Author Archives: Mark J. Hahn

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About Mark J. Hahn

“What we have to be is what we are.” ― Thomas Merton

Circumstance

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“Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will affect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance. “   – James Allen

A truly keen insight. 

Thought, habit and circumstance. A pattern of interconnected consequence which creates a lasting resonance.  Entirely and utterly accountable to you alone.  And in certain respects, this pattern of interconnected consequence reveals how your character becomes woven directly into a  pursuit of excellence.

As you make your way along this path, it would be prudent to honestly discern and conduct an assessment oneself.

What pattern of thoughts tend to hold you back? Is it fear? Of beginning? That it somehow isn’t within you to start?

Or, is it the commitment once started ? That it is too much for you to see it through. To finish?

Perhaps it is more about the unknown. The possible, undesirable outcome that dogs you. The daunting spectres of disappointment. Discouragement. Disapproval. Defeat.

Maybe it is the fickleness of change. A need for security. The inability to trust. An aversion to honesty or criticism. Selfishness. Arrogance. Ego.

Misperceptions about the call for your leadership ?

Misconceptions about its demands for constant, unrelenting accountability, presence and effort?

Despite your efforts at concealment and containment, your thoughts rarely remain secret. 

Your thoughts and doubts are traitors. By word or deed, they make their way to the surface. 

A little here.  A little there.

Soon, all at once, you become an open book.  No longer private, your thoughts can come to govern each habit, control every action, impede any achievement and prohibit excellence, all in a very public manner.

Alter your thoughts from doubt to possibility and then you can alter your trajectory. 

So let the transformation begin.

Once thoughts crystallize into genuinely positive, productive and permanent habits, they will soon enjoin the effort to form your circumstance. A radical alteration of ones thoughts transforms the essence of ones life.

Circumstance becomes a product of habit.

And the outcome mirrors ones thoughts.

To love.

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We all are made to love.  

Part of His divine design. As created by our higher power.  God is the very source of love and we are called to embrace, reflect and direct that love to others. 

Yet during the course of life’s travails, disappointments and distrust, we begin to engage in the process of actively obscuring that attribute.  Cordoning off that integral and essential aspect of our being.  Seeking ephemeral pursuits.  Avoiding our true nature.  Evading our responsibility.  And in so doing, creating a false sense of security, safety and wellbeing.  

Despite the fact that we are hardwired for it, and it is our primary purpose, it can hurt to love.  

To give it without condition, guarantee or quid pro quo.  To expose oneself to a seemingly fatal level of self-inflicted pain.   We convince ourselves to capitulate to that illusion.  That we will not survive the giving.  That it will never be received as we intend.  Or more to the point – how we expect it to be taken. Or that we need to be present to witness the ultimate outcome.  

Choosing to succumb to a skinned knee, while another within our immediate universe might  be in the throes of a hopeless, lingering, lonely spiral downward.  Choosing process, research and expediency over interaction, intuition and patience.  Focusing on our flaws rather than the good inherent to the core.  Choosing ourselves and our needs first over those of another and making them second. 

True, dispensing, gifting and asserting love are all arduous tasks. The heaviest lifting imaginable   Missions that can generate more than their fair share of discomfort, disappointment and despair.  

Forgoing our heavenly purpose, ignoring our design and ignoring our Creator.  

Fortunately, there are those within our midst that refuse to be deterred.  Fervently remaining on point. Absorbing the pain.  Depleting themselves.  Giving it up.  

These sturdy souls, with an unyielding faith, have leaned into this mission.  Recognized that their purpose lay within.  The pain is temporary.  Reserves can be refilled.  And giving it up is who they are.  

You see, we are all made to love.  It’s just that we need to trust in that level of faith, learn to surrender ourselves to Him, and allow Him to direct our path.   

Then we will be fully equipped and supported to do so for others.  

To love.

Both born of Him.

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“As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on thing and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

An obvious consideration I have encountered during my self reclamation project.

Prideful and ego driven. No need for God in those circumstances. Why? I knew it all, knew what was best, had all of the answers and expected all just to accept it as fact. Not really from a pulpit, but a bully in certain regards just the same.

The level of static this generated between my ears prevented me from hearing Him. My chest hollowed out and empty. But most damagingly, the ruin it laid to my soul, blocking Him from me.

I was certainly looking down. Gathering in the landscape of my self destruction.

Then, one day, I chose to raise my gaze. To finally see what things really were. Removing the spectacle of ego brought me to embrace a new day and encounter another horizon.

Both born of Him.

Back to a nakedness as it were.

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As I progress through my self reclamation project, I find that in more ways than one, I am becoming more attuned to God. The readings, gospel, reflections and the homily inspire me to discover, read, reflect and open myself to ever more to centering Him in my life. Revelation upon revelation.

