Tina's Birthday

With a card and a bag of Sour Patch Kids purchased at Rite Aid we kicked off Tina's birthday today. After our walk to City College and back we will do our morning celtic prayer, read some Julian of Norwich out loud to each other (although Tina is losing patience with her) and get to the day's agenda. Tina will work some, I'll spend time with Jameson in a rare game of golf, then we will rendezvous for Tina's birthday dinner out. I am working on a stained glass piece for a neighbor, so I'll try to make progress without bleeding, although it is inevitable.

Each of these activities will provide an opportunity to do what St Ignatius practiced -- finding God in all things. It's a discipline I need to renew. It doesn't matter what the activity -- a birthday party, a walk, a project, and the more obvious spiritual reading. For an activist like myself, it is essential that I renew this discipline. It's not about learning something new about God from experience, but rather experiencing the fellowship and presence of God amidst the mundane. Splendor in the Ordinary, one writer called it. As an activist, it's easy to make the mission the goal, rather than God. If sabbatical isn't about reapturing the true goal, recentering on that, then it's just a vacation.