been there on Ridge at the corner of Broadway, cup in hand. His job is giving people the opportunity to help him out. He is there faithfully, rain or shine, hot or cold, seven days a week including holidays. I can’t count the number of times I’ve rolled down my window for him. He calls me Fr. Garcia. He has shared with me photos of his wife and children back in Pakistan and even a picture of him working as a chef’s helper in a fancy downtown Chicago hotel before his visa ran out. He lives in a garage now saving what he can to go back home. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s not there. There is precious little traffic to stop for him. Did he give up? Is he sick? Has he been run off because he’s not clean and could be perceived as a virus carrier? I have no way of contacting him. So please join me in praying for him and the other forgotten Georges of this pandemic. Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you…a stranger and invite you in…or needing clothes and clothe you… (Matthew 25)

The book “The Little Engine That Could” just turned 90. It might be a good time to listen to it on Google…extra points if you have a copy of your own. Call someone and read it to them if you do, preferable a child.
Lots of debate, but Key Lime Pie as we know it first appeared in a Borden’s Milk cookbook in 1931 to push sales of their condensed milk in a can which tells us don’t always believe what you read.
If you’ve been with the same person or group for a while now, pause, look at them and remember when you love what you have, you have what you love.
Speaking of love, now’s a good time to read John’s Epistles. Read them out loud in a soft voice to yourself, don’t rush. Find yourself pausing when you need to and starting up again when you are ready).
Between where I live and Wrigley Field on Clark Street is Graceland Cemetery, a great place to visit. (More tears shed at Wrigley than at the cemetery, but that’s not the point) Ernie Banks is buried there. It is like you’ve left the city. You’ll recognize the names of lots of Chicago streets given to famous folks resting there. Google and find out who. Warning the monument entitled “The Eternal Silence” purportedly might break your camera if you photograph it. Great for a solo visit. You don’t have to leave your car. But do go and sit on the island for a while. You might even see a coyote or fox. A peaceful spot…even when the ‘L’ rumbles by. A good friend recommends the visit.
Thought for the day. Is the isolation getting to you? Only a dose of adolescent existential angst will do. So… “If you are lonely when you are alone, you’re in bad company.” Jean Paul Sartre

God hears us better than we are speaking. Richard Rohr

Thanks for reading

#8 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR TUESDAY APRIL 28, 2020

How can the days go by so slowly and the month pass so quickly? 2020 is a third over! The following quote from Eleanor Roosevelt is most appropriate: “We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing that it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.” Most of us have found a routine that keeps us going. Usually I get up and shower and shave first thing. This morning I changed. I sat and prayed before getting ready. A strange thing happened to me. I had prayed for all those in need of food, waiting in long lines, afraid and discouraged. Then I showered and got ready. That’s when I realized how blessed I am. I realized it’s truly more than just food people need. If parents are trying hard to keep their children from going hungry or a senior is forced to choose between a meal or meds or food for the cat, then things like aspirin, mouthwash, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, and personal hygiene needs (all that I was at that moment taking for granted) become unreachable. Sometimes a little change in how we do things affects our perspective. So, here’s some ideas:

Check with Sarah. Circle or Care for Real or any option in your community and see what items other than food they accept.
St. Mary of the Lake Parish on Sheridan distributes food on Sunday afternoons. Ask if they take such items.
Catholic Charities is another option.
Or maybe your home parish could start a project for your sharing parish if there is a need.
Even a local pharmacy might be able to put you on to a place to donate such items.
Meanwhile, lots of us are finding we get into fits of worrying. A good friend gave me this advice she received from her counselor. Allocate yourself a specific chunk of time daily to worry—reasonable like 20 minutes, a half hour, even an hour if necessary. The rules are: You must do it all at once. And that is all the time you can use for it until the next day. If you don’t need it, don’t use it. But never pass your limit. Hmmm.
Every day scroll you list of contacts. Each day pick one person you haven’t called in at least two months and call them. Start with the letter ‘A’ today. Tomorrow pick one from ‘B’ and continue every day the next letter thru the alphabet. When you hit ‘Z’ start over. It should take about a month to go thru it once. Involve the kids.
Or, same process, but instead of a call, pray for that person for as long as the prayer takes.
Recent reports indicate that the sale of Sympathy cards has skyrocketed this month. That should tell us something…a note to a living person now is far better than a sympathy note to their family later
Today’s thought: “We cannot do all the good that the world needs right now, but the world needs all the good that we can do now.”

