#tbt: The Daily Working

My copy of Jim Manney's Ignatian inflected commonplace book is already sprouting post-it notes, pointers to new authors I've discovered, questions to think about.  Today's author wasn't new to me — it was me, a snippet from a piece I wrote for This Ignatian Life in September 2012!  But funnily enough, in this first week of the semester where I feel inundated with meetings and organizational details it was good to read my own words and to remind myself, I really do love the daily working, the writing of an introductory course lecture, the office hours, my students.  Admittedly, I'm still working on loving the grading.  As Urban Spiritual Director was wont to say, "first of all we preach to ourselves."

You can read "The Daily Working" at This Ignatian Life; the title comes from a line from dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham — and see what questions it prompted Jim Manney to pose for reflection by checking out page 30 of the excerpt above!

Adsum: #usemeinstead

After sliding our way to and from PHL today to get our Egg onto his plane for California College, I spent much of the rest of the day nursing a sore throat while listening to the freezing rain hit the roof. Too sick to go to Mass, I prayed through the propers and readings for today and enjoyed the short reflection from Carlo Carletto in Give Us This Day in lieu of a homily.  Wait on God, he says, until the time comes when we are called, when we must speak out.

Adsum, says Samuel, in the Latin translation of today's first reading.  Here I am. I come to do your will.

Wandering through my Facebook feed tonight, I found Samuel's story replaying in Amy Chanson of Diary of a Contemplative's post:  "Use Me Instead." She is taking part in the #usemeinstead campaign where clergy are offering their photographs to be used in lieu of the African-American men's images currently being used that had been used by the North Miami Beach police department for sniper training.  She is called, and speaking out powerfully.

Adsum.  Here I am. #usemeinstead

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My friend Fran was also writing about being called - for yesterday's Feast of St. Anthony.  Read her reflection, "A compelling call," at PrayTell.

DotMagis: Wild Joy

Alan Holdren/CNA

"There are very few people who realize what God would make of them if they abandoned themselves into his hands, and let themselves be formed by his grace."

— Ignatius of Loyola

I'm still fruitfully pondering Pope Francis'  Christmas message to the Curia, with its helpful list of spiritual maladies and cures. (Though I wonder if there is a spiritual equivalent of hypochondria or medical students' disease?)

The pope prescribed prayerful humor and joy for the malady of the funeral face. Which prompted me to wonder in reflection posted at DotMagis last week, can we abandon ourselves to joy in prayer?  What might happen to us — to others — if we did?

"...I love the impish way Thomas More’s prayer begins, with a request to the Lord for good digestion, and, oh, by the way, some food to digest would not go amiss. It reminds me of the way my college-aged sons banter with me in the kitchen, certain enough of my love for them, and theirs for me, to playfully tease me. In his Exercises, St. Ignatius encourages us to speak to Jesus as one friend to another. Do I love God enough to banter with him, as my sons do with me? Or perhaps I should ask if I’m certain enough of God’s love for me that I would risk bantering with God in my prayer?"

...read the rest at DotMagis

Swimming Lessons

“People who have faith in life are like swimmers who entrust themselves to a rushing river. They neither abandon themselves to its current nor try to resist it. Rather, they adjust their every movement to the watercourse, use it with purpose and skill, and enjoy the adventure.” — David Steindl-Rast

Swimming lessons mean winter to me.  When I was young, living in a small town west of Chicago, we took lessons at the YMCA about 30 minutes away.  My mother would pack all five or six of us up in the car and head off to the Y, where we wound our way downstairs to the locker rooms, stuffed our mittens, scarves, hats, coats, and uniforms into lockers and magically turned into Guppies or Minnows or Sharks.  I can still remember how the snow piled up against the glass panels as February drifted into March, the humid air condensing in a misty veil.  Rumor had it the panels were opened in the summer, turning the indoor pool into an outdoor one with a few turns of a wheel.

I'm back taking lessons again, heading to our new Y twice a week for an in-the-water weight and aerobic training class.  The kids' classes are in the other half of the warm pool, and as I did grand battements on the side, I could hear them playing "red light/green light."  Fifty years ago, I was playing the same game in a warm pool while the winter winds howled.

I am in miserable shape.  My head knows how to move, but my joints creak in all new ways, my plantar fasciitis has returned with a vengeance, and my body won't alway do what my head says.  It's a strange feeling to feel so out of sorts in my own body, but on balance, I'm enjoying the adventure of getting my balance again.

Shades of Mary Poppins

Wanted a nanny for two adorable children
If you want this choice position
Have a cheery disposition
Rosy cheeks, no warts
Play games, all sorts
...
Hurry nanny, many thanks 

Sincerely, Jane and Michael Banks

It's the start of the new semester and I'm reorganizing a set of files for my general chemistry course.  Like the sheets of paper that find their ways into odd places, so too, do files occassionally land in the wrong folder.  And with about 1.25 million files on my laptop, I might not happen across such misplaced items anytime soon. This time I found an ad for an afterschool babysitter — written by the boys. They aren't as witty as the lyricists for Mary Poppins, but they did have opinions:

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Baby Sitter 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Needed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Requirements 

• Has a car
• Can handle an 12 year old and a 10 year old
• Has some medical experience
• Doesn’t smoke
• Likes to play with kids

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I loved the colors and the exclamation points, and the idea that medical experience would be a good idea. When I asked them why, they said it was because they were active and might get hurt.  From this we found the most marvelous of companions for the boys, who learned to cook with them, studied with them, was an all around big sister for them, who shaped them in so many ways.