Your Pastoral Coach

Would God Save Us from Natural Disaster?

I need people's help on this one. A reader of this blog sent me an e-mail asking if God could protect us from things like natural disasters. My initial reaction is no, but I wonder what people think on this and why. I'm comfortable asking God for protection against evil, for strength against temptations, for wisdom and other gifts so that I may listen to His will, and for forgiveness. I can see asking God for endurance in suffering, and to use my suffering for the forgiveness of my sins or the sins of the world. I can see asking God to touch the heart of an oppressor, an unjust and mean person, or someone suffering from depression. I just don't think it's right to ask God to save me from physical death from a calamity like an earthquake, a hurricane, or a tornado...

Gospel Reflection for Sunday, January 29, 2006

Scripture reflection for the readings of Sunday, January 29, 2006. How many of us have experienced anxiety in the past year? I would imagine that many of us would say yes. Some of us would have experienced slight fear, uneasiness, or nervousness . Others may have experienced such a strong anxiety to have chest pain, shortness of breath, or even to faint. Some people suffer from mental and physical conditions that cause anxiety attacks, but for the rest of us, we may be able to significantly reduce our anxiety through our faith.

To My Beloved -- You and I

Happy is the moment when we sit together,
With two forms, two faces, yet one soul,
you and I.

The flowers will bloom forever,
The birds will sing their eternal song,
The moment we enter the garden,
you and I.

The stars of heaven will come to watch us,
And we will show them
The light of a full moon--
you and I.

No more thought of "you" and "I."
Just the bliss of union --
Joyous, alive, free of care, you and I.

All the bright-winged birds of heaven
Will swoop down to drink of our sweet water --
The tears of our laughter, you and I.

What a miracle of fate, us sitting here.
Even at the opposite ends of the earth
We would still be together, you and I.

We have one form in this world,
Another in the next.
To us belong an eternal heaven,
The endless delight of you and I.

Jalal-Ud-Din Rumi

Technorati Tags: Gratitude

Praying in the Shower

Like most people when I shower my mind dances from thought to thought. Sometimes great problems are solved, innovative ideas are born, and life is ponder. The sound and rhythm of the water quiets the external stimulus that continuously bombard our senses. Of course, sometimes I spontaneously pray. About six months ago I started to make the sign of the cross as soon as I would get into the shower and begin to pray. I have continued this. By now, my mind, my body, and my soul immediately get into a "prayer mode" as soon as I enter the shower and make the sign of the cross. It's automatic. I have no pattern. Sometimes I praise, sometimes I say the Our Father and Hail Mary, and sometimes I have a nice conversation with God. I saw someone talk about this in another blog a few weeks ago, but I can't remember which one. I guess I'm not the only one...

Technorati Tags: Living in the presence of God

Thinking Through a Difficult Situation

Many years ago a friend of mine was reading a book called the Power of Now and he shared a little formula to think through the many difficult situations we face in life. When faced with these situation we first ask, "Can I make a change that will cause this problem to no longer exist or be as bad?" If we can't or we are not successful at it, we then ask, "Can I remove myself from this bad situation?" Finally, if we can't change it or we can't remove it, we must accept it. Change, remove, accept.

This sounds trivial, but sometimes we are deep in a problem and we can't see our way out, everything looks like a fog. We are in the swamp and all we see is alligators. We have too many thoughts bouncing in our brain and we may feel victimized. It is good to then pause and ask these questions. As obvious as this seems, how many times are we feeling sorry or angry over a situation that we can't change or we can't remove from our lives? We keep going in an emotional roller coster when what we need to do is begin the difficult process of acceptance. This sounds silly, but accepting the situation is hard work, it requires humble surrender. Realizing that acceptance is the only option is the first step.