He who saves one life saves the entire world,,, from the Talmud

Be well. Onto May

#9 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR MONDAY MAY 4, 2020

Like many of us, I haven’t had the need to use my calendar like I used to. When I checked it the other day I realized that months ago BCE (Before Corona Era) I blocked off Saturday and Sunday planning on taking one of those days and going, weather permitting, the first weekend of May, to the Kane County Flea Market. Alas, either Saturday or Sunday weather wise would have been ideal. But it obviously was not meant to be. What a bummer. But grace arrived as I was reading Timothy Egan’s “A Pilgrimage to Eternity.” He writes of meeting an Anglican priest, Jo Richards. She distinguishes the two Greek words for time found in the New Testament: CHRONOS which is measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and days which is how we mostly live our lives and KAIROS which tracks our quality moments where, as she says, time seems to stand still and there is awe and wonder all around us.” At the Flea Market, I melt into that Kairos experience surrounded by tens of thousands of items, each with their own unique story and maybe one or two of them calling out to me. That ain’t gonna happen for a while. Question: How to find Kairos opportunities right now? Teilhard de Chardin gives us a suggestion. He says: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.” So, here are some humble suggestions to find that spiritual self:

Sure, we should keep our environment clean and orderly as much as we can. I hate vacuuming and dusting…that’s chronos until Alexa plays my doo-wop station and I start dancing to “Duke of Earl” while I’m doing it and it becomes kairos. Find time to dance spontaneously. If there are kids with you, dance with them even if you’re not dusting.
I just finished Donna Leone’s latest mystery set in Venice. How I want to visit there again. Where do you dream of returning to? Until you can, either order in a meal or cook a meal from that part of the world. I made myself an Italian meal with Al Martino singing in the background and plenty of leftovers to enjoy for days. The wine was cheap Italian (often referred to as dago red). The Talmud says that we do not see things as they are. We see things as we are. For an hour (longer if I counted finishing the wine) I was in an outdoor trattoria in Italia and not Edgewater. Kairos time. Try it.
Most of the phone call I get are chronos until I shut my mouth and start to listen. Knowing some one feels better or affirmed after we talked means we shared a bit of Kairos. No matter how busy you are, if you sense the person calling you needs to talk, give them all the time they need. Say a prayer for them after the call and remember it becomes a Kairos moment for you too.
Never read the Book of Revelation? Give it a shot in small doses. If you struggle to understand, you’re stranded in chronos. If you find yourself letting go and absorbing some of its mystery, it’s Kairos.
Promise yourself the next time you are praying and someone comes to mind for whatever reason, call or text them or send them a note (obviously they got to be alive).
I find it hard to chat with someone when we’re both wearing masks until I concentrate and look them in the eyes. It makes such a difference
From Honore Balzac, today’s thought: “Solitude is fine, but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.”

You cannot live on the edge unless you have found your center.

Be well. Be careful. Be helpful Be hopeful and thanks for reading…next one coming soon

#10 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, MONDAY MAY 11, 2020

Okay, okay, the routine (whatever that routine is for you) is probably starting to get old. And the phrase “the new normal” carries a lot of unknown connotations we’d rather not try to imagine at this moment. Part of me wants to take a few more what might be considered risks. Son of a grocer and a great Italian cook, I miss shopping for what catches my eye that I’ll cook. But I also realize I’ve been really good about self-quarantining for two months. Doing something that will put me at risk means I wasted all the time I’ve already invested in my safety and the safety of others. People ask me what I miss the most. Sure, I say human contact. But given who I am, I remind myself, I wasn’t being touched, held, hugged or kissed all that frequently (an occupational limitation) …still it is missed. More noticeably, sharing a meal with others, one I’ve cooked or around their table or at a restaurant is tough. I eat, but I am not nourished. I find myself talking to the carbs. They are addictively comforting, aren’t they? So, what to do? This was sent to me buried in an e-mail entitled “Philosophy for Old Age:” “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” So…

Find a way to watch a sunrise or at least the transition from darkness to dawn
If alone, find a way to Skype or Zoom sharing a meal with others (or at least a glass of wine and some cheese). Or if you’re with family, do the same with someone who is all alone at the other end. Children will have fun. And it’ll break the routine.
If you’re driving, say a prayer when you pass a hospital or nursing home for the caretakers and the residents. Do the same when you hear an ambulance or see someone waiting for a bus without a mask.
When it finally gets warm enough, sit outside safely distant from others and listen and look: Lots of birds a migrating right now. I’ve seen hawks, owls and others that normally aren’t Chicago residents.
If you have the space, plant some flowers. If you’re high off the ground like me, take some cuttings from plants and put them on a windowsill in water…even better try to find herbs like parsley, or basil rooted in small pots (in some grocery stores or on line) and set them all in one ornate bowl by a window high enough away from pets and keep them watered and pick what you need for cooking.
Homemade banana splits guarantee smiles… the potassium is good for you.
How about a fast day or liquids only day including prayers for all those who are endanger of having nothing to eat.
Go online and find next Sunday’s scripture readings. Share with each other or someone online or on the phone what they say to you. Or share your favorite parable of Jesus with them and what it says to you
Let’s pray for patience…its going to be while and let’s find something to take our breath away. “You are where you need to be, just take a deep breath.” Lana Parrilla, actress.
Scientists tell us that with every breathe we take, chances are we have inhaled a molecule of Jesus’ breath from when he walked in Galilee. That takes my breath away.

