A single year
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November 24, 1988 Thanksgiving Day It was a slow restful day. The Reddingtons came over for dinner. Linda cooked a fine good dinner. We talked with mom and dad McDonald, Gigi and Tim, my mom, my sister, and hope to hear from Nikki soon. I don't know where we go from here. I hope our health improves. I hope Linda, Jamie, and I can lose weight. I am thankful for everything in my life most especially my family, my God and my strong and seemingly unending faith. Thank you God for everything. November 25, 1988 St. Mary Catholic Church received a check in the mail today for $112,500. It is a bequest left to St. Mary's to maintain or build a rectory. We could get up to an additional $90,000. We had expected a gift of around $40,000 to $50,000. Our next step is to try and free the money up for general parish use. I was thinking what a check like that would mean to me and my family. I felt fairly selfish and then I thought how we might use a check like that to help others and still take care of our needs. As a Vess volunteer we were paid $110 per month plus $80 per month for food. We were provided shelter and hospitalization, think how many volunteers we could provide with money like that. Think how much food could be bought for the hungry. I hope and pray this money is used for the good of all. Stand firm with me O Lord. I thank you for being my God. November 26, 1988 Today my wife bought me three new suits of clothing at a cost of $334.50. I am not sure how I should feel. I remember my sister Betty Joe buying me two suit jackets and three shirts on sale at a cost of around $300 about 3 1/2 years ago when Linda and I were being paid $110 per month. I am trying not to let money dominate me and yet we now have only $1,150 in savings. Can you hear me? I needed the clothes because mine are worn out and I need to look professional. The last time I bought a suit was in 1982 in Oklahoma City and they cost much more than these. I am so very grateful, to my God, to my wife, and yet I feel guilty for spending this kind of money on me. Well, it is easy to see I am still in the growing stage and still learning to know how to feel. Stand firm with me, Lord. Hold on to me and let me begin to act in a pleasing manner to you. I like the suits very much. Thank you God. November 27, 1988 Today I listened to a man, who is extended in his life, vent a great deal of anger. Some of it was aimed at me. Maybe justly, maybe not. Some of it aimed at our music minister who is, like Linda and me, new to St. Mary's. Most of his anger was aimed in explicit detail toward Father Ed. I tried to be honest and I tried to listen. He told me I listened to him well. I told him if he was venting anger on the spur of the moment, I could deal with that. I told him if his anger was deep seeded, I did not know what to do. I am tired and I am most tired of having people angry. I am especially tired of people being angry at me. It does not seem to matter how hard Linda and I try to please, we still do, say and are too much. I think the reason God has held off giving me a large sum of money is because at a time like now I might definitely take the money and find a place to hide, a place where I could not have to intermingle with God's people unless it were on my terms, in my own way, and without to much worry about how I might affect them. I think, no, I know God wants me out front with his people. I carry a message and I am not supposed to make people comfortable. My job is to do my father's business and my father is the Lord God almighty, Father, Son, and Spirit One. So here I am Lord, do with me as you will. I will be your servant. I will find a way to serve you and I just know you will take care of me. I enjoyed bowling today. Ken Clovinsky, our music and liturgy person, along with Linda, Jamie, and me went bowling. I don't know how but I bowled a 169, 164, 180 for a 513 series. Ken bowled a 171, 167, 166, for a 504 and Linda bowled a 71, 85, 126 and she was getting better the longer she bowled. Jamie got a little tired but I think she did very well and I love my wife and daughters so much. We put up our Christmas tree this night. It is most beautiful. It is a conglomerate of colors and garland and many different lights. It is us! I am listening to Christmas carols and music as I write and God is slipping back into my being as I, with God's ever present love, begin to try to fight off the depression I felt and feel from Jamie Blank's tirade of earlier this day. I do not want to be depressed. It is just every time I relax even a little, just let my guard down just a little, I find myself fighting for my life. I get so tired of always having to be on. I get so tired of always having to be on guard. I very much need and want to be reassured I am a good person. I want someone to actually tell me over and over I am doing ok. I need to feel I am fine in at least some way because I feel put down, I feel rejected, I feel angry and tired. I do not feel at all well. I guess you can see why I am fighting depression. I will not give in to it. I am a son of God. I am a special and chosen son of God. O Lord, hear me now and come to my aid. It doesn't matter if I deserve your help. It does not matter if I could ever deserve