Today’s question: CONSIDER YOUR ROUTINES—WHERE IS GOD?
This is Day 20 of the 5-week Lenten journey with The Society of Saint John the Evangelist and their daily meditation on TIME.
See Br. Robert L’Esperance on the video (3:11) below, or to leave comments on the Brothers' website, go here. (http://ssje.org/ssje/2015/03/08/work-2-action)
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Question: CONSIDER YOUR ROUTINES—WHERE IS GOD?
Transcript of Video:
There are times when I’m enthusiastic about going to prayer in Chapel with my Brothers, to what we call the Daily Office. There are other times that I’m less enthusiastic about it. But I think the powerful thing about religion is that it teaches us that there is a value in simply doing something. There is a value of actually going through the motions of something – whether you have your heart and soul in it is actually immaterial to the practice. I think there is a lot of confusion about that. I think a lot of that confusion comes out of a lot of distorted thinking in the Protestant Reformation. There is actually a value in ritual. There is actually a value in doing something – that’s immaterial whether you can rationalize it, whether you can understand it, whether you can put your heart and soul in it – there’s actually a value to just going through the motions, through the steps. And I think sometimes when we’re in – I think we can apply that sometimes to work. I think sometimes it’s simply a matter of doing it. It’s simply a matter of doing it. And it’s in the doing that we are transformed and we are shaped and we are renewed and that we even – The reason liturgy and ritual was so important in the Church is because people realized that this was how they came to belief. This is how they actually – how their souls would change, how their hearts were softened and how they were able to give themselves to the ministry.
So I think sometimes we have to approach work that way: “I’m going to do it because this is what is here and this is what has to be done and I’m simply going to do it.” It’s the doing. And I know that that’s not very popular, that’s not something that’s very popular, it’s not a kind of thinking that’s very current in the world we live in where it’s about personal fulfillment, it’s about personal satisfaction – you know, “Is your job personally fulfilling?” I think sometimes that’s true. I think sometimes that’s not true. But I think that part of our humanness is sometimes just pushing through.
-Br. Robert L’Esperance
Blessings on our journey to re-order time in our lives,
Agatha