I used to spend time serving coffee and doing laundry at a place for people experiencing homelessness.  We had a couple of showers and it always amazed me how precious shower time was for some of our guests.  They would ritualize picking up their towels, practice great intentionality in setting up the shower room, and then rejoice in the privacy of a locked door and a space to themselves (sometimes relinquishing the peace and quiet only after pleading from the staff!).  Maybe this scenario captures the essence of our own lives.  Though we do not like to think of ourselves as homeless, we are lost to ourselves, playing in some imaginary world because we fear what life is really like (Lk 15:13).  We blindly construct shower rooms – fancy houses, social statuses, important careers, etc. –  that serve as safe havens from the risk of living.  The good news is that we carry a room within ourselves, and we can choose to close the door and experience enduring privacy while immersed in the drama of our daily environments (Mt 6:6).  The key which unlocks the door and makes this lifestyle possible is deep trust in and prayerful communion with our heavenly father (Mt 6:9-15) who constantly invites us home (Lk 15:20).  May we simply have the courage to go home.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Sometimes, when I feel very stressed out and overwhelmed by life, I look down at my feet and exclaim, “Oh there I am!”  While it can be very easy to get carried away by grandiose ideas, anxieties, and the past, our feet never lie, they will always be exactly where they are, and we will always be exactly where they are.  Perhaps this is why Jesus allowed his feet to be washed and anointed on the day before his passion (Mt 26:6-13), a time when it would have been easy to simply give in to the pressure and run away from his mission.  It is the Lord himself who washes our feet (Jn 13:1-17) so that we be might responsive to his call, “Come follow me” (Mt 4:19), and lead lives that are grounded in reality, making our way, one step at a time, one foot at a time, along the narrow path that ultimately and only leads to life (Mt 7:13-14).  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

“You’ve got a banana in your ear!”  Maybe this phrase elicits a chuckle as we imagine what it would look like to walk around with a banana literally sticking out of our ear, but it is functionally how most of us live.  Because life is hard and confusing, we adopt barriers that prevent us from having to actually touch and be touched by reality.  Maybe our banana is alcohol, or pornography, or gossip, or ideology, or ego.  Whatever the case may be, what difference is there between one banana and the next?  Aren’t we all just scared of life?  Let’s therefore learn to be honest about the particular banana that we use to help us deal with the stress of the human experience.  Let’s pray for the humility and courage to have it removed through the very circumstances in which we live.  Let’s trust that there is another fruit that will grow in its stead – from the inside out – which will not block, but mediate reality.  Let’s feed others from this Tree of Life and become radically open to the constant gift of life.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica. 

Buddha, sitting under a bodhi tree, deep in meditation, touching the earth at the moment of awakening.  What a sight to behold!  How often we think of enlightenment as some far-out, ethereal, other-worldly experience that only gurus attain, but the story of this human person suggests that the journey to awareness is actually quite close at hand (cf. Deut 30:14).  For the Buddha it was the posture of his body, a specific kind of tree, the rhythm of his breathing, and literally touching the ground on which he sat.  I wonder if my kitchen table, seat on the bus, vegetable garden, office cubicle or classroom desk could be places of transcendence, where the one is known not over and above but precisely through the many (cf. Mk 12:28-31).  I wonder if my five senses might serve as an exciting incarnational playground where time and eternity meet and constantly bring forth new expressions of life.  Whatever the case may be, my name is also Buddha and my destiny is sharing in the full flourishing of the human experience.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.