Serenity

That word "serenity" looked like an impossible goal when I first saw the prayer. In fact, if serenity meant apathy, bitter resignation, or stolid endurance, then I didn't even want to aim at it. But I found that serenity meant no such thing. . . Serenity is like a gyroscope that lets me keep my balance no matter what turbulence swirls around me. And that is a state of mind worth aiming for. Serenity isn't freedom from the storm; it is peace within the storm.

A Virtuous Life

St. Thomas says [I-II, Q.34,a.4) that a man is good when his will takes joy in what is good, evil when his will takes joy in what is evil.
He is virtuous when he finds happiness in a virtuous life, sinful when he takes pleasure in a sinful life.
Hence the things that we love tell us what we are.
A man is known, then, by his end.
He is also known by his beginning.
And if you wish to know him as he is at any given moment, find how far he is from his beginning and how near to his end.
-- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

The good man comes from God and returns to Him.
He starts with the gift of being and with the capacities God has given him.
He reaches the age of reason and begins to make choices.
-- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

True Story of Rudolph The Reindeer

A man named Bob May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment window into the chilling December night.
His 4-year-old daughter Barbara sat on his lap quietly sobbing.
Bobs wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.
Little Barbara couldn't understand why her mommy could never come home. Barbara looked up into her dad's eyes and asked, "Why isn't Mommy just like everybody else's Mommy?"
Bob's jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears.
Her question brought waves of grief, but also of anger.

It had been the story of Bob's life.
Life always had to be different for Bob.
Small when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by other boys.
He was too little at the time to compete in sports.
He was often called names he'd rather not remember.
From childhood, Bob was different and never seemed to fit in.
Bob did complete college, married his loving wife and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery Ward during the Great Depression.
Then he was blessed with his little girl.
But it was all short-lived.

Evelyn's bout with cancer stripped them of all their savings and now Bob and his daughter were forced to live in a two-room apartment in the Chicago slums.
Evelyn died just days before Christmas in 1938.

Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he couldn't even afford to buy a Christmas gift.
But if he couldn't buy a gift, he was determined a make one - a storybook!
Bob had created a character in his own mind and told the animal's story to little Barbara to give her comfort and hope.
Again and again Bob told the story, embellishing it more with each telling.

Who was the character?
What was the story all about?
The story Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable form.
The character he created was a misfit outcast like he was.
The name of the character?
A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose.

Bob finished the book just in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day.
But the story doesn't end there.

The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught wind of the little storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to purchase the rights to print the book.
Wards went on to print, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus in their stores.
By 1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of Rudolph.
That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights from Wards to print an updated version of the book.

In an unprecedented gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May.
The book became a best seller.
Many toy and marketing deals followed and Bob May, now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy from the story he created to comfort his grieving daughter.
But the story doesn't end there either.

Bob's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song adaptation to Rudolph.
Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, it was recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene Autry.
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" was released in 1949 and became a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song, with the exception of "White Christmas.."

The gift of love that Bob May created for his daughter so long ago kept on returning back to bless him again and again.
And Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph, that being different isn't so bad.
In fact, being different can be a blessing.


This is a nice story . . . with Snopes having a slightly different twist to it . . . I like this one better. Merry Christmas Everybody!

Time For Courage & Faith

[Circular Letter, Advent-Christmas, 1967]

The times are difficult.

They call for courage and faith.

Faith is in the end a lonely virtue.

Lonely especially where a deep authentic community of love is not an accomplished fact, but a job to be begun over and over...

Love is not something we get from Mother Church as a child gets milk from the breast: it also has to be given.

We don't get love if don't give any.

Christmas, then, is not just a sweet regression to breast-feeding and infancy.

It is a serious and sometimes difficult feast.

Difficult especially if, for psychological reasons, we fail to grasp the indestructible kernel of hope that is in it.

If we are just looking for a little consolation-we may be disappointed.

Let us pray for one another, love one another in truth, in the sobriety of earnest, Christian hope: for hope, says Paul, does not deceive.

A blessed and joyous Christmas to all of you.

Thomas Merton, The Road to Joy

The Veil Of Chemicals

As we learn to live in the present, neither fearing the future not feeling shame about the past, we discover new pleasures in simply living.

We don’t have to hide our fear any more, we don’t have to suppress grief or shame or anger.

We don’t have to keep our real selves secret behind a veil of chemicals.

Thoughts

There are dead thoughts, and there are living thoughts. To which class a thought belongs depends on the power called will power. When there is will power, the word is both spoken and done. Man himself is the tree of desire, and the root of that tree is in his own heart.

Whipers of the Lakota

Tell Me About Your Story

Tell me about your story

Was there blood, sweat or tears?

Maybe there was some glory

Over your last 100 years

With your homeland

Prisoners they were

A powerful people

A powerful prayer

See the strength

Feel the pride

Run with nature

Nothing to hide

A little more heartache, it will never last

Strong in their ways, set in their path

Walking in beauty, all the way

Walking in beauty, the natives way

Brought them home, home to stay

This is our story

Of blood, sweat, and tears

No, there is no glory

But we will be here

The next 100 years.

Lavelle, 10^th grade

A Better Life

My dreams are endless

My passion is relentless

A better life is not hopeless.

Dillon, 10^th grade

Where Life Never Ends

Neverending dreams where life never ends—

where people live in perfect harmony

where color is not wrong

where we can walk and sing without laughter of putdowns

where someone greets you with words of joy

where loneliness and inequality become a speck of dirt in the winds of the past –

But reality must come first.

Red Cloud Graduate 2006

My Definition

Love is

the climax of my happiness.

and the pinnacles of my pain.

Love is

the fire in my heart with

an eternal flame.

Isabelle, 10^th grade

Lies

I hate lies!

Lies that cause trouble.

When I look into your eyes,

I see those lies.

The lies that made you cry

Making me want to go and hide.

I can’t stop your lies.

I can’t even hide from prying eyes.

So what do I do?

I seek the truth.

I find comfort in the truth.

Sure the games is ruthless

But I have nothing left to lose.

Them lies, than just ain’t me,

Because I know the truth will set me free!

Rilda, 9^th grade

Life

We often call it a gift, a mystery.

We have the power to make or take.

Let’s think about this

I know we all can relate

A brand new human, bright-eyed to the world

We cannot tell time, we cannot tell where or when

Something will happen but we can see that brand new

Baby Boy or Baby Girl

Life is a treasure, a gift not to be destroyed

You cannot throw a child away as if it were a toy.

The actions you take can certainly make or break

Take the time to consider the Life

You make.

Jessie, 10^th grade

Red Road

It’s peace defying

It holds no violence

that’s why I follow it insilence

It is the Red Road

Peace and Harmony is what it shows

Canku Luta some might say

Strong and bold is how you play

look into yourself

That’s how you find it

Do good for the people

Don’t let evil blind it

Look into Jesus’ eyes

Walk with him pride

At the end when you take flight

You’re guaranteed a spot in paradises.

Caltin, 10^th grade

Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, SD . . . is the largest privately funded indian school in the United States, educating almost 600 students on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in a remote part of South Dakota since 1888.