Compassionate Living – The Fellowship of St Francis

October 4, 2022October 4, 2022 stfranman Compassionate Living

The Storm has passed

Hurricane Ian has come and gone and I’ve been thinking about the effects on so many others here in Florida. It’s all very sobering. Sobering and sad.

The effects for me and loved ones in the State were minimal. Because so many of us weathered this storm without a lot of damage, it’s easy to think we’re all good here in Florida. But we aren’t.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around this kind of devastation. I’ve tuned in to some of the reports and it’s so dismal and sad that I have to manage my news coverage carefully in order to not get an overload.

If you’d like to help those in Southwest Florida who’ve been so devastated by this horrible storm, there are many ways to do so.

The FEMA site has a lot of information that may be helpful. And there’s no shortage of non-profits who are helping. And although there are hundreds, I’m leaving a link to the Red Cross. Their work over many, many years has been invaluable to people around the world who’ve experienced disasters of all kinds. I’m happy to support their fine work.

Take care. Stay safe. Reach out for help when it’s appropriate. May that care be there for you when you need it most.

And may you extend that hand of care to others when you’re able.

Benjamin Lawrence Basile

February 1, 2022February 1, 2022 stfranman Compassionate Living, Living Life

In Times of Adversity

When we go through troubles and trials, through the adversity that we all experience in our lives, it can be rough. It can be very rough.

Having the loving presence and support of those who care for us can be so key when we pass through those situations, as we all do.

Stacey Dalili is a cherished friend of long-standing and is on the FSF Board of Directors. She is a much-beloved woman who’s passing through one of those difficult times right now. She has a lot of support from a large and loving family and a great many friends as she faces some serious adversity.

Stacey suffered a heart attack last Sunday and has been hospitalized since then. The heart blockages they found were serious but the first option was catheterization. Two attempts on two consecutive days did not have the desired effect, however, and so Stacey will undergo open-heart surgery tomorrow, February 2nd. Please keep her in your prayers.

Like so many who love this loving soul, I’m feeling a very considerable weight of stress as the time of the surgery draws nearer. It is powerful consolation that her family is rallying around her, many of whom will be arriving tomorrow to be with her.

This is what keeps humanity moving forward through all the troubles and trails that beset us. I invite you to also send along your own love, good wishes and healing energy to this loving and compassionate friend. Please pray for Stacey Dalili.

Ben Lawrence Basile

September 22, 2021October 28, 2021 stfranman Compassionate Living, Living Life, Spirituality/Religion

Of Love, Death and Grief–and of Constant Change

Here’s a post about changes. About changes, the passing of a friend in particular, and the way changes and endings come at you as long as your heart is beating.

Pebbles Bundy crossed over the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon. She was a few weeks short of her 12th birthday and had been suffering from a digestive condition for several months.

She was as sweet a cat as you could ever hope to meet. Gentle, sweet with a wonderful, mellow feline disposition. Food in her dish twice a day and some petting and stroking in the evening was all she ever asked of life.

When we went on our two day camping adventures she would watch us pack and go with an unruffled, mellow manner and greet us at the door when we came back home.

I helped Joan get her ready for her final trip to the vet as I was getting ready for work. Joan is a wonderful Cat Mom and it was her sad duty to take her to the good docs and staff at St Charles and be with her as she made that final journey.

I was relieved in a way that I had to get myself in to work while Joan made final arrangements. Being a part of that scenario would have added another layer of deep sadness to what has already been a challenging time for me.

I have been grieving the loss of another cherished relationship: Joan and I had come to a parting about three weeks before Pebble’s time with us came to its own end. I’m moving back to Orlando next week.

As I reflected on the last three or four weeks, and what happened today, it occurred to me that Pebble’s passing was — among other things — the last event where Joan and I would focus together on a matter of great and enduring significance to both of us; The final time we would be fully engaged in something that had the power to move us deeply and to touch a place in our hearts. The final time we would share deeply-felt emotions that no one else shared or could fully understand.

Changes and endings. They’re a huge part of life. They keep coming. It’s not going to stop. In fact, when we get to a certain stage of life, the changes accelerate, they fly by so quickly that we sometimes are hard-pressed to take in fully their true significance.

Some of those changes involve a death. A death of a friend, a family member. The death of a dream, of a cherished relationship.

It’s not going to stop.

Hold on tightly to your friends, your loved ones. The friends who walk on their hind legs and the fur-bearing ones who love you unconditionally, with great ardour and whose love has the power to touch us in the deepest places in our hearts.

Hold tightly to them when the fire of love burns brightest. Love them, return their love and release them to the love, care and wisdom of the Universe when a time of ending comes.