Today’s thought: “Don’t mistake God’s patience for his absence. God’s timing is perfect, and God’s presence is constant. God is always with you!” Deuteronomy 31:6

It’s hard to heal the individual when the whole thing seems to be unhealable. Richard Rohr

Thanks for reading

#11 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, MONDAY MAY 19, 2020

Memorial Day weekend approaches. We’ve still got the pandemic to deal with. But now we are being warned of killer hornets and it’s been the rainiest May in Chicago history. Should I be building an Ark or waiting for the Chicago River to part? Is Noah my hero or Moses? I lean toward the boat builder. I confess my feelings may be more due to John Huston’s whimsical Noah in the 1996 movie The Bible than Charlton Heston’s overwrought Moses in 1956’s The Ten Commandments (which, I’m guessing, somehow led to his presidency of the NRA). That Moses, I’m thinking, would have been proud of protesters carrying their automatic rifles to rallies at state capitals. Noah on the other hand is stuck with the animals, their scents, and their bleating. Parents at home with children 24//7 can more easily identify with that. Moses might have celebrated the holiday by roasting a calf as well as destroying the golden one that Edward G. Robinson created before leaving the desert and becoming the mobster Little Caesar who also carried a machine gun. Noah ate whatever his wife (played by the actress with the great name, Pupilia Maggio) could find the animals producing and maybe a fish or two that jumped on board…kinda like curbside service. Having shared all that useless information, what can we do with the coming holiday?

Take some time, if you are alone, call someone, or gather everyone quarantined with you, and say a prayer for all who died because the human family could not find a way to live peacefully together. Pray for leaders who are visionary. Pray that we never allow others to take away the freedoms we have which happens when anyone’s freedom is discarded. Pray that our own hardened prejudices may be softened into understanding. Pray that we better understand the freedom does not mean doing whatever we want. Pray for peace.
Eat a meal that include catsup and mustard sitting on the grass if you have a yard or a porch or a balcony or on the floor inside next to an open window. Drink a beer, a brand that’s been around at least 50 years ago and call it by its old name like Pabst not PBR. If the weather is bad, complain that it’s always bad Memorial Day Weekend.
If possible, pay a visit to family graves in the cemetery or for the day light a candle in front of pictures of deceased loved ones.
Refrain from talking any politics or watching any politician speak.
Call someone who will be alone this weekend and reminisce with them about better days. Make them laugh.
Eat ice cream while listening to “Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Phillip Sousa.
Read the 23^rd Psalm or listen to it set to music.
Sit quietly and play the music you’d be playing if you were at the beach or on a boat or in a park. Or take a walk if possible, with ear buds listening to that music even if just around the block… better than carrying one of those big boom boxes like we used to.
Instead of feeling sorry for the situation, say a prayer of thanks to those who gave their lives for the freedom we have today.
Find the old training potty buried away somewhere and turn it into a bean bag toss game using dried beans in lockable baggies.

Today’s quote: “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemy, but the silence of

our friends.” Dr. M.L King

May we never forget that freedom is never free.

Thank you for letting me share these thoughts with you. More to come.

#12 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, WEDNESDAY MAY 27, 2020

