Back and Forth

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balance, Business, germinating, meditation, meetings, order, planning, rhythm of the day, tasks, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Yesterday I was home all day attempting to achieve some order in my bedroom, my calendar, my state of being. It’s always like this at some point as our fiscal year draws to a close (today!) and this time I was a little late to the task. I wrote checks to pay doctors who have kept me on a healthy path for another year, I shredded no longer useful papers and moved some to my file cabinet, responded to and deleted e-mails and did the accounting necessary to reconcile my part of our house expense budget. By 6:00, with some sense of accomplishment, I went downstairs to join again the world of conversation, having had enough of “business” for the day and feeling a need for some balance for my brain. I took up my knitting and Liz put down her book to talk with me so order was finally, fully restored.

Today I will be back to my more familiar and comfortable routine of meeting with people. My morning will be spent with Mary Pat, our creative mind, in the on-going process of planning our after-summer program offerings for the Sophia Center. I always like to watch what happens in those conversations. Sometimes I liken it to the corn now growing in the field around the corner. The ideas are seeded, start to germinate and then, without my notice, they come back in full ripeness. I could never achieve that alone! My afternoon promises additional meaningful conversation in two appointments that bespeak the meaning of the adage: What’s seldom is wonderful. I cannot imagine a better day “at work.”

People tell me I’m “so busy” and I have come to recognize more clearly that I do have many irons in the fire, so to speak. I am realizing this morning, however, that it’s a question of attitude and approach to tasks that keeps life in balance. I am very blessed in where I live and in the life that has evolved for me. I could spin from one thing to another with only the anxiety of time constraints pushing me – as I occasionally do – or I could look at everything as I have described above – the necessary tasks and the lovely encounters all turning with the rhythm of the days – and simply be grateful for the gifts I have been given. It’s sometimes a delicate balance, but one that behooves us to notice, regardless of what fills our life. Surrendering to what is and willingness to “enter the general dance,” as Thomas Merton says, seems the way to maintain equilibrium on a daily basis.

So now I go to meet my favorite dancing partner in my morning meditation. Have a blessed day, everyone!

 

Greetings and Salutations

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Business, encouragement, high school, Jesus, letter, Paul

As a freshman in high school I was happy for a course called “General Business” because we learned all sorts of practical things but nothing was too difficult. As I was trying to get my balance going from algebra to Latin class, it was always nice to sit in a class where we were learning things like how to write a check (not that any of us had a checking account in those days, much less a credit card!). One thing we learned was the difference in form of a business letter and a friendly letter. I’m sure business courses – even the most basic – are much more involved in high schools now but I have always been grateful for some of the practical things that I still use from my one and only business class.

I’m always uplifted when I read the salutations in Paul’s letters – today to the Thessalonians (1: 1-5). Paul writes:

Paul, Silvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, as is fitting, because your faith flourishes ever more, and the love of every one of you for one another grows ever greater.

I rarely write “real” letters these days but I’m thinking this morning about the value in taking time to encourage people – either on paper or electronically – or simply to let them know I think of them, praying for them and thanking God for their presence in my life. It could take less time now – no need to look for a pen or their zip code – and I wouldn’t even need to buy a stamp unless I communicated  in “the old-fashioned way” of snail-mail. The method isn’t as important as the product and neither is as vital as the intention. Paul was never too intent on his core message to overlook the importance of a positive “salutation” and, if we read to the end of the letters, we see the same in his “complementary closings” as well.

So today might be the day I send a shout out to my General Business teacher, Sister Patricia Gibson (aka Sister Marie Frederick) for all she taught me back then. Surely, it will be a grateful, friendly letter.

Even in the silence…

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Book of Daniel, Business, Consumer Goods and Services, Flowers and Foliages, God, Lord, Refrain, Religion and Spirituality, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I look out my window this morning all is still. There is no wind and the gentlest snow is falling, so quiet as to disturb nothing of the silence that envelops the creation. In this moment the response to the first reading seems out of place with its refrain of “PRAISE AND EXALT HIM ABOVE ALL FOREVER” (from the Book of Daniel). The lines between repetitions of the refrain fairly shout wild activity with images of seas and rivers, dolphins and all water creatures, birds of the air, beasts wild and tame…but the line that spoke to me in the midst of this was: “Everything growing from the earth, bless the Lord.” I look out and see only bare trees and think of all the plants and bushes that we have cut down in preparation for winter. It seems as if nothing has survived the cold, but then a verse we often use for funerals comes to mind. “They seemed in the view of the foolish to be dead…” With that, I begin to feel the energy of those bulbs, sleeping now, which in the spring will amaze us with their beautiful flowers. And I know it is the same with us. The season that is upon us is the best for entering our “inner room” and recalling what is always happening in us if we are attentive. Our on-going creation – especially in the silence – calls us daily toward the recognition of God’s life in us which will appear, when we make ourselves ready, in the flowering of our truest selves.