Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

On the return home from a very long international flight I found myself standing at O’Hare baggage claim with the rest of the passengers waiting for my bag to slip down the chute onto the carousel. I became alert once the mechanism activated and the first of the bags started their descent onto the carousel. Everyone crowding around the edge, eyes all focused on each piece of luggage. Would mine be there? Did it make the tight connection?  Hundreds of bags slowly presented themselves, slipped down the chute and onto the carousel. All bags as different as the passengers. Different sizes, shapes, softness, colors. Each containing the belongings of those tired travelers. No sign of mine.   Slowly bags are claimed and removed. Less people now and I’m trying not to worry. I’m looking for a large, soft sided, dark blue case with some red yarn tied to the handle. Lots of dark blue cases but  not mine. I found myself mesmerized by the slowly circling bags and reflecting ...

  “There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background, from joy to joy to joy…”  Li-Young Lee I thought of this quotation as I have experienced the joy, relief, sense of freedom, and the delight in the tangible presence of loved ones now that the worst of the pandemic seems to be behind us – though I am aware of necessary caution.  It has been a going from joy to joy to joy.  I just helped my cousin celebrate her 93 rd  birthday, surrounded, finally, by people who love her and had longed for her delightful conversation, sass, spark, and tenderness – we truly rejoiced in that event – from joy to joy.   I am led to ponder, however, the deeper meanings to these days – what opens us, me, to joy?  How do I know it as God intends?  How is it different from being happy?  Contented?  How does being “in joy” open me to give, respond, step out more courageously, more generously? ...

Tense, anxious, afraid, hopeful, cautious and now relief and joyfully optimism. These are some of the feelings that have recycled through my system since last Tuesday. I’ve tried to let go but these feelings kept coming back.   It has been difficult to live with the unknown, to let go of a deeply desired outcome.   And yet I do know that change is a constant part of this ever evolving life on earth. I realize how attached I am to the illusion of being in control and am humbly aware that with Covid and election results, how little control I really have.   So I take refuge with a merciful God in whose cosmic embrace I am given life. I walk amongst the trees and by the lakeside and my perspective adjusts. I watch the birds feeding from the seed I have scattered outside my window. I watch them drink and fluff their feathers in the bird bath. They have no concerns about the elections or Covid. They go about their lives expressing in their very being the mystery of God.   ...