Another one of those spontaneous ‘culture events’ popped up recently. This time, at a Philadelphia Macy’s department store. As clueless shoppers milled about, choristers from several area choirs—pretending to be shoppers themselves, and spread all over the huge store floor and balconies—started into Handel’s Messiah. The marriage of really good acoustics and the surreal event of so many (supposed) clothes shoppers breaking into song on an average morning probably brought tears to a good number of the 4 1/2 million YouTube viewers. Certainly to mine.
jsmith's blog
Quality Commute
In my last post, I mentioned driving by city lakes. My commute to work takes me along three lakes, in fact. Except for a particularly long red light at one intersection, my commute is as humane as a commute from the center of a city to a first ring suburb can get. This is no small matter. My quality of life has tangibly magnified since I moved closer to work and away from the freeway route. Certainly, God can be found cruising down the interstate, but God lingers along the Parkway, and is much easier to spot there.
November Lakes
The city lakes are offering no fight to the cold, invisible air. They’re surrendering themselves, degree by degree, to a winter of stillness. I drive by each day and marvel at their willingness to let go of the life they knew and to settle into a much humbler existence. I do not yield so easily to winter, in fact I fight much that God offers to me these days. Ah, to learn from the late November lakes!
The World Groans
Focused in my thoughts, I look up from my computer and over the shoulder of the woman sitting ahead of me. My eyes un-consciously alight on the portion of her computer screen visible to me, to the words in her right margin column, and I 'come to' long enough to note the words--numerous tabs for job seeking websites. The woman is unemployed, looking for work.
I look back down to mind my own business, but my thoughts linger on the woman's likely struggles.
Welcome the Stranger
In the course of a day, a week, a month a year, a lifetime, we cross paths with countless people whose names we will never know or will easily forget. The folks who share space with us in the grocery store, at Target, on the sidewalk, on the freeway, in the coffeehouse and the bar and the restaurant and the TV, computer or mobile screen.
coat hanger
It’s a metal coat hanger in the corner. Kind of architecturally interesting, but at the end of the day, just a coat hanger. It’s got 6 short arms protruding at 6 different angles from the long post. But add some ugly 80’s ceiling track lighting, and suddenly—on the wall just behind the hanger—you get a simple cross. Quietly, subtly, all day and all evening, the cross watches over the room, whispering to the room’s inhabitants, “I’ve got your back, people. Feel free to chill.”
If it's not the water, it must be God
I don’t know if it’s the drinking water (though I filter it) or what, but the world presents itself to me as this tremendous mystery. Leaves strewn on the sidewalk, the pumpkins turned jack-o-lanterns—and now half-eaten by really voracious squirrels, the morning sky, the retired fellow across from me in the coffeehouse talking about bears, the friend on the other end of my phone, the browning November earth. It all weighs with intimations of a third dimension, of a divine matter.
The poet Hopkins is spot on—“the world is charged with the granduer of God”.
Saints
The last week of October was filled with funerals for me. On Thursday of that week, a dear friend of mine was buried in Melrose, MN. He and his wife have been extraordinary Christians, choosing to fill their ‘retirement’ years building relationships and serving others. Parents of 5 and grandparents of over 20, they were busy in love with their family. But their hearts have been wonderfully Catholic, which means their love extended beyond the hearth of family.
Gym Crazy
I’m at the gym. Place is crazy busy. Resting between sets of an exercise, I stop, close my eyes and listen to the noises. A pop tune blares from God knows how many ceiling speakers. Weights clanging. Treadmills and stationary bikes whirring. Voices near me chit-chatting. It’s this amazing cacophony of sound, and I rarely really hear it. Keeping the eyes closed, I bless the noises. Hate the song, but bless it anyway. Quickly and easily judge some of these folks around me, but bless them anyway.
Pleasure or Plague?
We all could use some good entertainment now and again. But we’re overloaded with entertaining thoughts that do little to pleasure us in life-giving ways. Self-doubt, anxious fears, pervasive cynicism, ego-driven judgments. Some of us are plagued—not pleasured—by such entertaining thoughts.
Gratefully, there’s a gentle way out of this tornado swirl of thinking.
- a practiced attention to our thoughts. Consider a larger self that you inhabit that you release quietly when the smaller self starts it’s trashing.
Our Mission
Experiencing the
Heart of Christ, we
Know Jesus
in Word and Worship.
Live Jesus
in vibrant, welcoming
Catholic community.
Serve Jesus
in outreach and justice.
