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Advent Day 18: Depressed or lonely at Christmas? Hanukkah Day 3
O come, thou dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
~ O Antiphons
Thursday of the third week of Advent (Hanukkah Day 3)
There sometimes can be a lot of depression swirling around at Christmas.
People can feel lonelier because we’re expected to be cheerier and we just don’t feel it.
This blog is meant for us to pray and reach out and notice these folks.
Let’s be with folks who have lost a loved one and still miss them.
With kids who are shuffled back from one parent to another to “celebrate” the holidays.
With soldiers far away from home and their families at home without them.
And so, may we pray:
There are sometimes dark clouds in our lives, Lord.
Pierce the gloominess of our lives with Your very own Light.
May we allow You to dawn in us this day.
May we be ready for Your dawning in a new way in our lives this Christmas.
May this celebration of Jesus’ birth bring meaning and joy in the midst of our worries and concerns.
And may we BE the dawning of your light and love and justice
in our homes, our neighborhoods, our jobs, our world.
And there are dark and ominous clouds over our world right now, Lord.
Pierce our greed and hate, fear and complacence, violence with hope, Lord.
May we pray earnestly for a new dawn for our beloved country and our world.
May we BE the dawning of your light and love and justice in our land.
Lord Jesus, come! May we be ready for the dawn of your coming in a new way this Christmas,
May the light of that dawning transform our lives and our land.
We need Your Light and Your Love more than ever.
Now, before you go, here’s an enjoyable music video for you. Click here. Be sure to turn up your speakers and enter full screen.
With love,
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
A Prayer for Labor Day 2014
As we pause this weekend for the last holiday of the summer, may we reflect on the gift of work.
Good and gracious God,
you told us from the very beginning that we would earn our bread by the sweat of our brow.
We are interdependent in our laboring, Lord.
We depend on the migrant workers who pick our lettuce and our strawberries,
the nurses’ aids who empty bed pans,
the teachers who form our children’s minds.
We thank you, Lord, for the gifts and talents you have given us
that allow us to earn a living and contribute something positive to our world.
We pray, dear Lord, for those who are without work.
Sustain them — us — in your love.
Help us to realize that we have worth as human beings,
job or no job.
But that’s hard to get, Lord.
Our society preaches to us that our worth comes from success,
of being better than the Jones’.
But our worth comes because You made us. We are Your children, no matter what,
job or no job.
You love us and you call us to love and support each other.
We pray, Lord, for those who do the dirty work in our lives, Lord,
those who break their backs for us, those who are cheated out of even a minimum wage,
those who don’t have access to health care,
those who cannot afford to send their kids to college.
Help us to bind together, Lord, as a community, as a nation
because we depend on one another — the garbage men,
the police, the folks who stock our grocery stores,
the UPS driver, the airline pilot, the 7/11 clerk, the ticket-taker on the turnpike,
the plumbers, the accountants, the bank tellers, the landscapers, the lifeguards,
those who clean our houses, the cooks, the waiters, the steel workers, the carpenters,
the scientists, , our doctors and nurses and yes, the writers.
Help us to realize this weekend how dependent we are on one another, Lord.
We are ONE! We are family! We need each other.
May we give thanks for each other this Labor Day weekend, Lord.
Help us to celebrate and give thanks for each other and appreciate
the value, the dignity, the contribution
that each one makes to keep our country, our cities, our lives going.
And in tough times, help us remember the words of Jesus:
Come to me all you who labor
and are heavily burdened
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you . . .
for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:28)
And, finally, this prayer of Cardinal Newman:
O Lord, support us all the day long
until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes,
and the busy world is hushed,
and the fever of life is over,
and our work is done.
Then, Lord, in thy mercy,
grant us a safe lodging,
a holy rest, and peace at the last.
AMEN!
P. S. This weekend, think about all the people who’s work makes your life go better.
Tell them you appreciate them.
Two words have great power: THANK YOU!
If only we would use them often,
we would ease each other’s burden and energize each other.
and we would make trying times just a little bit easier for us all.
We call that: Love!
