Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

This past week I had a wonderful retreat opportunity.   I was gifted with a week up at Whistler in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.   It is located very near the Pacific coast, north of Vancouver, British Columbia.   Geologically it is an amazing area with gorgeous woods, glens, snow-covered mountains, wild life that all intermingles inside and outside of oneself.   One afternoon, I and a friend went on a guided eco hike through the misty rainforest.   I got to stand and be at one with a very tall, (60 foot) old cedar.   I saw the place where First Nation peoples gently took a small piece of the cedar bark to make their clothing and basketry. They then gave thanks and were careful to not do enduring damage to this regal friend of theirs.   Mostly there was the quiet and the rush of water to invite me to deepen that inner quiet, so I might delight in the outer and inner creative work of the Divine. What invites you to pause?   How do you br...

There is this cedar tree that overlooks our garden.  Every year it sheds its leaves and produces new ones.  Every year it produces hundreds and hundreds of seeds.  I know.  They fall in our garden and I have to rake them up! When I am out in the garden among the leaves and seeds, this scripture passage about the sower and the seed comes to mind.  I am always struck by the apparent extravagance and wastefulness of God.  Why so many?  Why every year?   But, God's ways are not our ways.  Sometimes we may want to question God's ways.  "Why God?" We may even want to suggest some improvements to God's plan.  "God, surely you could have averted this?"  But God is infinite wisdom!  God works all things for good.  I am slowly tapping into this wisdom.  So whereas in the past I grudgingly raked and bagged the leaves and seeds and put them by the road to be taken away, now I pile them high in a corner of the gard...