Set an intention

Make room for

more light in your life and

more joy in your heart.

Set an intention for

peace and love to flourish

and chaos and fear to diminish.

Let generosity grow and scarcity shrink.

Count how many times a day

you say thank you or

offer a compliment.

Notice the abundance in your life and

act for those who have less.

Pray for those in your family or neighborhood

who face challenges and are struggling, and

those around the world who face tyrants.

Remember those who are grieving.

Reach out to those who are lonely or lost.

Every act of kindness ripples out into the world and

then comes back to us,

bridging the space between us and

reminding us that we are one.

A shared experience

Twenty years ago, I was the director of a lay mission program, and I had gone to New York City on September 10 for dinner with two missioners who were heading to Swaziland.

The afternoon of the 10th, they had gone to our mission in Chinatown and climbed to the rooftop to take pictures—with the World Trade Center in the background.

Their families had come in from out of state, and after dinner, we had all gone to JFK to see them off.

I stayed in New York overnight, and the next morning, September 11, I was going to walk from Gramercy Park to Chinatown. I remember leaving the building that morning and looking up at the sky—it was clear blue, a perfect day for a walk.

And then the first plane hit, and then the second plane, and then there was chaos. Sirens blared and police cars and ambulances headed south—while cars, buses and pedestrians, covered in white dust, headed north.

I joined co-workers watching television coverage. One woman paced. Another prepared food. We all deal with shock in our own ways.  

I remember taking a walk in the afternoon and seeing a line of people waiting to use a pay phone (cell phones were not working). “I’m okay,” each person said into the phone and then quickly hung up so the next person could make a call.

I remember thinking that we were not okay. All around us, people were dazed, crying. We were frightened and wondered if there would be another attack.

Nothing made sense.

By evening, the streets were deserted. No taxis, cars or buses. Very few pedestrians. Just a very large security presence on every corner.

All trains had been halted, so I had no way of getting back to Philadelphia that night. Instead, I watched the burning rubble of the Twin Towers from my bedroom window—and called Amtrak every hour to see when trains would run again. I just wanted to get home.

I left for Penn Station around 4:00 a.m., walked up 19^th Street to Broadway and turned right. As far as I could see, Broadway was deserted—no people, cars, buses—just total emptiness. The terrorists had succeeded in terrifying us.

Penn Station was filling up by the time I arrived, but it was unlike the Penn Station I had known just two days earlier. We had all experienced something unimaginable, and that experience created a bond stronger than any differences we may have had on September 10. Courtesy, kindness and sympathy shaped our interactions. Tears flowed freely. We were grieving.

I remember standing in line at a bakery in Penn Station the morning of September 12, exhausted and somewhat anxious about getting on a train. I ordered a bagel and coffee, and the man in front of me said, “Let me get that for you.”

I cried at his kindness.

It saddens me to see how divided our country has become over the past twenty years.

Turning the page

I was convicted the other day by Jake Owensby’s post about unity.

Full disclosure: I don’t watch the news or read a newspaper or listen to the news (other than if I happen to be in my car and it comes on). I am an ostrich when it comes current events. I know the headlines, but not much else.

Friends fill me in when something monumental happens, but for the most part, the divisiveness and aggression in our country burdens me, and I choose to opt out.

It all started when my friend Jim got brain cancer and there was no room in my psyche for what was happening in the world. All my energy went into taking care of Jim and holding onto my job. Jim watched the news and would brief me on what was happening, and I found that this system worked for me. I became a news dabbler.

After Jim died, I grieved, and my pain was enough; I did not need to hear about crime, war or political spats.

Then I just got used to living shallow when it came to the news. It all just seemed like “different day, same story” and I did not find it helpful to my mental health to tune in.

I don’t like being angry, and that is mainly how I feel when I hear the news. I am tired of how little progress we make as a society.

For example, in the 1960’s and 1970’s many women campaigned to change language that excluded them. It was common for “men” to be used as the word for “people,” and men would say women were included in that word, which never made sense to me. By that argument, the word “women” should have been used because it does include “men.”

Over time, the use of “men” to mean everyone changed. In church, we went from saying “brothers” to “brothers and sisters” and from “brethren” to “people.”

But here we are, fifty years on, and “men” has been replaced by “guys” which is just another word for “men.”

There are no female guys, but I cannot tell you how many times restaurant servers have called me a guy. It infuriates me, and it infuriates me that women are complicit in it, that women exclude themselves by calling other women “guys.”

It is no mystery that we still have a gender wage gap and that women are excluded from many positions of leadership in our society. Words matter, and calling women “guys” reinforces the message that men are the top dogs.

And don’t get me started on racial injustice or the demeaning treatment of people who have disabilities or who are elderly or any number of issues I have cared about for the past fifty years.

So please forgive me if I am impatient, but my impatience does not excuse using words that tear down rather than build up. I will try harder to seek unity in what I say and do.

Seeking unity

The feast of St. Josaphat was Thursday, a saint known for promoting unity among Christians. My prayer book suggested, “…may we emphasize what unites us as Christians rather than what divides us.”

Good advice, I thought, and not just promoting unity as Christians, but especially at this time, promoting unity as citizens of the United States.

The psalm for the day was Psalm 146, which speaks of praising God all our lives and says, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God…He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked….”

These are similar to the words Mary proclaimed when she visited her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1:46-55).

Could these be the words and works that help us find common ground? Could we focus on what we are doing to help others rather than what we want for ourselves?

I think one of the greatest revelations of the pandemic is how often we say, “I want,” as in “I want to see my friends” or “I want to celebrate (insert holiday) the way I always have” or “I want to (insert hobby, sport or activity) like I always do.” Is there really anything called essential basketball or essential block party? Can we not set aside our usual activities and customs and think about the common good?

I am including myself in this—I went away for three days in September with two friends, just to get away. I have asked myself more than once, “Is there any such thing as essential kayaking?” The answer is “no,” and I realize the risk I took by traveling. Fortunately, none of us contracted COVID19, but I am not planning to travel again in the foreseeable future.

The reflection questions for Psalm 146 in my study Bible suggest asking someone what goals are evident from how you spend your time and talents? What do people see in your life that glorifies God?

I am participating in an Internship in Ignatian Spirituality, which has only met via Zoom. In our third session, we talked about the Johari Window, and then we broke into small groups and were asked to name a trait that we see in the others. Given that we hardly know one another, I was surprised at the insights we were able to offer.

How much more would people who know me well be able to answer the above questions? To reveal to me something about myself that I may not know or may not realize is significant.

How would people answer those three questions about you?