At football today, I had the opportunity to share the lectern with a fellow coach, for “Faith and Football.” Reading Matthew 23, and then some thoughts on our perspective to the team, we hoped to create an awareness of ego and pride within them and how it can work against them, isolating all from each other and obstructing development, growth and the auspices of a true team.

“Incurvatus in se” and “excurvatus ex se”, the definitive approach I came across last week was a central part of our segment today. They offer a compelling avenue towards understanding the ill effects of ego and a pride run rampant, for all involved. And as I went deeper into these aspects of faith, they provided the key towards a better grasp of sin.

Words can become so convoluted and misrepresented. Convoluted not so much in terms of complicated and difficult to understand, but moreso akin to the technical view of the word;”intricately folded, twisted, or coiled.” Misrepresented, to “give a false or misleading account of the nature of.”, so that an audience can be led to or away from some desired end point. By the looks of it, sin falls into that convoluted, misrepresented category.

Now at this point of this collection of words and punctuation, this is just me thinking out loud. Well, typing/blogging out loud. So here goes:

My initial understanding of it – sin – was the acts committed. And that original sin was our affliction at birth. Immoral, wrong, hurtful things we choose to do, perhaps predicated from a mindset possessed the day we were born. Simplistic in my estimation. Generic. Overly. Not to mention that it leaves one kinda hangin’.

Reading more about and peering into the Garden, a deeper sense of awareness and connection is more evident. They two were formed of the earth and breathed into life by Him, granted both freewill and the experience offered by the world about them. Anything the heart could desire could be found in the trees that surrounded and sheltered them. All was theirs to experience, save one. The fruit of the tree of knowledge.

As Bishop Barron explains it; “So how about the prohibition? We hear that
they are prohibited from eating from one tree, which
is a “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” What does
that mean? God is the unconditioned good. Therefore,
God is, in his own being, the criterion of good and evil.
Therefore, the prerogative belongs to God alone to
know good and evil. The original sin is arrogating to
ourselves the prerogative of determining good and evil,
when our wills become the criterion and the measure
rather than God.”

Pretty much depicts the nature of the serpent that has been ever present in my life; ego.

Professing to know it all and be everything to everybody as espoused from the pulpit of my creation – ego and pride. And as Adam and Eve found shelter from themselves and protection from the truth by donning clothes, that only serves to cave oneself in around oneself. “Incurvatus in se”.

Arrogating spells out to a “T” the aim of the ego and false pride. It cannot but help reduce oneself into a being of false servitude.

The daily revelations that He shares with me, have opened a heart and mind that have remain closed for quite some time. In many ways a form of solitary confinement.

Exerting the gift of freewill and choosing His path is remaking things for me in this stage in life. The apeture is growing , the curve opening outward more towards Him and others.

BRUEGHEL, Jan El Viejo_El Jardín del Edén, c.1610-1612 _(CTB.1988.29)

Back to a nakedness as it were.

Sure am glad I did.

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It is comforting how the gospels and the reflections offered reflect the present moment and circumstance. Perhaps there are days when they require a deeper level of discernment. But then again, they can appear on the marquis, lights ablaze, drawing one to step in and see what it is He is showing.

Bishop Barron as a wonderful way of cutting to the chase. Breaking down thoughts and words conceptualized and spoken hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, into the raw essence of their devotional meaning. Truly a gift in my estimation in that things can become obscured from their honest intention, whether by accident or design.

Today, we are called to change our hearts and behaviors.

As the Bishop so shared: “St. Augustine defines sin as incurvatus in se—that means ‘caved in around oneself.’ To be in sin is to be ‘caved in’ around the ego and its narrow concerns.” I then went a little further and found “incurvatus in se” referred to as being “curved in on oneself”. Being self-absorbed to the extent that focus, desire and effort is consumed entirely to the benefit of oneself, to the abandonment of others.

Speaking from experience, a level of this degree of self-absorption can lead to a wide and debilitating array of negative consequences. Among them perpetual, scathing self-analysis, life-long score-keeping, an affinity and affection for deception and additional, destructive modes of ensuring a gathering isolation. Upon some ongoing, in depth discernment, discussion and reflection, I can say for certain, that being “caved in” or “curved in on one self” hits the nail on the head.

So following the Latin route given to me today, a better path would be “excurvatus ex se”. In other words, approaching life curved outward. With an open, honest and receptive focus on others and God. Ceding that quest for internal control brings with it serenity and genuine peace. Something that can create a level of affirmation never quite known before.

With that newfound perspective comes that same wish for others.

Not born of the self absorbed confines of an incurvatus ego and judgement. But rather a true outward excurvatus perspective of what it is really all about; others.

Not because I say so.

But simply because it is.

Took me quite a while to finally get geometry.

Sure am glad I did.