And before you go, here’s a spirited version of the great Celtic hymn “Lord of all Hopefulness” about the blessing of our work. Click here. Be sure to turn up your speakers and enter full screen.
Enjoy. Have a great weekend!
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
Advent Day 2 — Swords to plowshares / guns to roses

Monday of the First Week of Advent
Dear Friends,
If you’re new to this Advent blog, I recommend reading “Welcome to Advent” Click here. to get a sense of why we want to spend four weeks preparing for our Christmas celebration and how it can help you deepen your (our) spirituality whether you are a Catholic or even a Christian. (If you’re not tech savvy, click on the little arrow on the top left of your browser above the word “Back” and it’ll bring you right back to this page.)
Today, I’m referring to yesterday’s first reading from Isaiah 2:1-5 that you’ll probably recognize:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)
All of my adult life my writing and my prayer has been against war —
Viet Nam / the Balkans / the Gulf War / Iraq / and recently, Afghanistan.
Pope Paul VI, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly made an impassioned plea:
“No more war! Never again war!
And Pope John Paul II said the Iraq war was “a defeat for humanity.”
Dwight David Eisenhower, the great general of Word War II and President of the U.S. said: “When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.”
Advent is a time to wish for peace / pray for peace / work for peace.
The Christmas story is about peace. One of the titles of Jesus is “Prince of Peace.”
But we become cynical about peace.
Many of us have our private little wars that we engage in every day with a sibling or a friend or co-worker.
Let us “Practice peacefulness,” as a friend put it to me once. Let’s stop the gossiping. Give people a chance. Be kind.
The legend of St. Christopher carrying a child across a stream on a stormy night invites us to greet every human being as if they were Christ himself.
Think thoughts of peace. Be peace. At least try it today, the second day of Advent.
The image below is a photo of the last page of the men’s magazine Details. This image is actually a GAP commercial selling plaid shirts; those are young women and men making up the peace sign.) Would that they (we) would put their (our) bodies, minds and spirits to the task of creating peace in our world!
I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends.
and those who turn to him in their hearts.
Mercy and faithfulness have met;
Justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and justice look down from heaven.
The Lord will make us prosper
and the earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him
and peace shall follow his steps.
Psalm 85
Dear Friends,
Be sure to follow our Advent Blog as we go along. I will publish most days until Christmas. You can make yourself a five-minute-a-day mini-retreat and have the best and most meaningful Christmas ever!
It’ll relieve your stress. Calm your nerves. Put a bounce in your step and a smile on your face. And it’s free!
And I always spend a lotta time selecting the right photo. And I search the web for the perfect music video to accompany the theme.
Before you go here’s a real treat for you: Angelina singing St. Francis’ “Make Me a Channel of your Peace,” filmed right in Assisi. Click here, Be sure to turn up enter full screen and turn up your speakers.
With love,
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
We need a rush of the Spirit
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
This coming Sunday is the feast of Pentecost, a word which means “fifty days.” We’ve been celebrating Easter for that long.
We’ve been trying to wake up to the world around us. Trying to become conscious and aware. Both to our surroundings and to what’s going on inside of us — paying attention to our feelings that are indicators of the health of our body, mind and spirit.
I’ve been writing my reflections on my life as a priest. I began my 44th year today. And I am very thankful for every day of my priesthood.
My prayer is looking forward as I reflect on these years: We need a New Pentecost in
the Church these days. We need to have the windows flung open once again, as
Pope John XXIII did fifty years ago and let the mighty wind of the Holy Spirit shake
us up.
We very much need a rekindling of the fire of love in our church, in our country, in our world.
The story of the radical and remarkable transformation that grabbed hold of the first disciples of Jesus is dramatically told in the Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11.
I pray for that continued transformation for me, each day of my life.
When I celebrated Eucharist this morning on my anniversary, I was caught up with memories of my first Mass. My parents and my aunt and uncle, who sat in the first pew, are gone now. I prayed to them. I also prayed to my best priest-buddy Phil who died at age 46 and left me without the friend I loved so much.
