Ex Benedict

Prior's Blog

Dissonance in Life (June 2010)

Dissonance is a musical term describing a clash of tones that leave a feeling of unrest in need of completion and resolution. It is an important tool in music composition which adds interest and variety.

Sometimes our lives can be in a period of dissonance. Sometimes things are not in harmony and leave us feeling uneasy, anxious and not fitting in. If dissonance occurs in music, the listener yearns for harmony and a pleasing sound to resolve the uneasy feeling experienced in the dissonant sounds. Because the listener knows that music is to be enjoyed, the listener also knows that the music will not end with dissonance, but will once again return to order and beauty.

When we may be going through a dissonant period in our lives, we often feel that something is wrong with us and that life will remain in a permanent period of dissonance.

Dissonance occurs in life. Just like in music, sometimes dissonance in our life can add interest and anticipation, as well as drive us to frustration and irritation. But also like music, dissonance in our lives is only temporary. Our lives eventually return to harmony and a beautiful melody can once again be experienced. Our lives return to the beautifully orchestrated symphony we were meant to enjoy.

- Fr. Platt

The Gift of Presence (Christmas 2010)

At this time of year we think about and talk about presents. At office parties and holiday gatherings we give and receive presents. Many children prepare their list for Santa for the gifts they hope to receive. Adults scurry about to get that perfect gift for a friend or relative. All of us are excited when we receive a gift from a special friend or loved one.

Presents play an important part in this season of gift giving and gift receiving.

Yet this time of year, and actually all throughout the year, there is an even bigger and better gift to give than presents, and that is the gift of PRESENCE.

Who are you – your character and personality, your smile and sense of humor, your joy and laughter, your knowledge and understanding, your companionship and compassion, etc., etc.. are gifts which surmount any gift wrapped up in a package and bow.

In your life, your gift of presence is a tremendous gift to your family, friends and co-workers. Your presence can change a person’s day or even a person’s life. The sound of your footsteps or the sound of your voice can give comfort and reassurance to those who might feel lonely or afraid. Seeing and hearing your presence, can remind people that life is all around them and that it calls them to be a part of it. Just being you, you are making a life for so many your friends and loved ones.

Thomas Moore, in his book Life at Work, writes that, “The influence of work is not necessarily that we are good at what we do or even that we are better than our neighbors, but that we are present. The people we are surrounded by are extensions of us and we are extensions of them.”

You make life enriched and engaged for all those around you. Your presence is a treasured gift.

- Fr. Platt

I Don't Know (Lent 2011)

Just have faith! We are often told this when we are facing some crisis, uncertainty, hardship or doubt. Just have faith. It’s that easy. Or is it? Is faith having absolute trust with no questions asked? Does faith take away pain, fear or loss? Is the job of faith to remove all the harsh realities of life? Does having faith mean that you’ve got all the answers to life’s problems?

Let me be the first to say: That kind of faith is overrated. No wonder so many people today think they don’t have faith. No wonder so many young people today think faith, religion and God are nonsense.

Christians are now in the season of Lent. Jews will soon be gathering around Seder meals to celebrate Passover. For Christians and Jews these are holy days which are surrounded by ancient stories of faith - temptation, wilderness journeys, loss, suffering, slavery, life and death.

Stories which tell of the struggles of doubt and loss of faith by men and women who are supposed to be the role models of faith! Go figure!

I think “faithful people” are at their best when they have more questions than answers. If faith claims to know too much, it leaves no room for mystery. When so-called believers are certain that they know what God wants, who God likes and dislikes, then we can run the risk of placing God on the same comfort level as our favorite soft fleece Snuggie.

As faithful people have done for ions, we laugh and we cry. We wonder and ask questions. We cherish life that is sometimes baffling, curious, hidden and even painful. Faith and cherished stories of faith tell us that God is in all of that. Let us let go of the need to always “get it” or explain it. And when we face the mystery of evil, injustice or suffering, let us resist the temptation to brush it away by saying “just have faith.” Then, maybe we will discover a deeper faith in these three words: I don’t know.

