Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Ah, the Seine! I’ve walked it several times, both in the outskirts and in the City of Lights! One morning I set out about 8am. Walking, sitting, watching people. At about 9am, having sauntered by St. Chapelle, I found a superb Café where sitting at a table on the sidewalk I had a large bowl of coffee and hot milk, with a fresh baked mini-baguette which I dipped into the large “breakfast cup”, as gazed out over the river and the Isle St. Louis. There are few things – at least to me – more conducive to soothing the human spirit than such a morning.

Later, I strolled the banks of the Seine, taking a long time to peruse the bookstalls that line the river. There it was that I found an unopened slip-boxed edition of the works of Allan Seeger (yes, related to Pete). For $4. Delight.

And that is what, essentially, Life should be about. Delight. It deeply disturbs me that so many of us in the human community have no delight, that Life is so full of pain. Why is it that we can’t empathize? That we can’t rise to changing this? I have both been offered and myself created the opportunities to enjoy the delights of this World – often to the jealous harping of my acquaintances. My giftedness for delighting in the World has overridden the harping of others. Well I remember the tribute offered to me by Helen Greven, Junior Warden at St. Anne’s in the Fields, Lincoln MA, when I left them after eighteen months as their Interim Rector. At the luncheon following my last Sunday there, she thanked me for showing her how to delight in receiving, in how to enjoy Life. I felt that I had fulfilled my calling – for our God is always inviting us to fullness of Life. And might I add: this more than any other thing has taught me to work to extend this to others. It opened my heart, not closed it. Feeling blessed fires a desire that others may share in it.

Tomorrow, I hope to find an opportunity to extend Delight to another. Perhaps the World would change a little for the better if we all did?

Brian+