Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

My sisters and me in our orange walk shirts!! And it’s something I’m learning to live with!   Exercise is important, so I’m walking nearly every day and on the days it rains I go to the Y and work out on their machines. I’ve also joined a Boxing class for people with Parkinson’s.   I may not be Muhammed Ali, but I LOVE IT! (And he lived with Parkinson’s for thirty years.)   And next month I’ll be rowing in an 8-person skull on Lake Mendota with my Boxing buddies.   It’s a program the University of Wisconsin makes available every July, free of charge for people with Parkinson’s. In April nine Sisters joined me in a Walk-fundraiser for Parkinson’s.   This was so supportive for me.   We joined with many others that day.   We had a great time and raised over $56,000! This is all new to me, and I’m learning so much.    One thing I’m learning is that many people live with chronic and progressive diseases.    I consider myself lucky because I have a whole community of S

When we were kids and suffering from angst about the grades, athletic prowess, or popularity of our friends, my mom, (and probably her mother and grandmother before her) used to tell my sister and me,  “You do other things; you have other gifts.”  Of course, we didn’t understand or believe her.  Mothers say stuff like that. But it was good theology. True, we are all flawed and limited; but to use a biblical metaphor, we are only branches on the vine.    Only God is perfect.  The rest of us are trying.   What was true in my family and in the whole church is true in community.   In fact, I have always liked is that I don’t have to have all the skills or strengths of others in community.   I don’t have to waste energy being everything everyone else is. Particularly as I age and am less able to do all that I used to do, I’m better at just saying, “Thank you.”   The trick is to be comfortable with my own talents.   Thomas Aquinas’s notion of humility involves an accurate valuation of one’