Brian’s Reflection: Monday, July 11, 2011

[Feast of St. Benedict of Nursia in the Christian Kalendar]

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy,
even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.

E. B. White, author [Charlotte’s Web] and critic; he was born
on this date, 1899, in Mt. Vernon NY.


What really gives me Joy – and has all my Life – is contemplating the great Mystery of Life, of Being, and participating in it. I am so very glad that God made me a priest in the Episcopal Church! My core “work” was to stand at the altar and “channel” as openly as possible the Mystery. Bliss!

What I learned a long time ago is that there is a lot of other … uh …. crap we have to do in Life as well. So, I realize that it is a little naïve to say to people that they should only “do what they love”. The World doesn’t work like that. What I think we do need to know is, as White says, what indeed gives us Joy. Then we have to find a way to make sure that we can do that in the midst of all the rest of the stuff that we have to do to “make a living”.

Confession time: there were LOTS of things I hated about being a parish priest! I did the stuff I had to do ….. but there were lots of things I didn’t do well. And while I do not chastise myself for that, I do apologize to my congregations that they didn’t get my “best” in some areas. But in the midst of it all, I got to immerse myself in the Mystery of Life, and in the Mystery of that perhaps greatest invention of the human mind and heart: God. Sometimes the God we have invented has been ….. well, not so hot! But at it’s best, God has made manifest the very best and most glorious of what it is to be human.

Every moment can’t be doing what “gives us Joy”. But we can at least try our best to make sure that we build what gives us Joy into the mix!

Brian+