Today, while in what I call the “Post-Meditative State,” I wondered if something spiritual might have occurred when I was much younger. I then thought of a time when I was in first grade at a Roman Catholic Church School. Sister Saint Leonard had chosen me to be one of the so-called angels. The duty of an “Angel” was to guide the second graders to the front of the church where they were to receive their first Holy Communion from a priest.
While growing up in a Catholic School, I met all kinds of nuns. Some I liked more than others. I was kind of like the class clown, or a class-clown wannabe, and got called out by many of the good teachers wearing the black coverings with the bullet-proof white vests covering their chests. I went to Saint Ludwig’s, a church school in what was then a predominantly German neighborhood of North Philadelphia called “Brewerytown.”
A friend of mine is “into” Angels. “Suspend your disbelief,” he told me, explaining how belief in angels re-materialized into his life recently. I knew at that moment that the resistance he had spoken of was puffing out its chest and stepping between me and the computer screen where his words appeared.
(Written by Melanie Kriebel)
It took several hours for the effects of the Sweat Lodge ceremony to kick in, but when it did, I realized the control I always thought I needed was not in my hands, but in what the Greeks called the Fates; the Christians, God; and the Buddhists, Karma.
Deborah loved with a love that was more than a love. Cupid’s arrow struck her just as a choir of angels sang and a special cherub played the most beautiful music in all the land over an ancient lyre, the same instrument that a shepherd boy named David once played to honor the God of the Psalms. 
O Grand Master, it is your females that will save this species. It is through their power, their innate abilities, that man will be saved. Compassion and love must rule the day again. And power must be crushed by the mallet of humility before any dare sends another child into war that old men dream of winning as if playing games of adolescent ruffians. 
Ouch! Give up my manhood? Turn in my boxing gloves, my rifle, my drink? What will I become when I grow up? Who will I protect, gather food for, “sexualize” in thoughts actions and deeds my every waking minute?
You will bow and respect for evermore your Divine Mother forevermore. I will take your life away as quickly and as surely as I have given it to you. Obey this: Be Still and Know that I Am God.
I need your strength to build, not tear down; to give hope and not despair; to “fight” without lifting a fist but by raising your spirit so mightily it will dash to pieces the most formidable enemy your kind has ever faced.
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Shed tears not for fallen comrades but for the joy in conquering obscurations you never thought could be overcome.
March proudly waving flags of festive, holiday colors to announce a new day is here, and that you will never return to the days of old guts and glory.
You will thrive only when realizing that skillful means discerned with honest and gentle wisdom must be employed in all human endeavors.
Love, tolerate, and above all, learn patience as the antidote to all the poisons your kind has been exposed to. Do it now. Tomorrow may be too late.
I will spare man, but only if he spares the feminine within himself.
Reality shifted on me the other day, and it helped me realize that I have more control than my “resifted” thoughts allowed me to see. Now, with a “time-control outlook,” I can try to change my world for the better.  Continue reading
We should accept Rush Limbaugh’s apology for calling a woman a slut only if he agrees to take and pass a course on female reproduction. Then, and only then, can we be assured that someone other than locker-room juveniles has finally taught him the real facts about the birds and the bees. Continue reading
I don’t understand all the fuss that Catholic universities and hospitals are raising over providing health care for women that includes mandatory birth control provisions. Why not let “Practicing Catholics” follow the teachings of their church to “opt out” for the coverage, while permitting non-Catholics what doctors and women’s groups say is a health benefit?  Continue reading
Well, if you trace the history of something called corporate “personhood,” you can blame this inglorious recognition on an unelected clerk writing a summary of a court decision that never actually decided this issue.  Continue reading
Actively seek out someone in your church, synagogue or temple and befriend him so that what happened in Philadelphia last week never happens again.  Continue reading
I can think of no worse place to be than in a church, a temple, or a synagogue when an unbidden and involuntary giggle would invade my psyche and take control of me. A “giggle” is too mild a word: uncontrollable laughter would rise to the level of guffaws and downright knee-slappers, right at the most somber parts of a religious service. Continue reading
I’ll take them in all shapes and sizes, the old and the young, the rich and the poor.
If it wasn’t for women, I — and a lot of guys I know — wouldn’t even be here! Continue reading
Indulgences are some things I never thought I’d think about once I finished with my Catholic upbringing and moved onto Eastern Studies and the spiritual advice from the Kabbalah. But there I was reading how someone could limit their time in purgatory by performing certain acts and saying prayers.  Continue reading
“Oh my God,” I said as the ad in “Lucky Magazine” finally registered. “Oh my God,’ echoed the 62-year-old woman seated next to me after showing her the promotion to “taste” the “additive” and “natural” flavor of American Spirit Tobacco.
Getting over my shock of seeing such an ad in print, I looked closer at the magazine. Continue reading
On this Veterans Day, 11-11-11, what would you tell yourself if you could go back in time and greet that young man recently returned home from the war?
When I read the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were unfocused and without a coherent message, I took a closer look at them in Philadelphia, and discovered some were disheveled street persons looking for handouts, and one was a graduate school political science major spouting Marxist teaching.
It’s so wonderful to welcome you to visit. You return when I least expect you, embracing me and bringing peace and calm just when I still myself and end needless thoughts.
Are any thoughts actually needed when I go within? I need but seek a quiet moment with no thought save the intent to be free of the past and the future, thus ensuring I will rest “In the Now.”
Contoveros 