Pastor's Points: Sitting In Dirt

Pastor's Points: Sitting in Dirt

I am not much of a gardener. I usually just buy some hanging plants for my backyard.  However, recently I was inspired while at Southern States and decided to pick up some flowers to plant near the statue of St. Francis in my backyard. In order to accomplish this, I had to sit in the dirt to get the right angle I wanted in order to skillfully arrange the flowers. As I was doing this, there was almost something therapeutic about it. As kids, we all probably sat in dirt at one point. Here I was at 44 years old, sitting in dirt, planting flowers and hoping I would be able to keep them alive. I did not have too much on my schedule that Saturday, so I took my time to just do everything I wanted to do in the backyard. There was a certain peacefulness about that morning.

This experience made me think about how most of us live very fast paced lives. Most of my week sees a full schedule from morning to night. Perhaps your schedule is the same as you try to juggle all the demands of work and family life. Often, there is not enough time to just sit in the dirt. However, we all need that time. Just time to be. Time be one with God in nature or one with God in prayer or one with God on a beach somewhere.  Summer is here. Vacations are here. We need time to rest and to recharge. I hope that you will find some time in these summer months to enjoy the people around you, to unplug from everyday life, to be still, to know God is in your midst.  Perhaps this will be in the form a vacation or a retreat. We all need to escape from life sometimes. 

As you plan for your summer vacation, may I ask one thing of you? Be sure to make time for church!  Do some research on where the local Catholic church is located and make time to go to Mass. The allure of sleeping in or having a lazy morning while on vacation may be attractive, but we also have to honor the Lord’s Day even when we are taking a break from our day-to-day life!

Things will begin to slow down at St. Thomas More toward the end of this month until we hit the restart button in mid-August for school, our Faith Development programs, and all the usual meetings that take place.  I do look forward to a calmer time around here in the summer, but I am always happy when the place is back to its usual hum with the sights and sounds of all that makes us who we are as a parish community.

Sometimes it is good to just sit down in the dirt. That’s what I discovered recently. Who knows, maybe I will become a master gardener! (Maybe not). Happy summer.