Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Mary Oliver asks us, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”   Many of us are busy about many good things.   Are these the things that we need to be busy about all the time?   In the past few months I have found myself being very, very busy about many good things.   Being in full-time parish ministry is very time consuming.   Sometimes I find myself working, working and working without taking the time to do the things that I really love and that feed my mind, body and spirit.   Important things like going to the beach, reading a good novel just for the fun of it. I then have to stop myself and ask, “Is this what I want to do with my one wild precious life?”   Don’t get me wrong I love parish ministry- it is very fulfilling.   Yet it does not feed my entire mind, body and spirit.   It is the time that I spend basking in my God’s presence, walking on the beach, being with love ones, be...

Mary Oliver’s poems so often speak to my heart at the time that I need it most.   On this Labor Day, a s I ponder the violence, injustice and oppression that are so rampant in our world, this poem speaks to my heart of my hope.   Song of the Builders On a summer morning I sat down on a hillside to think about God - a worthy pastime. Near me, I saw a single cricket; it was moving the grains of the hillside this way and that way. How great was its energy, how humble its effort. Let us hope it will always be like this, each of us going on in our inexplicable ways building the universe. Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early (2004) What speaks to your heart ? What is it you hope for? Mary Ann Nelson, OP Madison, WI

I suspect that each of us looks to a vacation that will refresh and renew them.   And that's not the same for each of us.   I just returned from a week of vacation at a cabin on a lake in the northern woods which, for me, is the perfect vacation.   I've been reflecting on that experience of simply being in God's presence. This time and place provided me with the space to enter into the gentle presence of God in   all of creation, which too often in my busyness, I can miss.   It was a time to just be. I was in awe at the beautiful sunsets on the shores of this lake, the strength and determination of the old turtle that I caught, the lovely bluegill who gave their lives for our breakfasts, the many faces of the lake and the simple love and fun shared by friends.    I delighted in hearing God's voice in the cry of the bullfrogs, the wind coming through the trees, the glorious songs of the birds and the play of the children nearby.   I recognized...