Category: Ruminations

Ruminations

More Hope, Less Stress: Better Living

Posted on by John W Gillis / 1 Comment

Today was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. I’ve been fittingly pensive and reflective lately, almost to the point of feeling haunted. This is a time of year that used to fill me with energy, but these days seems more likely to leave me thinking about lost opportunities. I became starkly aware last night, while driving downtown to teach my CCD class, of how short a fuse I was on, and how much stress I was feeling. That’s not a good thing for me, and I quickly had to coax myself back off the ledge. Thinking about how to go about lowering my stress ...

Ruminations

Technology In the Shadow of Nuclear Fission

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Just prior to the arrival of our two young guests from the Chernobyl area in June, I was reading Pedro Arrupe’s memoir of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has certain obvious things in common with the devastation of Hiroshima, even if the purpose of the human endeavor manifested in each case remain radically different. Both the accidental explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor and the intentional exploding of the first atomic bomb in the skies over Hiroshima were products of the modern technological inno...

Ruminations

It’s Thinking Weather

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

A true winter chill has settled in to Massachusetts tonight, as we begin to close in on the winter solstice. I took the dog outside a few minutes ago to prepare for locking up  the house for the night, and I was taken aback by the beauty of the night as I headed down the porch stairs. The sky is crystal clear, the moon and stars: brilliant. The temperature is just below 20 degrees. As I was wandering around the back yard, I was thinking how I so enjoyed these kinds of nights when I was young and carefree, and walking all over town with my friends at...

Ruminations

The Feast of Saint Jerome

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

The feast of Saint Jerome is always a special day for me. Perhaps it is because he was such an unsaintly saint. It’s tough to read much of his writings because of his cantankerous personality, but there have truly been few more brilliant men that have populated the planet. Of course, he’s appreciated most for his work in translating the Scriptures into a single book that could be read by any literate person in the Western world (and understood by all). It’s astonishing, given the frenetic pace of publication of vernacular translations o...

Ruminations

The Great Gig in the Sky

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Pink Floyd keyboardist and co-founder Richard Wright died Monday at his home. He was 65. Rock stars die all the time, and I never really knew anything about this quiet guy, but news of Wright’s death set me to reflecting quite a bit yesterday on my youth, on the role of pop music in the lives of youth, and on the fate of those whose lives turn them into rock stars. I hope the title of this post isn’t overly corny – and I’m sure I’m not the only one to whom it will occur to use it. It refers, of course, to the title of what is my f...

Ruminations

There’s No Time Like Ordinary Time

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

The Easter season is over, and the Church moves back into Ordinary time. I feel a little reluctant to let it go, though I’m not sure why. But as I said the final “alleluias” of Night Prayer last night, I felt a little twinge of sadness. I suppose I am, as usual, resisting the passage of time because of a sense of disconnect between what I’ve accomplished, and what I’d hoped to have accomplished. I need to learn to be more satisfied with my effort, and perhaps to not set expectations so high, either – although it would ...

Ruminations

Hitting the Road to Worship with Pope Hope

Posted on by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

In less than 36 hours, Joyce and I will be in New York, for the papal Mass at Yankee Stadium. I’m very much looking forward to the experience, even if it means getting on a bus at 6:00am, and spending four hours traveling each way, just to sit high in the upper deck of the stadium. As much as anything else, I’m looking forward to the community. I expect celebrating the Mass with 50,000 Christians, or whatever it works out to be, will be exhilarating. I get energized on Holy Days when several hundred people crowd the church where I typically c...