"To be present to Christ, we have to resist going out and finding a new recipe for happiness."
This quote from Sister Kathleen Flood has been resonating with me ever since I came home from my last week at the Academy for Spiritual Formation in Iowa. I am yearning to be present to the moment. It is so tempting to embrace cultural values such as "bigger is better" and "new is true." The last dozen years has been quite an exercise in realizing how much I truly swallow these untruths.
I love and long for a deeper relationship with Christ and with others, but it is not a new gimmick or a new book or another retreat or a spectacular new ministry experience that I need. It is not a new path that I need but an old one.
Abundant life is being present to the gifts God has already given me, becoming more deeply rooted in the soil that is already underneath me. Lord, help me to be more present to you. Let my presence be full of your presence.
Pictured: Trail to the stations of the cross at the Abbey at Gethsemane in Kentucky.