And trust that your love — mingled with theirs — and the memories of shared experiences, of your time together will sustain you.

Sustain you and offer a sweet note of consolation. Especially if you must walk life’s path alone for a time.

Healing Love to all of you. And all whom you love.

A loving, grieving and hopeful man, I am,

Benjamin Basile

October 29, 2020November 10, 2020 stfranman Compassionate Living

Doing God’s work in New England

There has been no shortage of bad things going on around us in recent years.

Yet it’s also true that many other things are happening that remind us that there are people who care. It’s a good thing to be reminded that people of faith are in the middle of many of those good things.

One of those things involves a campaign by churches in the New England region–in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, specifically–to pay the medical debts of Americans who were buried in mountains of debt because of illnesses or injuries.

The effort was spearheaded by an interfaith agency associated with the United Church of Christ denomination and successfully zeroed out 8.4 Million dollars in medical debt all told.

This is especially helpful, timely and noteworthy as many people have been taking on crushing debt because of the Coronavirus pandemic.

We salute what the United Church of Christ has done here. It’s a wonderful display of love and benevolence and a bit of good news that is most welcome, coming at a time when we long to hear good news.

Brother Ben

July 30, 2020July 30, 2020 stfranman Compassionate Living

Herman Cain has passed

Former Presidential candidate Herman Cain has passed.

He died today after battling COVID-19 for the last month.

If Mr Cain and I had ever had a chance to talk about this pandemic and the way it’s taken so many lives, I’m quite sure the discussion would reveal that we were seeing things very differently.

Having said that, it’s a tragedy that Mr Cain has passed from the scene too soon. It’s tragic when anyone is laid low by this horrible disease. Anyone here in the US–anyone, anywhere.

But it’s also true that Herman was clearly in the denialist camp. When he attended Donald Trump’s Tulsa rally, he and his party sat proudly in the Bank of Oklahoma Center with no masks.

I certainly understand that it’s possible that Mr Cain became infected in some other way. That’s true without a doubt.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt whether he and his family did anything that would put him at greater risk than attending that rally back on June 20th.

There have been many large gatherings in the last few months that have put people at great risk. And many Americans are paying a steep price for their apparent rejection of the facts about this pandemic. About the pandemic and ways to lower your risk.

It’s not too late to put the politics around all of this aside, embrace the science and protect yourself.

Do it for your loved ones. Do it because you have something to live for.

Do it even if you get no support–or even opposition–from family and friends.

So many have died because of this accursed virus. Please take the precautions you can to make it less likely that you’ll be one of them.

Brother Ben

Follow this link to see the guidance from the CDC on ways to lower your risk.

July 8, 2020July 9, 2020 stfranman Compassionate Living

Where Common Sense and Compassion Meet

As you no doubt have noticed, there has been a lot of discussion — and a lot of legal fights, as well — about what places of worship can or should do while COVID-19 is ravaging our communities and our churches.

For me, it’s really just a matter of common sense. Of common sense and compassion.

To gather for corporate worship is a right, of course. It’s a right in our Constitutional Republic and it meets an essential and deeply-felt need for so many.

But it’s also true that churches — like any other entity or enterprise in our communities — also want to help keep their members and friends from contracting or spreading a serious and sometimes fatal disease.

Some houses of worship did not like restrictions put in place while the epidemic raged. And they took the route of legal action.

Some churches have unwittingly become incubators of this opportunistic virus and have been deeply affected; many have lost members to coronavirus.

It’s going to make this ordeal better — or at least mitigate the damage we’re experiencing — if we take common sense precautions and do all we can to safeguard the health and the lives of all our friends and everyone in the communities where we worship and work.

Brother Ben

May 10, 2020April 10, 2020 stfranman Bible/Sacred Literature, Compassionate Living, Spirituality/Religion

Love Covers All

When we read this passage from the 10th Chapter of Proverbs, it may at first seem unremarkable.

⁹Whoever walks in integrity walks securely,
but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.

¹¹The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life,
but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

¹²Hatred stirs up conflict,
but love covers over all wrongs.
from Proverbs, Chapter 10

Those wise, clear exhortations to treat our fellows with courtesy and respect are timeless. The exhortations to let love be our guiding principle in all things.

These words of wisdom are common to all cultures and all religions. All spiritual paths.

As verse 12 wraps up, the clear emphasis is on love and how love can cover over all wrongs.

Just in case a reader may think that Solomon had been imbibing too much of the fruit of the vine and had gone all hippy on us, there are, of course, hundreds–if not thousands–of passages from the Bible that put over that very same idea.

And from the literature and sacred books of a thousand religions and cultures.

