Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

The rugged individualist ideal persists. We meet it in real life and in fiction. We meet it in others or in ourselves. Whether it is stated so baldly or not, this ideal (the word ideal is generous) implies that we made ourselves and every feature of our personality; we can stand by ourselves and are not affected by others. It's hard to see how one could take all of this seriously and some of it is possibly a pose.

The rugged loner pose inevitably falls short. For instance. Say we are surrounded (or seem to be) by grumpy old men, grumpy old women, grumpy old kids, even. No matter how hopeful we are, how enthusiastic about life or someone or work or travel, the presence of this bunch tends to pull us down. We cannot simply live amid cynics, complainers, bitter and unhappy people, pessimists, the non-responsive and not feel the oppressive atmosphere. The number of crabby people per square foot definitely affects any one of us. Conceivably there is someone of heroic mold who can live amid this day after day and still be positive and hopeful. Most of us, even if we don't take on the cynicism or anger, at least are weighed down by it, find our smiles harder to produce.

What we can do is make an effort to bring the opposite spirit into our environment: our hope, faith and accompanying joy, our trust in God and the essential goodness of others, our conviction that a negative spirit helps no one. We are affected by the grumps around us; and others depend on our good and positive spirit to counter such influence.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

Watch Daily Mass online at: SaintJohnsAbbey.org/live

Send your prayer requests to the monks