For all of you who have been part of my journey at one point or other I say with Dag Hammarskjöld . . .
For all that has been Thanks,
For all that shall be, Yes!
Come Holy Spirit,
fill the hearts of your faithful
and enkindle in them
the fire of your love
and they shall be created
and you shall renew the face of the earth!
Here is “Come Holy Ghost” in its chant form “Veni Creator Spiritus” Click here. Be sure to enter full screen.
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
P. S. This my 199th post.
Advent Day 2 — Swords to plowshares / guns to roses

Monday of the First Week of Advent
Dear Friends,
If you’re new to this Advent blog, I recommend reading Welcome to Advent 2009 to get a sense of why we want to spend four weeks preparing for our Christmas celebration and how it can help you deepen your (our) spirituality whether you are a Catholic or even a Christian. (If you’re not tech savvy, click on the little arrow on the top left of your browser above the word “Back” and it’ll bring you right back to this page.)
Today’s reading from Isaiah is a famous one:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)
All of my adult life my writing and my prayer has been against war —
Viet Nam / the Balkans / the Gulf War / Iraq / and now Afghanistan.
Pope Paul VI, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly made an impassioned plea:
“No more war! Never again war!
And Pope John Paul II said the Iraq war was “a defeat for humanity.”
And Dwight David Eisenhower, the great general of Word War II and President of the U.S. said: “When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing.”
Advent is a time to wish for peace / pray for peace / work for peace.
The Christmas story is about peace. One of the titles of Jesus is “Prince of Peace.”
But we become cynical about peace.
Many of us have our private little wars that we engage in every day with a sibling or a friend or co-worker.
Let us “Practice peacefulness,” as a friend put it to me once. Let’s stop the gossiping. Give people a chance. Be kind.
The legend of St. Christopher carrying a child across a stream on a stormy night invites us to greet every human person as if they were Christ himself.
Think thoughts of peace. Be peace. At least try it today, the second day of Advent.
The image below is a photo of the last page of the men’s magazine Details. This image is actually a GAP commercial selling plaid shirts; those are young women and men making up the peace sign.) Would that they (we) would put their (our) bodies, minds and spirits to the task of creating peace in our world!
I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends.
and those who turn to him in their hearts.
Mercy and faithfulness have met;
Justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and justice look down from heaven.
The Lord will make us prosper
and the earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him
and peace shall follow his steps.
Psalm 85
Dear Friends,
I will be posting each day of Advent, (God willin’ n’ the creek don’t rise.)
You can subscribe to the blog and it will come directly to your inbox and look like the box above.
Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, enter your email address. You can un-subcribe at anytime.
You can make yourself a five-minute-a-day mini-retreat and have the best and most meaningful Christmas ever!
It’ll relieve your stress. Calm your nerves. Put a bounce in your step and a smile on your face. And it’s free!
And I always spend a lotta time selecting the right photo. And I search the web for the perfect music video to accompany the theme.
So, what are you waiting for? Come on board! Put your email address in the hopper and you won’t have to think about it again.
Before you go here’s a real treat for you: Angelina singing St. Francis’ “Make Me a Channel of your Peace,” filmed right in Assisi. Click here, Be sure to turn up enter full screen and turn up your speakers.
With love,
Bob Traupman
contemplative writer
Catching beauty on the “drive-by”

Homeward and westward bound, on Oakland Park Boulevard is usually a quite uninteresting experience. But once in a while — if one is Aware enough to notice — good things can happen. A photographer knows that you have to be right there with slit-second timing to catch the right light on your subject. Photography is about dancing with the light and the shadow, whenever and wherever they seem, um, unusual. I love to capture such images that invite introspection and reflection. (or at least to try because this photographer also has Parkinson’s; the sometimes unsteady hand results in sometimes quite unique images I captured this particular moment on March 30, 2009 at 7:02 pm. My iphone was nearby; I was probably listening to “Us and Them” on the same device; this Pink Floyd favorite times perfectly to get me home from downtown if I leave after rush hour. I steadied it firmly on top of the steering wheel. The rays of the sun pierced the clouds above and sent a single glance toward us drivers on the ground.
