The 18th Day of Lent

I am floundering here. The two-week computer hiatus has thrown me off my stride. I need a focus for this blog. I looked at the Serenity Prayer one year. This year, I could reflect on the  Prayer of St. Francis.

Apparently it is  not something St. Francis of Assisi himself wrote, but was found, without attribution, on the back of a prayer card with a picture of the saint, which is how it got the name. Apparently this, like the Serenity Prayer, is also used by AA (according to my google search), but I did not know this when I thought of using it. And that's not the context for my reflections.
Here is the whole prayer:

Lord make me an instrument of your peace Where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, Joy.
O Divine Master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled
As to console;
To be understood,as to understand;
To be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

I could do a line a day on this. It is one of my favorite prayers.

So let me start with "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace."

That is not as easy as it sounds. It sounds like a wonderful idea. Make me an instrument of your peace. Let me be a peacemaker. Peacemakers are mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Who wouldn't want to be called a child of God? (OK, I guess a lot of people wouldn't, but still, that is something to aspire to in my opinion)

But when you start talking about peace these days, you can get attacked for it. You are weak, you are stupid, you are wishy washy, you are stupid. But peace is a good thing. Peace is getting along, respecting others, trying to understand others and even if you cannot, at least allowing them to be who they are, short of allowing them to harm you in some direct way.

But this is related to praying to God and asking that "not my will, but yours" be done. That is a hard thing to pray and mean sincerely. We all have agendas, and we all have turf to protect, one  way or another. But truly, we do not have to be aggressive or hurt others to further our own interests. We can, as Catholics say, die to self and when we do that, we can sincerely ask God to become a channel or instrument of his peace on this Earth. And when that happens, when we are able to put aside our petty desires and fears, envy and pride, then we find happiness that is unlike anything we might  have expected to find.

May the peace of Christ be with you this day.

The 17th Day of Lent (I think)

Well, go figure. Technology and its mysterious failure foiled my attempt to blog regularly during Lent. First I couldn't  print anything, and wasted a lot of time trying to fix that, and then after I took my laptop into the shop for a diagnostic scan, I came home and it got worse. It was clearly connected to the Internet, I could see the signal strength and that it was connected to the correct network, but the browsers couldn't actually access the Internet. After a home visit from a tech guy, who told me it was over his head, I shut it down and this morning, while waiting for a second tech guy to show up, and already convinced I would have to buy a new laptop, I turned it on. I shut down the crazy windows that had opened when the tech guy was here previously, and suddenly got a "printer installation complete" message, out of the blue. So I tried to print something, and voila! It worked, first time in about three weeks.
So I proceeded to open a web browser, and guess what? It worked. Then the tech guy arrived, and he couldn't find anything wrong, although he knew the background and had talked to the other tech guy while he was at my house.
If this laptop was a person who had contracted a deadly illness, I would say it was a miraculous healing. A bonafide miracle.
So now I can continue my Lenten blogging. I think, however, that I will repost something I wrote hastily earlier today and posted on Facebook, because of the response I got there. It's about negative and positive thoughts and words.
Here it is:

Some people seem to spend a lot of time looking for things to be outraged about, or to be critical of, or to generally be negative about. I mostly ignore that stuff. I would rather do what I can to make life better for someone. Like the HUGS scarf program for children of people who visit the Joseph House Crisis Center. Or paying it forward. Or random acts of kindness. Or supporting local, sustainable commerce or agriculture. That's my preference. There are two sides to every story, and unless you get both sides, and are willing to really hear both sides, you're just blowing steam. That's hot air. Waste of my limited time on Earth.

That's not a religious or spiritual rant,  not at first glance. but I would argue that there are spiritual elements here. They have to do with how we "talk" to ourselves, and how we view this world in which we live.
It was inspired by reading a plethora of posts on Facebook that picked up on some "outrageous" thing that happened and using that to justify rather broad-based criticisms or indictments of people, groups or whatever, as if that one negative event represented so many others, or somehow revealed the intentions of a broad group of people.
It's one thing to say "this is an example of  how things can be taken too far, and we should be vigilant to make sure it doesn't  happen again," and entirely different to say "see, all (insert category, such as liberals, conservatives, poor people, rich people, etc.) are (insert adjective: lazy, cunning, evil, greedy, or whatever) and this proves it. When are we going to say enough is enough, and do something about it?"
What is the purpose of the latter? To evoke outrage, or to appear wiser than someone else? Why? Does it accomplish anything? Does it make anyone's life better? Or is it a roundabout way to complain that you don't like paying taxes or high prices? 
I am no saint, but I find life more bearable when I have somehow contributed to someone else's life in a positive way. All of the things I listed above, the scarves, the sustainable community support, or doing something nice for someone else in a random way, they all make someone's day better in some fashion. 
It's easy to complain; sometimes less easy to find something to be positive about. But it's better to make a small difference for the better than to waste precious time being negative or self-righteous or critical of someone else. That's my point for today.