your help. It does not matter if I have sinned. What matters is your unconditional and always present and all powerful love, your heart. What matters is the tremendous need I have for that heart of yours, that most desperate need I have for you right now. What matters is I am calling on you my God to make things ok I need you O God. I love you. November 28, 1988 Tonight Father Ed and I had the most intense and most provocative of conversations. I doubt if anyone listening in would have understood or comprehended it as we did. We were talking about condoms and AIDS and giving out the information that condoms might be effective in preventing the spread of AIDS. He said to me that teaching young people that the use of condoms was an acceptable answer to AIDS was the most direct means of losing my job here. My question to him was did we as teachers not have an obligation to teach young people that sex outside of marriage was definitely wrong. My question went even further in that I suggested that we should inform young people of the facts which at this time in our life seem to say that condoms worn correctly, taken off correctly, and used during intercourse seems to be an effective prevention against the spread of AIDS . I wanted to really get inside of Father Ed and find out for myself where he was and I did. His answer was quick and pointed. Under no circumstance! Later he did point out to me that he held a somewhat more lenient position as a confessor. I have some interesting thoughts on what he said. First of all I made sure he knew I supported his position. I have no desire to lose this job now or in the near future. I do have some thoughts that he might not share. I have written that God is the only creator of life and that man and woman are at the very most a means by which God uses to bring about life. That is not to take away from man and woman's Godly nature and their importance in creation. God is the only creator of any and everything. Man has no intrinsic nature or ability that would allow for man to be a creator. God is the sole creator. Man and woman are made in the likeness, the very image of God and God is the core part of all man and all woman. God is the core of all life. Since man cannot create life, it would seem to me fair to say that man cannot take or terminate life. If man were able to create life, man could then decide which life is valuable and which isn't. That is not the case. A fair question concerning contraception is if man cannot create life, can man prevent life. If the answer is yes then are we saying that man can prevent God from creating life through the use of a contraceptive? Would that then say that all man has to do to affect God is to use a contraceptive? I am positive man cannot affect or change or in any way alter God's being. If God wants life to be there then using birth control pills, using condoms, and using any and all other devices all at one time will not prevent the creation of life! Man cannot affect God. The use of a contraception is much more serious than the attempt at preventing life. The use of a contraception by man is a direct frontal affront on the being of God and all that God stands for. If I think I can prevent life by using a contraceptive and thus use one in the sexual act, I am saying I have only contempt for God. This act is a deliberate way in which I would be trying to kill God. Understand this, a most hollow gesture for man can never have an affect on God's being. The very act of using a condom is an act of deliberately turning one's back on the act of love, on the loving creator God. In effect, one would be trying to prevent one's own being from having life. What the act says is much more important than the act itself. I see man having to face the horrible dilemma of AIDS head on. Either a medical cure will be found or man will soon be almost completely obliterated. AIDS is not just a homosexual disease but indeed I really am not certain anyone knows all the ways AIDS is spread. If indeed condoms do prevent the spread of AIDS, and outside of no sex between man and woman, condoms becomes the only accepted way to prevent the spread of AIDS, man will have to deal with a whole new set of questions. I see no readiness to do this. God did not create AIDS. AIDS is the result of man's body reacting to years of ungodly excesses. There may indeed be no cure to AIDS. Frankly I am not sure condoms or even monogamy will stop the spread of AIDS. Man would do well to throw itself on the mercy of God's love and ask God for salvation. Actually it does not even matter if man understands this or not because there is no other choice for the salvation of mankind. Man is at the complete and total mercy of man's creator in all matters but most especially this matter. I for one am glad I am at the mercy of my God, the God of love, the God of my creation. November 29, 1988 Gigi's 22nd birthday 22 years ago Linda and I were just beginning this journey. I suppose if you could say our life is split into 4 parts of reasonably equal length, then, today might be the beginning of the third part of our life. From birth to parenthood would be the beginning of our life. That part would be split up into areas also. From parenthood through the raising of your children to be parents might well be