The common folk saying found below is an almost word-for-word paraphrase of the familiar Wisdom we read in Matthew chapter 7, verse 12:

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.
Common folk saying

It is hard, at times, to understand why so many of us are in such great need of being reminded of these things.

The reminders, the exhortations, come from a thousand voices, heard at every turn as we walk along life’s path.

And often we aren’t listening.

I’m not. You’re not. He’s not. She’s not. They’re not.

Listen to those voices.

Heed them.

Let love be your touchstone, your all-in-all.

Brother Ben

April 8, 2020April 7, 2020 stfranman Compassionate Living, Peace and Peacemaking

War and Acts of Compassion

As is true for so many of us, the coronavirus crisis has had huge effects on how I live my life day-to-day.

Yes, I’ve got a day job and — like so many others — I’ve been furloughed by my employer for the time being.

And so I’ve been spending even more time than usual looking through my reading collection and all over the net for good things to read.

This piece I found today is about a German WW II veteran’s experience when an American medic risked his life — going behind German lines — to treat their wounded.

Reading stories like this one often touch me deeply and remind me that — although people often do terrible things to each other — we are also capable of acts of great love and compassion.

I’ll go so far as to say that St Francis would have loved reading this surprising story. It’s well-worth the next few minutes of your day.

April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 stfranman Compassionate Living, Holy Days and Holidays

Some Love on World Health Day

The 7th of April is World Health Day each year. It’s always a good time to show appreciation to our health care professionals, of course. But that seems all the more appropriate now that COVID-19 is ravaging our world.

Nurses have been there for me in a big way the four times I’ve been hospitalized. One of those involved major surgery and — although that was a very big deal — the care I received from nurses, doctors and techs made a tough situation bearable.

I’m thinking that most of the folks who may read this could say something similar.

I know that many of us have been watching more news than usual while we’re in the middle of this crisis. I certainly have.

It’s striking to me that many in the field — nurses especially — are literally laying their lives on the line to care for their patients.

If you know a nurse — or anyone in the health care field — now would be a good time to show your appreciation for all they do.

A good time to tell them of your appreciation.

A good time to possibly bring over a meal, to watch some children while Mom or Dad is putting in insane hours to care for us.

Especially if they’re living apart from family members now in order to lower the risk of inadvertently endangering their loved ones’ health.

There are so many in that work dealing with a lot of really, really big challenges right now.

I’m so grateful today for our health care professionals. And I’m most certainly going to make it a point to speak those words of appreciation whenever I can.

Brother Ben

April 2, 2020April 17, 2020 stfranman Bible/Sacred Literature, Compassionate Living, Spirituality/Religion

Sell Everything and Follow Me

¹⁷As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²¹Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

²²At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

²³Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
Mark 10:17-23 NRSV

We have come to an unexpected and very unusual place in the history of humanity. So many of us are very apprehensive about our futures and about our collective future.

That’s putting it mildly. It might be closer to the mark to say that many of us are terrified of what the future may bring.

Many experts and prognosticators have been warning of hard economic times coming. Some of the warning signs began to flash even before the crisis posed by the coronavirus came around.

And now that so many of us are staying at home, and most work and economic activity has ground to a halt, there is almost no possibility that a serious recession can be avoided.

Many who make their livings by studying such things say that we’re not headed into a recession, but that it will be a full-blown depression, the like of which we haven’t seen since October of 1929.

The story recounted here in Mark 10 can be instructive for us today. The Master plainly tells this 1st Century high-roller that his great wealth is an impediment to his ever entering God’s Kingdom.

We have been living in a time when people with great wealth — people who’ve amassed a lot of stuff — are greatly admired.

We write and read stories about them and may wish that we could get into that elite club.

Sometimes, we give them their own reality shows.

But — as was true in 1st Century Palestine — there are so many of our elites who are sitting on huge piles of cash today but are stunningly spiritually-impoverished.

Although we can’t know exactly how events will play out as this crisis unfolds, I have no doubt that many people who have been at the top of the pyramid, so to speak, are going see a lot of their wealth — and the power and influence that usually come with it — disappear.

And we’ll be reminded once again that great riches and prestige and all of that do not enrich us spiritually; that they are — for so many of us — great burdens we carry through life, burdens that may well keep us from entering into God’s Kingdom.

This is a time for all of us to desire above all else to enrich ourselves spiritually, to lay up treasure in heaven, as Jesus said to this would-be follower in Mark’s Gospel.

Those who amass this kind of wealth know well that these riches cannot be taken away by anyone or anything.

They know that their loving, compassionate actions bring them closer to their fellows, closer to true wealth and closer — most especially — to God’s Kingdom.

May we remember this as we go — together — through these uncertain and trying times.

Brother Ben