Over the past few years I have been dealing with a bad situation that I can't mention here "to protect the innocent." I tried to change the situation and I tried to make changes in me, and they caused only a subtle improvement. This week I learned that the situation is still here and bad. My wife and I had some tough soul searching to do on this yesterday and today, and came to the conclusion that we now must remove ourselves from this situation. This will take many months to do, if we are successful. If we are not, then it will be time to accept.

I pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit so that my wife and I may be able to discern and make the right choices with peace and joy in our heart.

Technorati Tags: Depression, Happiness

Who Am I? To Be, To Do…

Two of my recent posts, one on the readings from Sunday and one on HeyJules and her life awakening have brought out the topic of “Who am I? And what do I want to do with my life?” As I celebrated Jules, the ever inquisitive Lorna asked, “and you :) Who are you Hector?” Who Am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want to do? Here are some thoughts...

Not Just Living, but Thriving

Few things in life make me so happy than to see people begin to not just live, but thrive in life. These are typically people that pause to see how the clues in their life: passions, childhood activities, dormant talents, urges they are denying, their life stories all lead to defining how uniquely gifted they are in life. They discover that no one can paint, write, sing, lead, plan, or speak as they can because no one has had the exact life and natural talents that they have. It gives us fear to finally say "aha! I finally know who you really are and what you are here to do!" when looking in the mirror. It takes courage to have this revelation, because once we do, once we really believe what is starring in front of our eyes, life is no longer the same.

HeyJules from "Faith or Fiction?" just had such a moment, and I'm really happy for her. She said...

"I hereby discard what I once thought of as myself and replace it now with this:

I am a Christian.

I am a writer.

I am a photographer.

I am a woman, a sister, a child and an adult.

I am an animal lover.

I am a good and faithful friend.

I draw and paint my pictures with words, with sentences, and with paragraphs.

I paint this world with my photographs and with my vision.

I am an artist and I work for God."

Technorati Tags: Life Purpose

Blessed are the Meek

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the world... (Matt 5:5) What a challenging call when we live in a world that revolves around power and ego. This topic is also relevant to the call to conversion of this Sunday's readings.

Marie from Faith of the Fathers wrote a superb post on the concept of meekness. Please go and read the whole post...

"For the meek of heart know that in and of itself it has nothing to offer apart from what it has received from God, for all is Gift. For as Scripture reminds us, "If there is any encouragement in Christ, any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. each looking out not for his own interests, but (also) everyone for those of others.""

Technorati Tags: Virtues and character strengths

Gospel Reflection for Sunday January 22, 2006

This is my Scriptural reflection on the readings for Sunday, January 22, 2006. In these readings we learn about two calls, the call to conversion and the call to follow God's will and become "fishers of men." Jonah, St. Paul, and Jesus all call us to convert, to repent for our sins, to do penance, and to believe in a God of love and justice. Because of our human nature, it is almost impossible to not sin, but our God is a merciful one. Despite the sins of the people in the city of Nineveh, God forgave them when He saw that they were truly repentant, even the animals wore sackcloth and ashes. But repentance is only the first step in conversion.

Remember to Replenish

I had an interesting conversation with one of my coaching clients this week. She was emotionally and physically spent. She had nothing to give anyone or herself. She had just finished a big project for the company that went extremely well, but was emotionally and mentally taxing. I asked her what were her plans to replenish her energy, to re-energize and reconnect. She looked at me as if i was from Mars. "That sounds so selfish. I can't do that. I need to take care of others." This let to a very deep and interesting conversation. Memories of walking in the woods brought tears to her eyes.

I think we allow ourselves to get to the point that we are too tired to know we are too tired. Every now and then we need to invest in ourselves or we won't have anything to give anyone and we will get sick. I'm not talking about sitting to read a book or taking a nap. I mean something that would really increase our peace, joy, and focus. For me is a retreat in solitude, which I take three or so weekends a year. My wife is usually the barometer. She knows when I really needed it. The other thing is to spend a week by the beach. I wish all of you opportunities to re-connect with God, nature, and yourself...

Technorati Tags: Health