the second part. It would be reasonable to assume that 2nd part would be sub divided also into additional parts. The third part would be that time of life when age, wisdom, and being all come together into fullness of life. Now, each part has fullness of life but not all of life. The third part when you are young enough to still feel and enjoy the physical pleasure of marriage, a time when you are still young enough to do things without fear of not doing, that time when life that came into this world through you is now beginning to blossom and bring more life into the world and you are even more fulfilled. The third part does seem to offer all this and more. This third part of life when "yes" mortality, your mortality is an issue. When you go slow not because you want or have to but because you choose to, yes this is the beginning of the fullness of life time. It ends with the coming of old age and the awareness that you have lived most of your life. Each part of life is precious and holds much but I think I like the part I am now in the best, the beginning of the third part. November 30, 1988 Evangelization Reaching out with love to the people of God, giving the most important gift one can give, and what would such a gift be? I know you would say it would be the gift of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you would say it would be the gift of love. Some would say the most important gift one could give, is the gift of genuine and real caring for one another. What would I say the most important gift is? I would start by saying it is both, all of the above, yet I would also say, it is not the above. The most important gift is the gift of yourself. You see, I say, you are the most precious of all gifts, for within you is the undying all powerful love, the love that created you dwells within you forever. This love is the only love you can give anyone. Another word for this creating love is of course, God. Another word for God is Jesus. For Jesus is God the creator. Jesus is God the savior and God the man. Jesus is God. Jesus then is the love that dwells within each life. The most important gift of all can only be yourself. For within yourself is love, Jesus, and caring. These are not things that can stand alone. Love, Jesus, caring, is all one and the same, and all of that can only be given by one thing. The only thing that has all of these things is you. So once again I say the most important evangelization gift is you! December 1, 1988 Well I am thirty one days away from fulfilling my promise, my pledge, my hope, my whatever it is, to write for one whole year. I have failed many times and in so many ways I am most afraid of failing again. I know I am to write and I am writing. There are days when what I have written is not so special, there are and have been and will be days where every word I write will be God inspired and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit will fill every letter of every word. This diocese sent out a letter to all pastors asking for names of people that might be possible pastoral administrators someday in this dioceses the lay director of personnel for the diocese told me of this and suggested I have Father send in my name, mine and Linda's. I asked Father shelter about the letter tonight and he replied that he had not known me long enough to recommend me for this kind of thing. For a brief moment I thought I picked up in him the thought that if he recommended me and Linda and we were accepted he would lose us. I don't know, I am probably wrong. He is such a strange tormented man at times I just do not know him at all. There are other times when I feel very close to him. Suddenly I am sure I should not trust him as I am also angry at him. My printer is on the blink and will cost about $150 to fix, so for a while I will not have a printer to work on. I will simply save this whole month until I can print it. O Lord my God stand firm with me and hold me up. Let me do what ever it is you would have me do. I love you and I do trust you, my God. In fact you and Linda are probably all I have ever trusted completely. I know why O Lord, you have not given me money. If I had money I would retire to a safe place where I now would not have to deal with your people. I would not have to deal with priests who live in a world that is not real. I know that dealing with, loving and nurturing your people is what I need to do. I am called by you to love your people and to tell them through words, deeds, and my being of your love for them and of your sacred heart. I have not forgotten. I am your servant O Lord afraid, nervous, angry, sad, happy, full of energy, and yes Lord I am here, thank you for using me. You know of my need to be nurtured also, so Lord, I just ask for the strength to go from one nurturing time to the next. Here I am Lord, not perfect or pretty, more often than not falling down, seldom walking straight… but here I am. I love you and I thank you for loving me. December 2, 1988 Wisdom is knowing not only what to day but when to say it, wisdom is an infectious spirit that permeates people of love, wisdom is at the center of man's being, For Wisdom is God and God dwells within all men, When I say men I mean not only all people, I mean also all life that has the power to reason.