It snuck up on me unexpectedly as the Memorial Day weekend wound down. There were no symptoms – nothing to prepare me when it hit despite or maybe because of the two months self-quarantine I had accepted. No, it wasn’t the corona virus. I found myself unexpectedly depressed. I share it not looking for pity. (I’m past it now with a few scars to show for sure.) But I’m guessing some of you reading this may have found yourself similarly burdened. It started benignly enough. Feeling a little funky and admitting it (not just knowing it), I proceeded to do what I usually do to climb out of it. I went to work cleaning what I thought was my already spotless apartment. I started noticing how dirty the floors and carpets were, how dusty the shelves. Those needed tasks I never liked doing. How could I now be so blind to them? The kitchen was a mess — the refrigerator holding items less than appetizing, the pantry filled with unused cans of everything I bought when the pandemic started and little that I liked. Surrounded by all this, I went to work…but I didn’t feel any better. Big bags of garbage were disposed of. Still I felt no better. I gave up. I sat to pray. When nothing came, I tried to console myself with the fact that many saints found themselves with similar struggles, the dark night of the soul — Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton and my favorite, John XXIII). That didn’t help. I still felt buried in the garbage of my own making (lack of faith, self-pity, selfishness, fear, anger and more.) Suddenly I remembered my good friend Tom telling me about working with the poor in remote rural Kenya, how the people there taught him to find use for every scrap of anything he was ready to bury (how they handled garbage). He tried. But at night they would dig up what he had disposed of and found uses for most of what he deemed useless. I had been burying myself under so much garbage I was losing sight of all that is of value around me. My depression was of my own making, not God’s. That was a start. It’s going to take a while. But it’s working. Maybe, you or someone you love, is feeling something similar. So, how do we get past the garbage to find the treasure that surrounds us? That’s the question.

Think about your favorite passage of scripture. Write it in your own words. Tape it to your refrigerator or use it as a bookmark in what you’re reading. Refer to it many times daily.
Don’t stop what’s worked for you in the past. Walk or run. Smell your baby’s hair after a bath. Talk with a loved one (even if they’re deceased). Make your children laugh until you join them. Dance to your favorite song. You get the idea.
Relish something new. Cherries are now in season. And they are delicious. Eat them slowly. Buy a bag for a neighbor as well.
Find pictures of happy moments in your life – wedding, baptism, graduation, parties, vacation sunset. Linger over them until you feel yourself smile.
Change your phone screen and alerts. The screen is always seasonal for me. Currently my phone ring tone is the theme from the Godfather (not good in Italian restaurants) and my message alert is Handel’s Alleluia Chorus (great when it goes off getting out of an elevator).
Pray a prayer from childhood: “Now I lay me down to sleep…” or “Angel of God my guardian dear…” or “St. Michael the Archangel, defends us in battle…” or “Hail, Holy Queen…’. Pray it with your children or grandchildren. Or teach it to them. Come back to it when needed.
Pick one cause that currently touches your heart and promise yourself you will set aside a given amount every time you let the darkness slow you down. Double it if you were left paralyzed. Triple it if you made an excuse not to admit it.
When all else fails, find the dear one you can pour it all out to and do it. At the end thank them once (anymore will make them uncomfortable). Then send them live flowers from a local florist who needs the business. Nothing ostentatious. Sunflowers, if they are in season, are my favorite.
Of nothing else, write a reflection on how to get rid of feeling so down…it’s working for me right now…thanks for this opportunity.

Todays quote: “People go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tide of rivers, the vast compass of oceans, the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”

St. Augustine of Hippo

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

May light fill any dark corners. Of course, be well and for that stay prudent. More words in a few days.

#13 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, WEDNESDAY JUNE 3, 2020

There is no need to rehash what an awful week it has been. But I ask myself and I ask you, where can we find God’s presence in all of the tragedy. I cannot comprehend my last words being “I can’t breathe.” I pray they do not become the last words of our nation. I watch the news until my eyes glaze over. I turn off the television. One pathetic sign of my distress is that I pull out the old heavy vacuum cleaner so loud that it drowns out my thoughts and so heavy that it seems to fight me. I hate vacuuming. But I can’t stop. I will not attempt to make a trivializing analogy about it being some sort of a symbol of wanting to clean things up. No. It was a purely gut reaction filled with hopelessness, helplessness, sorrow and anger. I turn it off and then turn the TV back on. This becomes a ritual dance well into the night. In my 10^th reflection from May 11, I reflected on the good stuff taking my breathe away sadly unaware that evil in the form of violence, injustice, selfishness, morbid narcissism and so much more, both systemic and personal, institutional and communal has not and does not allow countless people all made in the image and likeness of God to breathe in all the graces that same God has given for all of us. Finally, I put the vacuum cleaner away. I struggle to pray and then I remembered what I have told people in spiritual direction often, that sometimes the only prayer is the struggle to pray and not give up. In a same way I realize the struggles we face give breath and life, so we cannot stop struggling. What have you seen that allow you to take a breath and keep on struggling? For me:

