Kirkepiscatoid

Today’s readings talk about the “dailiness” of life—the business of getting up in the morning and doing your job b/c it is your responsibility, and that “dailiness” is the stuff of contemplation.

Reflection questions:

1. Make a lst of your daily responsibilities and commitments. What do you think of them? Do you think they feel like “the real stuff of contemplation”? Why or why not?

Oh, man, the entire list is too long for one reflection! But here’s the short list. I have responsibilities to my office, the patients that belong to the surgical path specimens and cytologies I get, four hospital labs in NE Missouri where I am medical director, my students and ATSU, my church as a member of the vestry, my friends and relatives, and somewhere in there I have to be responsible to ME, and somewhere in there I have to be responsible to GOD. Wow. That’s a long list.

I am “mostly ok” with these responsibilities but when two or more have issues simultaneously it is very stressful on me. More stressful than many people realize. I think most people see me as “multitasking well,” but what they do not see is how it starts to take “me” away from me, and that action also starts to take “me” away from focusing on God.

It is hard for me to see it as “the stuff of contemplation” because I tend to see it more as a distractor from contemplation. I think I need to get better at finding the peace inside all that chaos.

2. Do you ever “run away from life?” If so, what do you think makes you do that? What would be different if you ran TO life rather than AWAY from it?

Oh, I have “escape fantasies” but mostly I’m too hyper-responsible to really run away from the real meat of the responsibility. I am prone to little bouts of “pulling in my ears and hiding” at my place and just shutting out the world, but I don’t think I overdo it. I think the introverted parts of me need to hide sometimes and just be quiet—even to the point of hiding from my own extroverted parts!

3. Where do you “need to be?” Is it possible to go there and stay with joy? What would it take?

There is someplace I “need to be” but I don’t mean that in a geographic sense. That has been playing on me for a couple of months now. I have a pretty strong sense that this is the geographic place I need to be (not that I don’t have the occasional escape fantasy). But there is a place I need to be spiritually and I don’t know where it is, but I know I’m “not there yet.” For me to answer “what it would take” when I don’t even know where it is, is a very daunting task—near impossible. But I recognize it will take at the very least, more time just sitting with God. I don’t know if it’s possible to go there and stay with joy, but I do know that the more I work on sitting still with God, the longer I can stand to do it before it gets to feeling intense.