My LIVING Group

January 24, 2015
Day 269

Several years ago, I created an online group for spiritual discussion, and it had a very successful, very happy run at the time.  I called it LIVING, which stood for Long Island Voices In and Near God.  On September 18, 2006, we began meeting regularly at my apartment in Central Islip, where 5-10 of us would watch a movie or documentary with some spiritual theme, and then discuss it for a while afterward.  This went on happily until our last such gathering on May 6, 2009.  Andy and I bought our house in Malverne that summer, and though I had every intention of restarting the group in our new home, it still hasn't happened.

The experiences I had with this group were sometimes fun, sometimes sad, and sometimes extraordinary.  We listened to each other's stories and upbringings in different faith traditions, shared our truths and beliefs in a safe, nonjudgmental way, and mostly just enjoyed the time we spent together stretching our hearts and minds to all possibilities.

I'll never forget the time we were watching a movie called Let It Ride, with the theme of luck and prayer, and halfway through the movie, we heard the sound of a car crash outside.  It was a hit and run, as the driver had side-swiped the car of one of our group members and then driven off!  What a thing to have happen to him, especially on a night dedicated to a discussion of luck!

On another night, we were watching an informational video on the Passover meal.  It was a beautiful DVD I still have, which detailed why the meal is celebrated, and what various traditions surrounding the holiday entail.  We were all thoroughly enjoying it, but then the father of the family featured in the film, the man talking to the camera the whole time, paused suddenly and said something like, "And Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of this prophecy."  We all looked at each other in shock.  It was a Jews For Jesus DVD, a propaganda film made to convince Jews to follow Jesus in a most subversive way--and we had no idea!  We laughed a bit after the shock wore off, but it was definitely one of the most surprising movie twists I've ever seen!

I genuinely hope to restart these spiritual gatherings again at some point, at my home or elsewhere, and with or without the cinematic portion.  I'm proud of the group, and happy to have helped facilitate some incredibly meaningful conversations during those years.  The reason I started it then is the same reason I'd restart it now: because we don't spend enough time talking about the big picture.

God doesn't write books

September 14, 2014
Day 137

I'm not sure how the rumor ever got started, to be honest with you.  Omnipotent deity creates the universe and everything in it, fashions time and space and the laws that guide it, and then when he's all done, he says, "I think I'd like to write a book now."

Really?  I mean...really?

I grew up with the Bible (with so-called Old and New Testaments), just as I understand people in other places grew up with just the Torah, or the Hebrew Scriptures with the Torah, or the Koran, or the Tao Te Ching, or the Bhagavad Gita, or any of several other holy books.  I was told that the words written inside were quite literally written or dictated by God Himself (the capital H was apparently very important).

And then, as time went on, I slowly realized this was actually kind of ridiculous. 

God wrote a book?  And not those other books billions of people instead follow for their religion?  And God wanted these truths to be followed, and no others?  It just seemed a little too simple for me, the more I thought about it.  It all seemed a bit too limited for the creator of all to have written or inspired. 

God, I decided once and for all, was bigger than this, and smarter than this.  God could not be described and confined to just this one book, no matter how thick it was.

Maybe it's because I just watched the movie Philomena last night, in which some nasty nuns did some horrible things in the name of God.  Or maybe it was because an Orthodox Jewish friend of mine down in Florida is struggling with his burgeoning homosexuality right now, in a Yeshiva that simply would not tolerate him or his sickness if he dared to ever come out.  Or maybe it's just that both of these situations reminded me of the crap I had to go through as a monk, when I was told whistling was forbidden in the monastery, that I was wrong for voting for Al Gore, and that the Holy Spirit and not medicine would cure my serious illness.

The truth is, religion and its books are not infallible.  In fact, the only proof I see over history is that they are all very, very fallible!  Religion is about defining God, and telling human beings exactly what God believes, because unlike any of us, some religious folk seem to have just been given the gift of knowledge, and wanted to share it with us all out of the goodness of their hearts or something.