The poetic justice (or injustice) of watching two people who were looting both drop empty boxes on the sidewalk. The first runs through a broken window at a Target and comes out arms filled and dumps it all into his box, before running back in to take more. The other waits outside until he goes back in and then goes through everything he placed in his box and puts most of it in her own box and runs away with it. It was “done unto him by her what he had done unto others.”
Store owners offering water to marchers the day after their stores were looted.
My dear friend Archbishop of Washington D.C. Wilton Gregory’s clear and powerful statement on Tuesday about the president’s visit to the shrine of St. Pope John Paul II.
Doctors and nurses marching in New York after their shift was over caring for Covid 19 patients.
My good friends’ son and daughter-in-law giving birth to their fourth daughter four hours before I write this. All four are under the age of six. Now, there’s hope!
Reading the new biography of Dorothy Day who in her youth lived on (pre-gentrified) Webster with her family.
Inviting people to donate quietly to United Power for Peace and Justice, Arise Chicago and Care for Real who are in the trenches working for justice.
Realizing we can see people smiling even when they are wearing masks. It’s in the eyes.
Reading the Beatitudes
Thought for today from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite Hope.”

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy, it is absolutely essential to it. Howard Zinn A People’s History of the United States

Let us pray and pray some more. Until next reflection, God be with you

#14 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR WEDNESDAY JUNE 10, 2020

The events of the past few weeks coupled with the limitations imposed by the pandemic brought back for me both questions and memories of the marches and rallies of the civil rights movement that eventually bled (verb chosen) into the anti-Viet Nam War peace protests. Both were times of civil unrest most of which happening in big cities while I was up in the cocoon of the seminary in Mundelein. Society as we knew it — institutions both civil and cultural, and the Church — were all undergoing great changes. And what we learned that if we were to succeed, we would have to find the flexibility to change and grow or be left behind as not just antiquated but worse, harmful. I spent a summer working at St. Joseph Parish’s summer program in the Cabrini-Green projects where almost once weekly we had stay indoors with the children due to sniper fire. I faced the same concern later in the year as I ran into the building in December dressed as Santa Claus needing a fire department escort only to be asked by one child why, I, Santa was never black. I had no answer. Later that school year, there was a silent, prayer march out the gated entrance of the seminary to Kracklaer Park in Mundelein with as many police as there were marchers ready to arrest us if we got unruly. The local liquor store where we bought Blatz beer for 99 cents a six pack was festooned with American flags and signs calling us cowards, commies and chicken draft dodgers. We would later boycott it and it closed. I remember an elderly woman, shopping bags in each hand watch us. As I walked past her, she stepped into line next to me without saying a word and handed me her bags. She smiled and took the much lighter sign I was carrying with her. At the park we all prayed. And when we finished, she left without a word, with her bags and the sign “Peace Now/Peace Forever” tucked firmly under her arm. I was being taught an important lesson those days. Thomas Merton said it. “But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question.” Answers don’t always come easy, if at all.

On a personal level, who in our lives do we need to make peace with. Are we willing to try and do it?
The masks we wear are necessary but limiting. Make sure your eyes smile. Or at a safe distance, lower it so the person who needs our smile sees our face. Again, Thomas Merton: “Every time you smile at someone it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
Go over what you have posted online and erase anything that is petty, mean spirited, cruel, or hurtful in any way. Then spend a few minutes in prayer asking God’s forgiveness.
Pasta is a good healer so… Boil lasagna noodles until al dente. Place them next to each other in flat round bowls (maybe 6 of them depending on the size of the bowls) Then put another layer on top of the first and then a third (more or fewer layers depend how hungry the person is) Hard part: Use a scissors, sharp knife or pizza cutter to trim the edges all the way around until you’ve got a 3 or 4 layer oval of noodles on each plate.. Carefully spoon eyes and nose and a big smile on the noodles creating a smiley face with your tomato sauce. Serve. Meatball eyes takes it a step further. Be creative.
Read the story of a favorite saint (canonized or not) who was prophetic yet kind, challenging yet helpful, wise but not perfect. peacemaker but shaker of rafters. I’m reading the new biography of Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century and just finished Galileo and the Science Deniers
Save room in your prayers for people who are hurting in ways we cannot imagine: Pick an image that you saw on TV. I am praying for the 75year-old man knocked down by a police officer and still hospitalized and for the police officer as well. I am also praying for the police officer who knelt with a crying woman and consoled her and for that woman whose grief was palatable.
Promise yourself you will laugh today and share what made you laugh with another. I will watch Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies or at least the outtakes from them on You Tube.
Go out and smell a flower without picking it.
Quote for today: “Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.” Thomas Merton

I try to wear my angel wings every day. Bud sadly I confess that sometimes I’d like to take them off and beat somebody with them.

May every tomorrow be better than yesterday. Thanks for reading. Until next week.