Was that Awareness just for me? Or did others experience it too? Are we (am I?) ready to “catch” beauty on the fly or on the “drive-by”? Ready for the natural world to dialogue and dance with us? Ready when it desires to reveal itself? To surprise us / lift us out of ourselves / connect us with something beyond our self inflated (or deflated) worlds? This, of course, wasn’t the most awesome sunset I’ve ever experienced. (I do like to experience them rather than just observe them.) And surely a couple of green lights, and incongruent light poles made for a less than idylic image. Nevertheless, it lifted me out of my homebound / self-bound thoughts and feelings (whatever they were) into a moment of connection and contemplation with that little part of the cosmos that one humble / connected man, Francis of Assisi 900 years ago greeted as a Person: “Brother Sun.”
Just a thought: There’s beauty everywhere in every place at every time for those who have eyes to see. How ’bout you?
With love,
Bob Traupman
priest / writer
Advent Day 18: Depressed or lonely at Christmas?
O come, thou dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
— O Antiphons
Wednesday of the third week of Advent (Hanukkah Day 6)
There sometimes can be a lot of depression swirling around at Christmas.
People can feel lonelier because we’re expected to be cheerier and we just don’t feel it.
This blog is meant for us to pray and reach out and notice these folks.
Let’s be with folks who have lost a loved one and still miss them.
With kids who are shuffled back from one parent to another to “celebrate” the holidays.
With soldiers far away from home and their families at home without them.
And so, may we pray:
There are sometimes dark clouds in our lives, Lord.
Pierce the gloominess of our lives with Your very own Light.
May we allow You to dawn in us this day.
May we be ready for Your dawning in a new way in our lives this Christmas.
May this celebration of Jesus’ birth bring meaning and joy in the midst of our worries and concerns.
And may we BE the dawning of your light and love and justice
in our homes, our neighborhoods, our jobs, our world.
And there are dark and ominous clouds over our world right now, Lord.
Pierce our greed and hate and fear and complacency and violence with hope, Lord.
May we pray earnestly for a new dawn for our beloved country and our world.
May we BE the dawning of your light and love and justice in our land.
Lord Jesus, come! May we be ready for the dawn of your coming in a new way this Christmas,
May the light of that dawning transform our lives and our land.
We need Your Light and Your Love more than ever.
And now for your listening enjoyment The Many Moods of Christmas Robert Shaw conducting.
With love,
Bob Traupman
priest / writer
Advent Day 11 – The dance of the shadows
Here they are again, Lord. Light and shadow together.
In this case, it appears the shadows on the lawn
are actually making room for the light.
It seems the shadows are even escorting the light!
And the golden cast of the afternoon sun is awesome, Lord. I am always in awe of it.
It shows forth Your glory, Lord. At least to me.
Advent and Christmas and Hanukkah are all about light.
Teach us to look for your Light wherever we find it, Lord.
Sometimes we find the Light where there is supposed to be darknessand sometimes we find darkness where there is supposed to be light. Give us wisdom to know the difference. Teach us also to see the shadow is always right next to the light in our lives.
Teach us to be patient with the shadow and even the darkness;
may we wait for the Light to come into our lives
and once again to our beautiful land.
May we never over look it; may we always be ready “to be wrapped in light as in a robe.”
Now fade all earthly splendor,
The shades of night descend
The dying of the daylight
Foretells creations end.
Though noon gives place to sunset,
Yet dark gives place to light:
The promise of tomorrow
With dawns new hope is bright.
— James Quinn, S.J. , 1968
Now here’s one of the great pieces from Handel’s Messiah – “And the glory of the Lord” on YouTube. Enjoy.
Dear Friends,
Take time to notice the difference in the early morning and late afternoon light. These times of day are a photographer’s workshop. The sun often offers a golden glow to everything and the shadows are long and penetrating. Each day — twice a day — behold the glory of the Lord — right in front of you. And it’s delightful entertainment — on demand — for free, yet!
With love,
Bob Traupman
priest / writer