Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

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 not...

Do you like going to meetings?   Recently, I spent two and a half days meeting with about 25 of our sisters about our congregation’s long range planning process, Boldly Together.   While I had not arrived eager to be there, within the first hour I found myself engaged in the process and energetic about it.   This switch happens for me often when I am a part of congregation meetings.   Although our congregation is dealing with diminishing numbers and an unknown future, when I come together with my sisters, associates and other partners in mission, I have great hope and energy for this future we are creating together.     I am so grateful that we are planning for a future!!    As we have the difficult conversations needed to understand the diverse perspectives in the room and as we talk about how we want to move into this unknown future together, there’s nowhere and no one else with whom I’d rather be.        Oh, it...