How Everything Matters
By Katie Harmon-McLaughlin of San Anselmo, CA, USA
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. —Isaiah 58:6–8 NRSV
This is what I want to try to say:
How everything, everything matters
How each choice of each moment
Supports or suppresses the creation
Of the kin-dom of God
How the spiritual life is about
A heart in tune with the
Constant dynamic reality
Of the presence of the Holy
In all things
At all times
How the vision is always larger
Than the task and the “how” of the task
Helps or hinders the vision
Accomplishment redefined
In the moment-to-moment making
(And receiving)
Of the kin-dom we seek
How the future we strain to see exists right now
In these concrete details, realities, bodies before us
How the future is not manufactured but discovered
In the places we are in and
In the people we choose to love in these places
How a heart fully awake is a heart at prayer
How love, no matter how foolish, is the best strategy
How the inefficient way is sometimes most efficient
When the aim is alignment
With the “slow work”* of God
How everything, everything matters
*Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Prayer Phrase
God is with us.
Invitation to Spiritual Practice
Holy Attention
Ordinary time is a season for awakening to God’s presence in all the details and circumstances of our everyday, ordinary lives. Wherever you are, pay attention to your surroundings. Allow yourself to be fully present for a time with whatever is before you. Where do you sense God with you right now exactly where you are?
How does today’s story invite you to discover God in the realities of your everyday life?
Today’s Prayer for P eace
Engage in a daily practice of praying for peace in our world. Click here to read today’s prayer and be part of this practice of peace.