- Fr. Platt

Is the world coming to the end? (June 2011)

In recent months there was a prediction made that the world would end on May 21, 2011. We are still here. For centuries, groups and individuals have made predictions when the world would end. For the most part, the dates in those predictions have come and gone. But there are still those who say, “The end is near” and that it is just around the corner! The attention given to these predictions seem to be fueled by news events. Societal turmoil in the world, wars, riots, struggling economies and natural disasters give us a Hollywood image of the “end times” just by turning on the evening news. “Things have never been this bad,” we hear people say. Is this all a sign that the world is coming to an end?

Someone once said that you become old when you stop thinking things will get better. Perhaps the same could be said about the end of the world: the world begins to end when we stop thinking things will get better.

As God's people we are called not to look for the end, but to believe in beginnings. We are engaged in a work which strives to make things better – and not to just believe that things will get better, but to be people who work to make it so. Caring for those who suffer; accepting those who are outcasts; forgiving those who have hurt us; learning to live in harmony with those who are different from us; even loving our enemies. I can’t help but think that if there was more of this, then there would be less focus on all of the doomsday prophecies.

For what God created the world to be, we can see that the world has a long way to go. Imagine, living in a world God intended. Perhaps we should be asking, “When does that world begin?”

- Fr. Platt

Hide and Seek (August 2011)

As a child I loved playing “hide and seek.” I loved being the one to hide but even more enjoyed being the “seeker.” I loved looking in places that I never would have ventured and loved discovering new places that I didn’t know existed.

I wonder if sometimes God plays hide and seek with us.

We have all grown to know that God walks with us, leads us and even carries us from time to time. But in addition to these comfortable images of God’s relationship with us, I think there may be times when God actually hides from us.

I’m not saying that God hides to avoid us or to leave us abandoned and alone. But I do think that there are times when the only way we can grow and be strengthened in our faith is to continue the often difficult search of finding God. When we know that God is leading, guiding or walking with us we may not be working as hard as we need to on our journey. If we do not “see” God or in despair ask, “Where is God” then we have no other choice but to keep searching and searching in order to find the place where God wants us to be.

Perhaps God is hiding around that next corner that we need to get around. Perhaps God is hiding in that high and rocky mountain we need to climb. Perhaps God is hiding in that dark and scary place where we need to go in order to conquer our fears.

Most likely God does not give us any more than we can handle by ourselves. But I also think that God knows that we can handle and do more than we think we can. Perhaps the only way we can discover how strong we are and what we can accomplish is for God to let us do it all by ourselves. Perhaps the only way to discover a new and stronger faith is to continue the often lonely journey through a difficult valley.

We continue to seek God. It may be a harder search than we have ever had; it may be a rougher road than we have ever journeyed; and it may be the hardest mountain we have ever had to pull and drag ourselves up. But we keep going. God is just around the corner, beyond the next mountain – just out of sight – in order for us to reach that place where the view is far better than we ever imagined. A view we will enjoy with God standing by our side.

- Fr. Platt

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Silence (September 2011)

I think these early days of autumn are the most silent days of the entire year. The air has cooled so we no longer need to have air conditioning units running, nor are window fans and floor fans humming constantly. 

The chill in the air has also caused us to close the windows, but it is not yet cold enough to have the furnace bellowing or the radiators clinking and clanking throughout the day and night.  The crisp, dry air of autumn adds to the silence so much we can easily hear the neighbors talking and doors closing.  We can even hear our breathing more in these quiet, silent days of early autumn.

There are times in our life when God is silent too.  It often happens at those times when we think we need to hear something –anything- from God. We demand an answer, repeatedly praying and praying, anxiously waiting for and wanting God to speak.

But God is silent.

We don’t like it and don’t understand it, but perhaps it is in silence when God can do the most for us.  Silence from God does not mean that our prayers are not heard, nor does it mean that God does not care about us, nor understand our suffering.

So what do we do when God is silent?  Listen.

Listen, listen and listen.  And when the silence drives us to anxiety and frustration, fill the silence with words of the psalm writers who many, many times dealt with God’s silence: My soul waits for the Lord. (ps 130)… Be still and know that I am God. (ps 46)…For God, my soul in silence waits.(ps 62)

When it seems that the only thing we get from our prayers is silence, perhaps God is leaning in very close to us in order to speak in a whisper.

- Fr. Platt