I hate to use the word bullshit, yet so much of it really is.  At the same time though, I do believe in God, and I do believe a lot of what people have written about God and spirituality in general is true.  I've just come to see over time how much work I have to do to find those diamonds amidst the coal, and to pull back all that tissue paper to find the gift inside.  As Dr. Rentaro Hashimoto, chair of the Philosophy department at Manhattan College once told me, "Usually what 'they' say is valuable, but what's valuable is usually surrounded by garbage."

I truly love God, and I care very much about the search for God and spirit in my lifetime.  But I'm done with any fixed belief system that thinks it's got the whole truth and nothing but the truth, especially if they think everyone else is just wrong. 

I'm not sure how the rumors ever got started that God was in the book-writing business, but man, can't we all just wake up already?  We can be Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, or any other religion, and we can do so with more open minds, appreciating and respecting a faith journey of any kind as one of several paths to the same destination. 

Most of all, can we please just stop stop loving any thing in this world (books, flags, and creeds inclusive) more than we love our fellow human beings?  God doesn't write books.  People do.  And that should have been our first clue that there was a pretty good chance some things would get lost in translation!

The Death Penalty And You

July 13, 2014
          Day 74

Another uncomfortable topic I choose not to make any more uncomfortable than it needs to be...

I'm also going to do the opposite of what I did in my reflection on abortion yesterday.  Today, I'm going to make it clear right from the start that I am 100% opposed to the death penalty in any form for any person for any crime.

We get into discussions about costs to the tax payers for jail cells, deterrents to criminals for their heinous acts, and ways to ease the pain of those whose loved ones have been killed, but at the end of the day, choosing to end a human life should be the only thing we're talking about.  And no matter how awful the crime, no matter how many lives were taken, no matter how cruel and uncaring the criminal, why do we have the right to kill a human being because they have killed human beings?

I simply refuse to believe that taking any life in response to any death is a just decision.  If something horrible happened to my own family member or partner, I would go insane with grief, but I wouldn't have the right to retribution.  Martin Luther King, Jr. put it best when he said, "That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind.  The time is always right to do the right thing."

I respect most people's beliefs and opinions on the matter, and I respect your reasons and rights to have said opinions.  I just refuse to agree that any human being has any right to take any other human being's life.  I hope you'll understand I'm very steadfast in this personal belief, and whether you agree with me or not, I hope we can always choose to talk about things more than we do without just accepting the awful realities around us.  May we always, as a society and as a species, choose to engage in honest, kind, philosophical (if not spiritual) discussion on this and many other topics.  Keeping the conversation open is always, always, always a great place to start!

The Direct Connection

July 6, 2014
        Day 67

There are a few things I'd like to say right now, but first and foremost, let me be clear: I do have a direct connection to God.  I don't talk about it often, but yeah, it's true.  God and me are tight.

That said, I don't have a phone I can pick up and call God on, and neither can I receive calls from God on my cell phone or on any mobile device.  Perhaps the technology will be there in a post-Planet In Between world, but we aren't there yet unfortunately.

We actually all do, however, have a direct connection within us.  It isn't a phone line or an e-mail address.  It's not even a Morse code or a smoke signal we can send.  But we do have the technology to talk to God and Heaven at any time, day or night.  Their hotline is open 24/7...even on Christmas!  (Though there may be a short delay during some World Cup matches, so please stay on the line for the next available operator.)

Inside each human being, and quite possibly inside some of our pets too, we have a built-in transmitter that connects us directly to the creator of the universe.  We don't have to ever use it, as many agnostics and atheists choose not to (and that's okay!), but we do have the power.  It came with our operating system, and still works on all models.  The instructions, too, are easy.  All we need to do is talk, or even just think about what we want to say, and the message will be received.  That's it!  That's all you have to do!

Here's the only teeny, tiny catch though: you'll get no response.  God will hear you loud and clear, even if the connection seems muddled on your end, but God won't do anything about it.  I'm sorry, I really am, but it seems to be the way things work. 

Sure, some people will tell you that God does get involved and does save some lives here and there, but when they say this, they're actually painting a pretty damned cruel version of God.  If God helps save one life and ignores another, if God saves a bus filled with children on one day and not on another, or even if God saves three thousand people from disaster on one afternoon and lets another fifty thousand perish elsewhere on the next day, what kind of messed up reality would that be? 

