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Showing posts from June 22, 2014

Learning to Be Still

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I recently read a great story, which goes like this: A “boatman” comes from the city to camp beside a river near the author’s house, ostensibly to escape from his busy life and enjoy nature.   However, the boatman spends all his time rushing around, angrily fixing his broken boat motor, and then zooming up and down the quiet river all day.   After watching all this, the author observes with great sadness: “he had stayed as remote from the place he had come to as if he had never left the city where he lived… because he could not be still, the place could not exist for him .” (Wendell Berry, “The Nature Consumers”) As a generally busy person living in a culture which prizes busyness and fears stillness, Berry’s words read as a challenge to me.   It makes me wonder… what is it that “cannot exist” for me when I refuse to be still? When I learn to be still, the people and places that creep into my consciousness reveal God to me in new ways, breathing life into the psalmist’s words:

Year of Jubilee

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In the course of daily living during these days, the topic uppermost in my thoughts and actions is Jubilee.  I am one of the coordinators of the Mound Jubilee celebration.  What it comes down to is sort of like being on a team of wedding planners.  There are many details to attend to before we welcome our Jubilarians and their guests in a couple of weeks. In the midst of this, I’ve been thinking about and praying with the Jubilarians.  These 13 women who have shared sisterhood for over 50 years will have the gift of gathering together where their journey began, sharing and remembering stories, and re-connecting after having been separated geographically by their ministry locations.  I am even more aware of my own journey and the path where God has led me.  I am graced! Do you remember the joy of celebrating a family 50 th wedding anniversary? How did God speak to you in that experience? Is God calling you to sisterhood with us? Anne Sur, OP East Dubuque, IL