Jesus is a man who was first and always God who became man, Jesus was, is, and always will be the total epiphany of Love,
The son of God, equal with his father, filled with the spirit, the wisdom and love of God become flesh as man among men, Jesus! Before anything at all was, or even was thought of, before the speck of dust thought by scientists - To have been the start scientifically of everything, God was Filled with his own wisdom, united with Jesus, knowing all that would eventually be brought about, a being of unconditional and all powerful total love, Was, is, God! Today through the wisdom of knowledge given by the spirit, introduced and explained through the loving God man, Jesus, containing the fullness of the loving one who creates everything, We have the Eucharist The fullness of God in today's world for all God's people, a time when God comes pouring forth from within man, an opportunity for man to be fully one with God, We have the Eucharist! December 3, 1988 I am thinking about going out by myself tonight. I haven, t been out anywhere by myself in quite a while and I am full of energy. I am fighting depression and I am angry. I am not angry at my wife or my daughter Jamie. I am not even sure why I am feeling this way. I am hesitating because I do not want to spend money we do not really have and yet I know we could afford it. I doubt if I would spend $35. Within the last eleven months there have been desperate times when we did not have a job or even the prospects of one. There have been times when I did not have $35 nor did I know where I would get my next dollar from. Part of me says I should be grabbing on to and holding on to every cent I have and will have and do not have. Another part of me says don't stop trusting in God. Hang in there and I do not know what The two have to do with each other and, I know very well. Lord, stand firm with me and try not to turn me loose. Help me survive myself this night. It does not matter what I want to do, let me do your will Lord God. Make me do your will Lord God, stand strong with me. I so love and need you, John December 4, 1988 I have often waited for something good to happen, I just new that something special was going to happen, everything that I believed said, just wait, just hold on for it really is going to happen, when it did happen, I never new it happened, you see I was always looking for something else. I never saw that something wonderful did happen, because what I was looking for was not that which happened, you see I was looking for a dream come true. And my dream so often was just that, my dream. The dream that came true was my Creator's dream. All too often my dream was not my Creator's dream. My dream was the dream of my reality which was limited, God's dream is never limited and is completed only when I accept that God's love for me is unlimiting and all powerful. My dream tonight is for the funds to have a permanent home for me and my family and a place of our own for me, my wife and the children of our children. I dream of having the ability to support us through my writing and photography and, other personal means. I dream of a life of seeing what is there to be seen. I dream of a life of love of and from me for all people. I dream of taking care of God's people here on earth. I dream of being a chosen son of my Lord and my God. I dream of not failing myself, my family, or my God. In three short weeks will be celebrated the anniversary of the birth of the God who came to earth as man, the God of my creation who came to be as one with me, the God who was born of woman just as I was born. The God who loved me so much, he allowed himself to be killed, the God who loved me so much, he overcame my sins, the God who rose gloriously from death to live forever, the God who lives forever and is present in me, the God who is present in the Eucharistic bread, in three weeks we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the one I know and love as Jesus Christ son of God. In three weeks will be celebrated the dream come true, twenty one day and I will finally know of the coming true the reality of truth of being of one of my dreams, I dream of the coming of Jesus Christ my Lord and my God, I dream that someday I will be called friend and servant, by this Jesus Christ son of man and man's own son; I know this dream will be a true dream I know this dream will come true!
I try at night to be open to dreams that lift my spirit high; I open myself to the dreams of my youth, I seek the dreams that led me to where I am now at, I search for the dreams that can tell me where tomorrow is, and when the only dreams that come are the dreams I have no desire for, the dreams of pain not hope, I try desperately to not dream at all but simply to sleep, but sleep, restful and peaceful deep sleep is not simple, it is as elusive as the dreams I search and pray for.
