A Note from +Colin

Bishop Colin Johnson sent an e-mail to all the clergy in the Diocese with some encouraging words and this poem by Michael Podesta:

If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things,
and again with things,
if we consider ourselves so unimportant
that we must fill every moment of our lives with action,
when will we have the time
to make the long slow journey across the desert
as did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars
as did the Shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child
as did Mary?
For each of us, there is a desert to travel,
a star to discover,
and a being within ourselves to bring to life.

The Bishop continued in his own words:

It is not that Mary and Joseph, the shepherds or the magi left their "day jobs" (or "night jobs") completely to sit all day and meditate - a baby must still be fed, chores be done, decisions made, people visited, bills paid, after all. But each of them allowed the truly important to interrupt the "trivial round, the common task" and took time not only to think about what it meant but to allow it to change their lives profoundly. Next week the area bishops, archdeacon of York, CAO and chancellor will join me on an annual retreat at SSJE in Cambridge, MA to spend time in silence, prayer and discussion (along with a little frivolity!) to listen to and ponder what God is doing in our own lives and how we are responding to God's call.

May you find time - no, actually you have to make time - to make the journey and ponder what it means to be a beloved subject of God's desire.

I like that line about being "a beloved subject of God's desire." Nice to have a Bishop with a similar spiritual temperament as myself.

-t