If you believe your direct connection is better than another person's, you're not just full of yourself.  You're really, really full of yourself.

Is there a direct connection?  Yes.  Do we all have it?  Yes.  Do some of us have better connections than others that can make God answer our prayers and requests more than others?  No.  That would just be fucked up.  Sorry, but it's true.

Our direct connection to God is a one-way call while we're living on this planet, and that's okay with me.  I know this life we're living right now just is what it is, and I refuse to believe in a version of God who saves one baby from disaster but lets another suffer and die.  I don't believe in a cruel, picky kind of a deity.  If you'd like to believe in that kind of a malicious justice system, knock yourself out.  But I won't.

Despite all the beliefs I have heard from a whole lot of people, I have learned this much in my first 40 years: no one gets more of God's love based on how much they went to church or how often they cited scripture.  The only reason that formula makes so much sense to so many people is because it's how their own brains work.  They treat people better based on how they are treated (a very unChristlike philosophy by the way).  Instead, I believe the creator of all answers all calls from all people.  He listens, and She loves.  And everything that happens here on Earth?  It happens. 

But do keep calling!  Parents enjoy hearing from their children, after all.  They don't generally like hearing their children fight with each other though, so stop that!

Failing by Succeeding

June 18, 2014
          Day 49/365

It was a warm Friday morning in the summer of 1993, and I was on a "Young Brothers Trip" to the Cloisters Museum in Fort Tryon Park, in upper Manhattan. 

We walked around the grounds, filled with artifacts and even whole buildings brought over from old monasteries in Europe.  Very quickly, my soul was transported to another amazing reality as I looked all around me.  I could almost envision the monks walking around praying, and as a new monk myself, my mind was filled with happy thoughts of what my own monastic life would entail.

But like something out of a high school movie (I was still just 18), everything stopped, as I realized the older priest in our group was asking me a question.  I came out of my daydream and saw everyone just staring at me, judging me for not paying attention. 

I had been in a state of contemplation and awe, a mindful meditation space happening to me and through me, but because I failed to hear this priest's question, I was made to feel as if I'd failed in some way.  There was a definite sense of judgment from the others, one I came to know all too well in several other occasions over those years.  For succeeding in being monk-like, in allowing my soul to tap into a higher presence, a more devout mind space, I came across like a failure through my inability to pay attention.

It was not an actual failure on my part, just a very real success cloaked in the appearance of failure.  It was an embarrassing moment in my life I still remember quite well, and yet it also continues to inspire much more than shame me.  It inspires me to strive for cultural failure, to always be the counter-cultural person I was taught in the monastery to be.  It inspires me to be mindful of the invisible world all around me, much more so than the visible one taking place in a trillion little movements every second of the day.  And most importantly, it inspires me to redefine success and failure in my own personal way.

We succeed in our own time, our own methods, our own way, not in the ways others do.  We walk our own path, not the one others walk on.  And we cannot let others make us feel like failures for succeeding differently.  Sometimes we even seem to fail by succeeding, but it's still an absolute success whether others see it that way or not. 

No matter which way the various paths all stray, we all end up in the same place, and the gardens of life are worth appreciating from all angles.

Super Soul Sunday

An advertisement for Super Soul Sunday on OWN.

June 15, 2014.
       Day 46/365

One of the happier facts of my life at 39 is watching how much the world is waking up to a higher consciousness.  There's a new energy pulsing on this planet like never before, and I have to believe it's because we're more connected to one another in the past 15-20 years than we ever were before.

Organized religion, though constantly successful, is often taking a side seat to ordinary spirituality in all its many extraordinary manifestations.  As a human race, we are exploring the soul within us through more and more methods, books, classes, and teachers than ever.  We're opening our eyes for the very first time to new truths which are really just old truths, perennial truths, that are sprouting all over the Earth in ways we've never seen before.

My favorite so-called "new age" teacher is Wayne Dyer, who you've no doubt seen on PBS as well as Oprah's shows many times.  He's even been on The Tonight Show and other entertainment shows many, many times, always smiling widely, always happy, always thoughtful and helpful.  Wayne was also one of the first guests on Oprah's show, Super Soul Sunday.