God does not take away gifts that bring one closer to God, there is a reason the dreams I seek seem not to come, may be I am seeking the wrong dreams, the dreams of self. If so I ask God to give me the dreams God would have me dream, I know God has a dream for me and that is what I seek to dream, probably it will not be a peaceful dream. Yet I know it will be a dream that will bring me peace. I will find my destiny not in dreams but in doing God's will, in a dream I may find what God's will is for me. So I ask God for the dream of hope, the dream of love, I ask God not for my dream but for God's dream, I open myself to being all that my God would have me to be. After all I am God's chosen son, I am my God's servant.
Not a sign of life could be found, yet people moved all about, It was a dark night with stars shining bright, sheepherders watched their sheep while yawning broadly, there was nothing special to be seen about this night. A man and a woman had traveled far, were tired, The woman was with child, the man was with the woman, they would be a part of the specialness of this night. There was no place of comfort, no respectable place to stay, The shelter they found only the most common of people would stay, the shelter they found would be the start of all things special. A dark night that became bright and wonderful, The light that came from the dark was unconditional love, The man witnessed the woman give birth to the light of the world.
The night became bright as darkness gave way to light, All that was and had been was no more for hope entered the world.
One night that became in an instant the night of nights, One night that saw light come out of darkness as love entered forever. The world is no longer the same as it was before that night, once love has come nothing can ever be the same, and love came to stay that night and is here forever today! December 7, 1988 Forty seven years ago this day, four years before I was born, the Japanese in an unprovoked attack, bombed the United States at Pearl Harbor. Many Americans, many people, were killed and a war that took too many lives was begun. It was a war that ended with the United States using a bomb on Japan that was more than a bomb. It was the beginning of what I think could eventually lead to the most horrible destruction of this planet and the people that live upon it. Atomic bombs, nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are an environmental destruction force. Everyone has them now. Even the tiniest of countries. Today the leader of what we in the United States refer to as the unfree world, the Soviet Union visited the United States, the center of the free world. The soviet leader, a man seemingly out of place as a peacemaker, once again seemingly took the front position in trying for peace among mankind. This man took the initiative of reducing all the fighting men at his country's disposal by 10%. The United States responded with caution and disbelief. Aids is upon the world now in full force. If you want to have sex, it had better be with a virgin and stay with that person forever. If you do not want to be monogamous, if you do not want to be asexual, condoms seem to offer the only measure of safety to having sex. Nobody is sure if any of this is going to continue to be true. Aids, totally fatal, is with nuclear armaments two of the signs of the potential end of mankind. The third sign is mankind itself. At this time in our history, mankind seems to be racing to an end. No man lives today at a reasonable pace. Every man is rushed within and without. The pressure placed upon man by man to survive in this world in a way that is quote acceptable, is awesome. Man has no place for the man that does not fit man's image of what man should be. Every man alive is pressured to act, to have, to be by every living man. This pressure is intense and not getting less intense but indeed more so. It is this one hundred car fully loaded freight train going 200 miles and hour down a mountain our of control that is the third sign. It is possible that it will become so out of control that no man will be immune to being a passenger on it. On December 25th, eighteen short days from now, man will stop for one moment maybe it's frenzy of going non stop, long enough to remember that one thousand nine hundred eighty eight years ago a man totally out of step with his time was born. This man who resisted the pressures of his day which were for their time as enormous as the pressures of today are, had only one purpose for being born. This man's purpose was to offer salvation to all men who had ever lived, who lived then, and who would ever live. Jesus Christ is God become man remaining God. Jesus brought us love and hope and salvation. The problem is we have continually resisted opening ourselves to Jesus Christ and so we find ourselves in the mess we are in today. I sometimes wonder if it is too late, not for mankind, but for me. I fall so easily and so often and I do not seem to have learned anything from my past mistakes. I am determined to change. I will change, I just have to. L will not wait for disaster to come back and strike me down. I will change now, this minute and God will help me and stand with me. Stand with me Lord, hold me and please do not turn me loose. Yüklə 1,1 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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