Working on a sermon last week I found a wonderful piece on contemplation. Walter Burghardt makes some comments about how to realize the capacity to discover the Holy - for contemplation. Here is another one.
...develop a feeling for festivity. Festivity...resides in activity that is meaningful in itself - not tied to goals. It calls for renunciation: you must take usable time and withdraw it from utility - and this out of love, whose expression is joy. Festivity is a yes to the world, to the reality of things, to the existence of woman and man, to the world's Creator.
I think the idea of taking "usable time" and removing it from utility is quite a vision. It take time as simple time and gives it back to us as a gift. No longer is a bit of time monitored for the sake of production. It is a gift. It may meant that all of the time in our day can be available to a bit of celebration. That doesn't mean something is not getting done. It simply means the time at hand is open to so much more than the price tag people put on it or the market rate that is available for such time. It would do all of us well if -in the middle of all the stuff that fills this day and tugs at us- we were able to see the festive as it is quite real and present in the everydayishness by which we so often run. I often find that it is difficult to pause and take hold of this "yes" when I am on my way from here to there - trying to get something done. Yes...to time taken to look again...smile again...and take another breath...and honor that which is all around us.
Connection: Well...join the festivities of the day!
For all the many ways life is a celebration of what is and what will be and what has been, O God we give you thanks. Amen.
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