The New Adventure

As you have already noticed the blog you have seen for the past year has a new look and a new name.

What is this all about, Ron?

Well, it is about a new adventure in my life.

After about a year of deliberation, June and I decided that I would retire from my full-time duties at St. Luke’s Behavioral Health Center – Momentum Program. I will still work there on Saturdays and perhaps one other day a week. I have been holding down the Saturday slot for the past six years and will continue for now.

During the past year I was contacted by John Thurston about the chaplaincy for the homeless ministry that was started about 30 years ago and was transformed into a very necessary ministry of helping homeless people get the necessary identification papers needed to survive in our modern society. In this transition, the chaplaincy was set aside. In the past year, the leadership of the Lodestar Resource Day Center (LRDC) began recognizing a need for a spiritual ministry on the Human Services Campus (HSC). John was tasked with the job of exploring what this would look like.

John began by looking for the previous people who had served as chaplains. I was one of those persons. In fact I was the second person to fill the position as Ecumenical Chaplain for the Homeless in the early 1990s.

As my conversations continued with John, one of our meetings included sitting down and writing the job description for the revived chaplaincy. After the meeting, I realized that I had just written my dream job description for the chaplaincy and I could meet the requirements.

Today, I am the Chaplain for the Homeless in Phoenix.

I am excited to see how this ministry is going to unfold in the coming year.

Homeless is a spiritual problem. In fact, homeless is a perfect word to describe the human condition. St. Augustine observed that we are not at home until we are at home with God. We are all homeless.

I will be looking for lots of people to support this outreach. Watch this blog and our upcoming website for more information about how you can be involved.

There are two populations of homeless that grieve me the most: the Seriously Mentally Ill and Veterans. Both are very vulnerable people. To me it is a disgrace that our very wealthy nation has not found a way to address the housing situation for those who no fault of their own became mentally ill. It is also a disgrace that those who served their country find themselves without decent shelter. I know there are lots of programs “out there” to address these two populations, however, I am already aware that too many people “are falling through the cracks.”

Well, there it is – the New Adventure of My Life: Chaplain for the Homeless.

Pray, and pray some more

"If you would suffer with patience the adversities and miseries of this life, be a man of prayer. If you would obtain courage and strength to conquer the temptations of the enemy, be a man of prayer. If you would mortify your own will with all its inclinations and appetites, be a man of prayer. If you would know the wiles of Satan and unmask his deceits, be a man of prayer. If you would live in joy and walk pleasantly in the ways of penance, be a man of prayer. If you would banish from you soul the troublesome flies of vain thoughts and cares, be a man of prayer. If you would nourish your soul with the very sap of devotion, and keep it always full of good thoughts and good desires, be a man of prayer. If you would strengthen and keep up your courage in the ways of God, be a man of prayer. In fine, if you would uproot all vices from your soul and plant all virtues in their place, be a man of prayer. It is in prayer that we receive the unction and grace of the Holy Ghost, who teaches all things."

— St. Bonaventure, The Ways of Mental Prayer, p. 25-26

Freedom, Anyone?

"The most important and most fruitful acts of our freedom are not those by which we transform the outside world as those by which we change our inner attitude in light of the faith that God can bring good out of everything without exception. He is a never-failing source of unlimited riches. Our lives no longer have in them anything negative, ordinary, or indifferent. Positive things become a reason for gratitude and joy, negative things an opportunity for abandonment, faith, and offering: everything becomes a grace."

— Fr. Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom, p. 58