Super Soul Sunday is on at 11 AM Eastern Time every Sunday morning in the United States, on her widely popular OWN channel.  Each week, she has a new guest on, and she just chats with them one on one about all kinds of soul-related awesomeness.  Each person has a slightly different take on God, or spirit, or soul, and each shares his or her approach to spirituality.  And it's one of my favorite programs to watch every week! 

I love that the show is on late enough for me to sleep in and not miss it, but mostly I love how real it is.  Spirituality isn't the judgmental kind of Scripture-thumping you get at church or the synagogue, and it's not some namby-pamby version of the truth either!  Spirituality is just the path you choose to take to get in touch with Spirit.  It's an open ended, wall-less, roof-less wisdom we pursue with an open heart and an open mind.  It's free from dogma and law, and finds its feet instead in the humble pursuit of the Truth we all seek within and outside of religion.

If you haven't seen Oprah's Super Soul Sunday programs, I hope you'll consider tuning in.  They're available on demand and online too.  Do yourself a huge favor and tune in on Sunday mornings at 11 AM on OWN.  Find a comfy spot on the couch or in your bed, make yourself a cup of delicious coffee, and prepare to have your soul lifted up!  I promise you it will make your whole week that much better!

Things which matter least

May 24, 2014.

There's a quote I came across at some point in the past two years, which I keep now above my desk at work:

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." --Goethe

It's just become one of those life mantras I absolutely adore, and it reminds me how unbelievably silly we all can be.  We throw away friendships and relationships for the stupidest possible things, misconceptions and mistaken understandings more often than any other.  We quit jobs, we leave programs, and we otherwise make reckless decisions based on one bad day, experience, or interaction.

So much of life's good gets thrown away with the bad.  The baby is thrown out with the bath water, and the nose is cut off to spite the face. 

The older I get, the sillier I realize we all are.  And it's in the midst of this silliness-recognition process that you really begin to see the absolute beauty of life, instead of the other way around.  You break two eggs into the pan to cook up some breakfast, before you realize a little piece of shell fell in.  The egg is bubbling away, and it's too difficult to get just that little piece of shell out on its own.  So you dig out a piece of the egg too, just to be sure you got the shell out.  The breakfast isn't ruined, and the majority of the eggs will still be fine. 

When we let the things which matter least mess up the things which matter most, we've totally relinquished common sense.  We've allowed our melting heartstrings to bubble up in the pan, instead of just taking a wide-angled view of the situation, and fixing the small issue calmly. 

The photo I'm attaching here is a shot Andy took of me on Ka'anapali Beach in Maui in May, 2012.  At the moment this photo was taken, I was looking around for a safe place to move into the water, as there was a lot of underwater coral in the area.  We were leaving Hawaii the next day to head back to New York after 10 full days there, and though most of my amateur snorkeling time I was in a more secluded area, on this day we were in a crowded (for Maui) stretch of beach.  We came over to this area because I was hoping I'd see my first sea turtle, but the search wasn't looking good. 

When I look at this photo now though, I see two things.  I see all the frustration, disappointment, and anxiety I was feeling, but I also see the people further out, and I remember they were the ones I swam with minutes later.  They were the ones who called out, "Turtle!"  They were the ones who followed a giant sea turtle (several feet long) as it swam into shore right out in front of me.  And they were the ones who, after we all saw the turtle under the water, shared a moment of purest bliss with me.  We were strangers, but as our heads came up from under the water, our faces all mirrored the same amazing emotion, huge smiles from ear to ear as we looked at each other completely speechless, in awe of nature, in love with life.

It's all about perspective, and taking a moment to look back from any given situation from a better view.  And how about that view! 

There are so many ridiculously silly things that happen throughout our lives, and so many miniscule events and interactions that shape way too many of our life experiences.  Eggshells have no right spoiling our breakfasts, and things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.  Life's too fucking short!

Choose Your Speed

May 23, 2014.

Each afternoon during my lunch break, I like to drive over to the park near my job, and eat my salad right there in my car.  That way, it's easy to just jump out afterward and begin walking.