#15 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR JUNE 22, 2020

Twelve days since my last reflection. Where did the time go? Still quarantined. But also venturing tentatively as allowed. I’m motivated to be safe not only because I’d really get mad at myself if I let my guard down and then my past three months be wasted by catching the virus, but also I would be devastated to find out somewhere down the line that my carelessness or selfishness caused someone else to get sick or worse. So, I’m trying to be patient. It’s not easy. As noted theologian, philosopher (and portrayer of Kato on the TV show Green Hornet) Bruce Lee said: “Patience is not passive, on the contrary, it is concentrated strength. “ I’ve come to admit how weak I am. So looking back over the past week and a half, I surprised myself by realizing I have been doing more praying. Even more amazing and humbling has been the results. It’s just that those results are hard to discern through the fog that enveloped me. In the course of three days, my car needed to go into the shop, my vacuum cleaner stopped sucking (is that an oxymoron…maybe I’m the moron)and my microwave oven got mad at me and stopped waving (probably tired of being overworked). Poor me. Easy to feel sorry for myself. But then I found my buddy George back at work (see Reflection 7) on Ridge looking clean and healthy and wearing a mask. He told me he was getting by even though there were fewer cars and even fewer folks rolling down their windows to help him out. Three times someone who came to mind in prayer called me within 24 hours. And a haircut never felt so good in all my life. A good friend told me I was the older brother he never had. And little Ewa, who I baptized 4 years ago, called me “Uncle Dominic.” Interestingly, I found more than once as I stared to cry over something I was praying over , the song on Pandora I was listening to brought a memory that made me smile and even laugh out loud. Meanwhile as I pass the hours and days and weeks in my little world, storms rage in many streets, in churches, in too many bodies. Injustice, pain, suffering have kept us quarantined not for days or months or even years, but for decades and centuries. How much more can our patience be tested? How can we pray and lift the fog that envelopes us?

Multitasking can be good for our health. Pray, walk, monitor breathing and look at the flowers all at the same time. As Stephen Levine wrote: “As we age, original factory parts get harder to come by.” Take time to care for the body and the soul.
Buy two bouquets of summer flowers. Keep one in a vase. Put it in a prominent place where all will see it. Take the other and divide it into smaller bunches and leave some individual and find fun stuff to place them in: glass, cannister, jar, ceramic piece, etc. all cut to separate lengths to fit the size of each container. Place them everywhere around the house. Flowers like us are beautiful in big bunches, small groupings and all by themselves.
Stop right now. Think of some you haven’t seen in a while. Say a prayer for them. Maybe even contact them. Now.
As the month of June winds down, don’t let Father’s Day, Pride Month, Juneteenth pass by and anyone with a Gemini or Cancer Zodiac sign birthday, your beautician, someone you know who plays the accordion and most appropriately nursing assistants without a prayer of thanksgiving (all are celebrated in June).
Pull out a cookbook or look up a recipe and cook something you have never fixed before (make sure all the ingredients are or can be available). Take a picture of it and frame the picture as a momento of the epidemic. Here’s the catch: estimate the cost and donate that same amount to a local food bank.
So much is rushing through our heads these days. At the end of the day, or right now, think of what song you want playing as your body is being carried out of church at your funeral or as you breathe your last breath. Find it online or ask Alexa or pull out the CD. Get alone, close your eyes and listen to it. Play it again. A third time. (Hopefully it’s not something like a Wagner opera…too long.) Open your eyes and find yourself smiling and realizing there is so much life waiting to be lived until then and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
Thought for today: “Those who feel like they’ve got all their crap together are usually standing knee deep in it at that time.”

For whoever knows how to love, for whoever knows how to suffer, life is filled with serene beauty. Brother Roger of Taize

Thanks for reading this far. Stay well and strong. Next one soon. Dominic

REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, JULY 4, 2020

I chose to wait and write this reflection on Independence Day. I look out my window. On the Fourth of July as hot as it is today the beach and Lake Shore Drive leading to it would usually be jammed. Today the beach is empty and the Drive virtually car free. It’s strangely bright and forlorn at the same time. As a child we stayed home and grilled in the backyard. It was a family day. Mom’s kabobs were my favorite. I’ve found a way to imitate the flavor by using chunks of lamb marinated in red wine, lemon juice and (the secret) a bottle of Wishbone Italian Dressing until the acids start cooking the meat and it turns gray. Then onto the red coals or into a hot oven until the meat crisps around the edges. Fireworks consisted mostly of sparklers – the small ones in the 10 cents box (when did they take the “cents” symbol off my keyboard?), the bigger quarter ones and the huge one dollar ones. We’d hang them on mom’s clothes lines and in the grass and with a few red emergency car flares put on a show for the family that lasted three minutes or so if we were lucky. I didn’t like the firecrackers or cherry bombs. The loud explosions made me jump. In in Italy I saw the best fireworks ever at the end of the daylong celebration of Ss, Cosmos and Damian, the town’s patrons, out in the hills. For a number of years I would joined friends at Navy Pier on the Spirit of Chicago where Catholic Charities sponsored a dinner, boat ride and view of the spectacular fireworks overhead. In Chicago, it was the 3^rd of July. I’m not sure why but celebrating the Fourth has fizzled over the years for me like a sparkler burning out. I am alone today, quarantined as much by choice as by necessity. My freedoms I have taken for granted. Given all that is happening with the Covid Virus and the virus of hatred and name calling and dishonesty that prevails I have come to painfully realize that we cannot celebrate freedom, much less be free, if there are any among who are not free. Still I take hope in the words of Buddha “No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free.” And St. Paul echoes those same words in Galatians 5, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.” So…some Independence Day resolutions (feel free to make some of your own):

