Still thinking about those golden calves... The funniest thing happens sometimes, when it's time for me to think. I get the time. I travel by train into the city once a week to do my volunteer work at St. Bart's Church. It's an hour and a half train ride. I never rode trains much before... always planes for long trips and autos for short. It's the American way. I either need to get there fast (because my time is too valuable to waste) or I need to be able to stop when I want to (because my convenience is more important than those gas emissions.) We are blessed to have mass transportation here in New York State, but a lot of times we still don't use it. I've been blessed to use it three times in the last week.
The train from Brewster to Grand Central has become a meditation space. I buy a cup of coffee at Suz' Caboose, and it usually lasts til Katonah. So does the view. I look out the window at the landscape and watch for changes. Yesterday a swan with her two babies was on the lake. Even at that distance I could see how fluffy and uncoordinated they were. Once the coffee is gone, I pick up my knitting. Knit one Hail Mary, knit two full of grace, knit three the Lord is with you. And so it goes. I think about the luxury of being a religious: having time to pray built right into my schedule. Who else gets that? I think about the companionship of the sisters I live with. If one is driving me bonkers, there are four others I can seek out to be with. There are six of us to share the cooking, the cleaning up, the daily chores. Who else gets that?
I think about everything I've learned since coming to this community: how my attitudes have softened in very significant areas, yet how I'm still the same person, with the same issues. Those issues play out differently, but they are part and parcel of who I am. I have changed and I have not changed. (Another one of God's practical jokes?)
Is this community a golden calf? I think it could be if I allow myself to get caught up in doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons. And what would be the right reason? My relationship with God. Does this community enhance and support that relationship? Hey... so far so good.
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From my own experience with religious community life, it is very possible that the community can become the golden calf. I have seen the "why" of a community be replaced by the community itself, and it's a slippery slope. I am learning to try not to figure this all out, but simply hand it over to the One who "gets it" far more than I ever will.
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