All around the park on the nicest days, people of all ages and speeds are out walking.

I walk quickly past an older couple in their 70s, and feel a pang of guilt, as if I'm showing off or something.  I often send out a telepathic message to them that says, "I'm on my lunch break, so I have to keep moving quickly!  Otherwise I'd walk slowly like you...not that you're walking slowly or anything!"

Very often I'll pass people who are right around the speed I prefer to go, so I have to speed up to get past them, then time it just right to start slowing back down to regular speed once I'm far enough in front.  It's like a game, or a science.  An art form really...the kind of art I hate.

The runners, though?  They make me feel like an old slowpoke as they whir past me.  "Oh, I used to walk," I imagine them telling me, "I used to just meander around like you, as slow as can be, but now I can do this."  How rude!  I admire them anyway though, and hope to some day join them!

No matter what speed we're all going though, fast or slow, we're all enjoying the trip.  We all chose to go to this park and move around a bit.  None of the people I see there live in the park, as far as I can tell, but whether it's from our homes or our jobs, we've all decided to take some time to be with nature.  We've all made the time to move around this beautiful park, smell the freshness of late spring, and bask in the sunlight bursting through the treetops.

The speed with which we all move is irrelevant, and the time it takes me to get around the large path is neither better nor worse than the time it takes others.  We're all just appreciating the park, and appreciating the blessings of time itself. 

Impatience is not a virtue

May 19, 2014.

When I was little, someone taught me this phrase, which has stuck with me my whole life:

"Patience is a virtue.  Possess it if you can.  Seldom found in women.  Never found in man."

I've always had an innate tendency toward impatience.  It may have come from growing up in a house of 10-13 people and fighting over bathroom or TV rights, I'm not sure.  I just know I've always struggled to remain patient, and the older I get, the more I work against its pull.  Turning 39 though has also reminded me that slowing things down a bit is a very good thing, and maybe rushing around so much is counter-intuitive to enjoying a long, happy life.

I guess we all like the idea of remaining patient, because somewhere in our head, we imagine good things coming to those who wait....another phrase we all picked up along the way!

But patience isn't easy when you're stuck behind a wall of traffic on the parkway, already running late to work.  It isn't easy when you're looking down at the scale to see how your diet and exercise regimen is going, when you know you can't change any of the numbers on that scale for the moment. 

And patience isn't easy when you're at a live concert like the one I went to this weekend, and a lady two rows in front of you has decided to very, VERY slowly type a text to a friend.  The lights have gone out and the band is playing, but this woman has decided her cellphone's light is a better attraction for the audience to look at.  She's made the command decision to entertain us all as she slowly searches for the keys one at a time, as if she's never typed before in her frickin' life.  "I-'-M...A-T...A...C-O-N-C-E-R-T.  W-H-A-T...A-R-E...Y-O-U...D-O-I-N-G?" I imagine she writes.  My patience is nonexistent in moments like this.  Instead, my desire to rip out my soul for a minute for safe keeping, as I leap over the seats and begin smashing the cellphone over her skull takes over.

[Deep breaths, Sean, deep breaths.  Ohmmmmm.  Namaste.  Love.  Allhappythoughts.  Ohmmmm.]

What have I learned from patience so far?  I've learned that patience is considered a virtue because it's so hard!  Unlike breathing, eating, talking, and living, which are realities we all live with, patience is called a virtue because we have to aspire to it.  In other words, it's not innate in everyone!  How cool is that?! 

So the next time you feel impatient, you should allow yourself to feel, well, normal!  And if you're feeling particularly virtuous, then you can go ahead and be patient.  It may not be the stuff of sainthood, but it's a healthy step above ripping that woman's cellphone from her selfish little fingers and destroying it in a million tiny little pieces on the floor, as you cackle right in front of her indignant, shock-filled face!

Ohmmm.  Ohmmm.  Ohmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!

Our Disposable Culture

May 16, 2014.

Last time I heard, the Earth was still spinning at the same rate, and time was taking the normal amounts of itself to pass us by.  I think if you really stopped to look, though, you'd see we're moving faster and faster as a human race now than ever before.  And we're missing a hell of a lot in the process.