I will stop grumbling when I put on my mask realizing I do it to keep others safe. It’s not about me.
I will carry extras masks in case anyone needs one.
I will say a prayer for anyone I see not safe distancing themselves instead of muttering bad thoughts about them.
Every time I hear a siren, I will pray for the person needing it, the first responders be they medical or police, and their families.
Every time I hear on the news about a child dying because of a virus or a bullet I will say a prayer for them, their family and those who are responsible for that situation and then put aside a donation to send to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
I will try to be more knowledgeable. I’ll be reading the recent biography of Frederick Douglas and I highly recommend Doris Goodwin’s Leadership in Troubled Times and the new biography of Dorothy Day.
I will thank the cashier, the driver, the receptionist, person on the phone taking my order, anyone who is working with whom I come in contact.
I will pause and smile when I turn a plant to the sun and water it and appreciate the beauty and power that happens when we care for life in any of its forms.
I will try to be kinder, leave people happier, and find ways of supporting those who work actively for justice.
Thought for today: “There is nothing that we know that we couldn’t know at a deeper level.” Steven Levine A Year to Live
I ask myself as I read over what I wrote is that all! “Loving God, help me be open to see and respond as you would want me to in these days.” Let this be my prayer.

Looking in the mirror today, I took solace from the fact that growing bald has never hurt anyone

Thanks for searching this out. Be blessed and stay well. Dominic

#17 REFLECTIONS FROM THE 16^TH FLOOR, JULY 21, 2020

I’m remembering mid summer when I was growing up in the ‘60’s. I would have saved a few dollars in change and waited until my mom or my aunt would take me and my brothers on the CTA electric bus (yah, electric) to Belmont and Western. Greeting us there was the two story high face of Aladdin with moving eyes on his namesake funhouse just to the left of the main entrance to Riverview Park where we were invited by Two Ton Baker in the commercials on WBKB (now WLS) TV to “laugh your troubles away”. It was one of the most famous amusement parks in the country with the notorious Bobs and five other roller coasters, the frightening Pair-o-chutes, the soaking Shoot the Chutes, the breathtaking Flying Turns, the only surviving attraction, the Carousel (now located at Six Flags in Georgia) and numerous other rides It also had its dark side we were not allowed to linger in which included the sleazy sideshow, the carney hustlers (cf, “goldfish” below) and the disturbing, vile and racist dunk tanks. If we were lucky we’d be there during one of its weekday promotions like “Nickle Day” or “Dime Day” where you could stay in your seats for additional rides with no getting back into the line for that low price. That was great fun. The first time on the Bobs or the Fireball truly scared you. The second time anticipating the dips and turns made it more fun. For me it was a mistake to go a third time. That usually meant dizziness and nausea that would stay with me the whole bus ride home. I have to tell you, I’m getting that same feeling in my gut rights now. When the pandemic hit, it was cross between the fear it invoked and the bravado of quarantining. Having enough toilet paper and sanitizer combined to make it a challenge. We beat the curve down and that felt good. Now were riding it a second time. The camaraderie is gone. What to believe is harder. The numbers increase and so does the pain and sorrow. Cooking for one is getting old. The meanness the pandemic is bringing out is disheartening. The exposure of systemic racism, political ineptitude, trigger finger violence, and rampant selfishness coupled with anguish of families who have lost loved ones, is unrelenting. So, what to do? Let’s pray like St. Francis of Assisi: “Make me a channel of your peace” whatever the situation. Let’s direct those prayers for elected officials who kneel before the idol of polls, the media searching only for ratings, trouble makers who do violence while cowardly hiding behind legitimate protestors, those who use the internet to name call, abuse, and aflame people, employers who are not protecting their workers, those who carry guns to intimidate, the maskless whose fears make them irrational, and for each other as our own sinfulness bubbles up it the surface and dizzies us…“not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand and to love with all our hearts.”

