Little Windows
I've been a busy girl, what with dissertating, knitting, retreating, engaging, and all other manner of life activity. Life is busy, and being blessed can be the busy or the rest to reflect on it.
Anyway, in addition to my pirate reading (I really need to just finish with that book--it's so short!), I've been sneaking in a bit of the spirit. This passage from the introduction to The Best Catholic Writing 2005
I think about the motley chaotic confusing house that is Catholicism. I think about the mad wondrous prayer of the Mass. I think about how there are such stunning and wonderful and confusing people in the clan of Catholics. I think about how we are all several kinds of people at once and hardly know ourselves, let alone anybody else. I think about how possible the church is, and how possible we are. I think about how, really, the Church is just lots and lots of us gathered for little holy meals and story swaps. I think about how religions are like people, capable of both extraordinary evil and unimaginable grace. I think about how the church is sort of like the windows above me, which catch these timbers of sun and focus them on the human comedy.
The book is a collection of writings about Catholicism and catholicism, about faith and life and people and intersections. The first piece is an essay about Mother Teresa that was worth the cost of the book alone. What a window she was; the author of the essay (David Scott) commented that Teresa didn't really do anything to solve poverty, but took the little way of simply caring for the poor. Small window shining on one soul at a time.
The plight of Abdul Rahman has been such a window for me. I am happy that he will be released and hope that asylum will be granted in a safe place. I pray for the day when he and others like him will be free to practice the religion they choose.
However busy you are in the world, no matter what your faith system (and we all have something in which we have faith), don't forget to notice when the windows let in a little light.