We collect and collect all the time: clothes, friends, movies, books, experiences, and destinations.  But then, very quickly, we need more.  We need more shoes, more books, more pictures and experiences from more trips.  And they're all just stacking up everywhere we look. 

Our disposable culture isn't just in stuff we can hold in our hands, or things to do, but in our online self-sharing too.  We post to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and more all the time.  We literally "throw ourselves out" there for others to collect.  We want to be loved, to be accepted, to be laughed at because of what we said, to be celebrated for our most recent quip or story.

All of life has become disposable.  We retain memories and post throwback pictures of times gone by, but the seconds, minutes, months, and years are flying past us, and all we're doing is throwing more and more out into the wind.

And yet none of that is an innately evil fact.  Putting ourselves "out there" is not an immoral truth about ourselves, nor is the speed with which we're doing it.  But it's worth pausing, for at least the few moments it's taking you to read this, to examine what exactly we're accomplishing with all of this disposing.  How are we growing ourselves or our lives because of it?  How are we helping our minds and souls to learn from life?

The truth is, we're all just like kids standing in front of a fan.  We toss a feather, a plastic bag, or a tissue in front of the fan to see what happens.  It's a game of cause and effect on a larger scale, that gets more and more complicated the more people we're reaching through our words and actions. 

A throwaway comment about a celebrity becomes a lot more powerful when it's done on a public forum where the celebrity--a human being--happens to frequent.  A simple comment on a friend's post gets chopped up and reread in a way we never even intended.  We throw out words and actions constantly, sometimes for fun, and sometimes to see what will happen.  Sometimes the plastic bag flies up in the wind, and sometimes it gets caught in the fan blades and is destroyed.

Our disposable culture is everywhere, and the only way to stop becoming such emotional litterbugs is to really focus on what we choose to put out there.  Your garbage is your business, and it shouldn't be thrown all around the emotional and digital highways of the world.  Likewise, your talents, your love, and your best self is always welcome to spread itself around.  Offer goodness and kindness to the world, and goodness and kindness will, more often than not, come wafting your way in return.

Perspective

May 15, 2014.

Perspective is everything. 

When I reached my 18th birthday, I had already decided to dedicate my life to the service of others as a Roman Catholic monk.  I received a very clear calling from God to do this, and so I listened and happily obeyed.

When I reached my 21st birthday, I was feeling great about my school work and my grades, and I'd begun writing more and more in my private journals.  Living as a monk was difficult a lot of the time, but with each passing year, I felt like I was finally getting the hang of it all, and life was great.

When I reached my 22nd birthday, I was suffering with clinical depression.  My religious superiors wouldn't allow me to get the medicine my doctor told me I needed, and they wouldn't let me tell anyone what I was going through either.  Instead of letting others know I was seeing a psychologist every week for an often debilitating illness, I was instructed to instead just lie, and say I was going to speak with a priest in the other community.  I was sure now that I was gay, and felt more trapped and lonely than ever before.

When I reached my 25th birthday, I was already out of the religious order for almost three years, living with friends in a house share down by the beach.  My father had died the summer before, and my spirituality was just beginning to blossom in new ways.  Reaching my 25th birthday was like finally coming alive, even though I still hadn't really begun dating much.

When I reached my 30th birthday, I was already with my partner Andy for three and a half years.  My mother had just died the autumn before, and Andy and I had now moved out of our family homes, and gotten an apartment together. 

When I reached my 35th birthday, I was now a homeowner for almost a year, having purchased a house with my partner Andy.  I had a great job as a proofreader with Publishers Clearing House, and even got to surprise people with money a few times.  Though life had dealt me some very difficult times too, things were generally good, and I was happy.

By the time I reach my 40th birthday, I will have already been out of college and the monastic life for 18 years.  It will have already been 15 years since I lived with friends down by the beach.  It will be over 10 years since my mom died, and over 15 years since my dad died.  I'll have been with my partner Andy for over 13 years, we'll have been in our home for over six years, and I'll have been at my current wonderful job for four years.  I'll have also published my first three books by then, and already preparing the fourth for publication as well.