We need a vaccine for kindness. We have one. It’s being kind to others.
The ten-cent goldfish I’d spend two dollars to win at Riverview never lived through the bus ride home. You’d think that taught me something.
I finally admit that my plants aren’t doing as well as they are because of my care and talking to them. It’s just that I’m using a really good plant food regularly. I guess we all need to be fed something good to thrive. Support local (strained) food banks. Bring a cake to a shut-in neighbor. Wire fruit to a friend.
Instead of talking to people solely on the internet or texting them, send a snail mail note handwritten on a nice or hilarious card with a “forever” stamp on the envelope. Do it once a month each time to someone else.
If you are following or binging a series on TV, check Google and see if its based on a book. Then order the book and read it. I’m doing that after watching Grantchester on PBS. Books can fill in and flesh out what we watch. And what we watch can make the book come to life vividly.
Today’s thought again from St. Francis of Assisi: “All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”

As we age, original body parts get harder to come by – Stephen Levine

Hopefully you are doing well. Be brave. More to come Dominic

#18 REFLECTIONS FROM TH1 16^TH FLOOR AUGUST 17, 2020

It’s been a while since my last reflection. I’m guessing that some of you, like me, find, for lack of a better metaphor, like the air is leaking out and deflating the balloon. The virus and the subsequent quarantine in all of its manifestations has taken hold in ways — some that are obvious and others more subtle, in ways that are not positive or productive and others that just may be grace filled and life changing. And it’s different for each of us. Friends tell me that they’ve grown closer to loved ones and others tell me they are struggling. Some have taken the opportunity to explore interests more deeply and others rue the flittering away and wasting of time. Some struggle with being too busy and others feel like they are ghosts haunting their space. All of us have moments of feeling overwhelmed. In short, this whole experience is getting old. The temptations are real to take more risks, to be less vigilant, to push the boundaries. It’s all part of the process. So it’s important to remain honest with ourselves. I go out for groceries at 7am (the special time reserved for seniors). Shopping for one has become a pain. I buy healthy and the vegetables and fruit all too often sit and rot while carbs call me by name from the refrigerators tempting me like a Homerian epic. Then I wake up at two a.m. and feel my forehead for a fever wondering if the virus has snuck into me. (may it was the Ben and Jerry’s). Then I get angry at myself realizing how blessed I am and how much more difficult and challenging and even heartbreaking all of this has been for so many other people. Meanwhile too many of us grow more opinionated and judgmental about all that is swirling around us. Yes, the temptation to give up appears like a snake barely making a ripple as it glides through still waters. We can’t quit now. We can’t give in to it. We have to stay strong. Mary Anne Radmacher tells us “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” Dear friends, keep trying. Don’t give up. Some suggestions now but (like a good stew) add your own elements to make it all more palatable for you.

Limit watching TV news, especially cable, as the election approaches, especially if you know who you are voting for. Now it all becomes more partisan, negative, and less factual and it can harden our souls.
Use your phone or an app to send a different person a positive message everyday and then say a prayer for that person.
When the temptation comes over you to contact someone to rant about something, don’t. Instead talk to your plants. Tell them how they make your world a happier place. (Don’t laugh. My plants are the healthiest I can ever remember their being.)
Pay compliments. Just today when I took the bags of groceries out of the cart to put in my car, I was surprised about how well and balanced all the bags were packed. I went back into the store and told the cashier who packed them, by name, (important to do) what a good job she did and thanked her. She said it made her day…Actually, it made mine. That’s why I’m tooting my horn here a little bit.
So…when you do something right, it’s okay to occasionally toot your horn or pat yourself on the back…once in a while.
If you find yourself passionate about something, stand up for it by acting on it. The local clothing pantry could use those shoes you haven’t worn in a year or those pants that shrunk two sizes (yah sure) that you can’t fit into anymore.
Find something that will make you laugh out loud. Struggling? Ask a friend what made them laugh recently. Or just laugh at yourself. Lots of things to remember there.
Something in your mind starts to scare you. Stop everything. Stand up. Say out loud, “Not this time. Get behind me Satan.” Maybe hold back on this if you are in a line somewhere or at the DMV renewing your license or in a waiting room of any kind).
When you are wearing a mask, forget about the fact that it’s making you sweat or fogging your glasses and try to smile at somebody with your eyes.
Today’s quote: “When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger and the other represents opportunity.” John F. Kennedy

The strongest people make time to help others, even if they are struggling with their own personal demons.

Stay strong. Enjoy these dog days of summer. I’ll keep writing. Thanks for reading. Dominic