I can't say I would have seen any of the above happening just a year before each of them did.  But life does that.  It surprises you.  You can plan things out, and keep moving forward, but things just happen.  People just die.  Love finally arrives.  Jobs end and new ones begin.  Sadness and joy just show up, in unequal measures, at different times.  The list of things I can't tell you goes on forever.  The only thing I can tell you for certain is, perspective is everything. 

Some words I live by

May 13, 2014.

Today I thought I'd just share a few of my favorite phrases, quotations, and words that inspire or otherwise excite me.  Some may resonate with you more than others, but I hope you'll learn something by my sharing these with you here.  I pray those who have seen me in my weakest times will understand I always pursue these truths and more even when I do not always succeed.

Life's too short. 
I say this one all the time, along with some version of this: "I heard a breaking news story this morning that apparently we only live once."  I'm a firm believer in the afterlife, and an eternal life in Heaven, but I believe we get tons of time here to work things out for ourselves, and we should be constantly honing our emotional and spiritual intelligence.


Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least. --Goethe
So true!  Way too often, we put our focus on our own temporary happiness rather than the good of all people.  And in conjunction with this quotation, there's this one (widely attributed, but I heard it from Dr. Wayne Dyer): "It's better to be nice than to be right."  You can still be right, but be nice first.

Be still and know that I am God. 
I meditate to this phrase almost every day of my life.  I've written about it a lot in my second book, and I'll no doubt write more about it in the future.  It's my favorite mantra, and one I pray all the time.

I spent my thirties fixing all the things I broke in my twenties. --Eddie Murphy
This is one I've used to inspire me throughout the past decade.  I didn't break a whole lot in my twenties, but the quotation has helped me put things in perspective big time.

It's funny how the people who tell you you're too sensitive are always the same ones who are the most insensitive to you.
Not much else to say except I fully endorse this truth.  You cannot scold someone for being too sensitive while you yourself are being insensitive. 

We only do well what we do with joy. -Saint Thomas Aquinas
Amen!  My greatest accomplishments have always begun with joy!

All things, taken one by one, are good, and all things, taken together, are very good.  For our God has made all things very good. --Saint Augustine
When I first read this quotation in college, I stood up immediately and walked outside.  I repeated it several times to fully grasp what he was saying.  And then I literally jumped for joy!  It was one of the greatest ah-ha moments I've ever experienced.

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. --Alfred Korzybski
Talk about a mantra for my life!  I've always found myself in this huge no-man's land between hyper-religious folk and hyper-unreligious folk.  Neither group seems to like me very much, because I believe in a balanced understanding of all things.  I believe in God, but I don't believe in forcing God on people.  I believe in the right to life, but I also believe in a woman's right to choose. 

I believe most people are trying to do the right thing, and most people mean well.  Hate isn't a virtue I espouse, but giving people time to nicely express the struggles of their soul on a given topic is always something I'm open to.  We get nowhere with yelling.  We can get always somewhere with calm, open, loving dialogue.

What the hell's wrong with expressing yourself, for wanting to be me? --Billy Elliot The Musical, lyrics by Lee Hall

Be yourself!  Be you! 

I have discovered that all of man's misfortunes come from a single source; mainly that he is incapable of staying still in his room. --Blaise Pascal
I can't say Pascal could be proven right in every circumstance every time, but I believe he was onto something here.  The Buddhists have it right.  I need to start building a temple in my backyard.  In the mean time, giving myself some quiet alone time every day is a great start!

May The Fourth Be With You

May 4, 2014.

"May the fourth be with you" is a funny phrase playing on a cool cultural quote from Star Wars: "May the force be with you", but what is the force, and why do we "pray" that it be with someone?  The answer to the second part is simple: we don't need to hope it is with someone, because it already is.  If anything, we're requesting that the person tap into the force.  Turn off their soul's visors and just believe.  Answering the first part, about what the force is?  Well, that's a little trickier.

I don't know why I've had such an interesting life, but I believe I have.  I'm the son of a mother whose first husband was tragically killed when he was just 29 years old, leaving my mom suffering his loss while nine months pregnant with their fifth child, the four others all still under 6 years old.  And I'm the son of a poet and writer who was known all around JFK Airport in Queens as The Poet Laureate of Kennedy Airport, a title even astronaut Frank Borman recognized him for.  My father had lost his first wife to breast cancer at a very young age too, leaving him an immigrant widow from Ireland now with four small children to raise on his own in this new country.  My mother raised her first five children, then helped raise my father's first four children, and then had me and then my younger sister on top of that.  Giving birth and giving love were two of her greatest achievements in life.  And my father was constantly giving his gifts as a writer to his friends, family, and colleagues at Eastern Airlines and JFK Airport.  So right from the start, I was born into a family that knew profound suffering and grief, but also knew how to give, and give beautifully.

The force is strong in my family.

I was a well behaved little kid for the most part, and loved serving mass as an altar boy and later Bishop's Server at St. Agnes Cathedral on Long Island.  It was there on June 26, 1986 that I heard Mother Teresa speak about vocations.  I don't remember exactly what she said, but maybe something special clicked with me, because two months after I turned 18, I joined a monastery, and became Brother Sean.  I lived there under the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience until the summer after I turned 22.  Four of the most formative years of my life were spent learning about who God was, and who I was created to be.  And in the years since then, I have also learned who God is not, and how much more God's love matters than the tenets of any book or religious practice. 

I've been a gay pride activist, I've been a Humanitarian of the Year recipient, I've been a Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol Deputy, I've been a monk, I've been a poet, and I've been an author of books. 

The force is strong with me.

I don't know why the force is strong with me, but I do know the exact date my life changed forever.  It wasn't when I was born or when I heard Mother Teresa speak.  It wasn't on my pilgrimage to Rome or on any of my trips to Ireland, England, France, Hawaii, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, Mexico, or Canada.  It also wasn't when I was called to be a monk, or when I published my first book, or when I published my second book.  It wasn't any of the times I heard Pope John Paul II speak in person, or even when I gazed on the bones of St. Peter himself, just a few feet away from me.  And it wasn't when I announced for the first time that I was gay, or when I first met my partner Andy.  All of these and many more occasions no doubt transformed me, and grew me into the soul I am today, but it was a death event, and not a life event, that really changed me forever.

When my father died, he appeared to me on a Long Island Rail Road train as I was rushing home to be with him at his deathbed.  The moment was brief, perhaps all of 10 seconds, maybe 15?  But it was the realest, truest life experience I have ever had, and it showed me without a shadow of a doubt that this earthly body we wear is not who we really are, and the soul does in absolute fact transcend to some higher reality.  On August 26, 1999, just a few months before the end of the 20th Century, my life began again.

The force is strong with all of us.

Many don't believe.  It's less that they refuse to believe, and more that they just haven't been shown proof, and no amount of talking about it will ever change this.  And that's...fine.  As a believer, I don't want to be the type of "spiritual type" who's constantly trying to get people to believe.  Instead, I think it's my responsibility to talk about my experiences, and share them with others.  I'm a writer.  It's who I am, not just who I profess to be.  And as a writer, I have a story to tell.  I have many, many stories to tell, in fact, and not just my own.  I have your stories to tell as well as my own, and I do try to tell them in my fictional writing.  I create characters based on people I've known, and I weave storylines around your beliefs and struggles, not just my own. 

It is my firm belief that whether people believe it or not, there is a strong force at work in all of our lives.  We don't need to define it as God, or source, or energy, or karma, or anything that will unsettle us in any way.  But I do believe we can honor the mystery and mysteries of life by choosing to set time aside to reflect on them.  We don't have to do this every day, but I do believe honoring the unknown is a wonderful way to appreciate both the unknown and the known around us. 

By admitting we are vastly unanswered wanderers, we can appreciate just how much more we are open to learning. 

I don't know if "force" is the best word, but it'll be the word for today.  It'll be the word people use jokingly for the most part, but it will also carry a profound truth about who we are, and who we might become one day.

So yeah, I'll say it.  May the force be with you.  And more importantly, may you always be open to the force.  Even Luke Skywalker learned to close his eyes and believe before he really, really started to see.