A Willing Spirit Sustain

 

It has been some time since I have reflected with you and for you, and I feel moved to write because of the recent passing of Fr. Tom Francis, OCSO, and my visit to the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA to commemorate his life, praying with the monks at noonday prayer, reflecting, walking, reading, and writing before I head into a new year of teaching.

Fr Tom Francis left me an indelible gift of joy that allows me to see some things in graphic relief, among them sources of inspiration toward restoration of the spirit. When life gets difficult, we seek some way forward (and admittedly sometimes go backward to find it, but that’s only human!). Even though the way forward seems insurmountable, or perplexing, the Psalmist had it right to ask: “a willing spirit sustain in me” ( Ps.51). There’s much to do to create space for that level of willingness, but we all have the capacity to ask for simply the sustaining part of it. It’s in sustaining our willingness that we might more often see or feel closer to our Creator, to tap into that which makes us who we really are meant to be. Because we are often caught up in who we are not meant to be, and that’s the place to look more closely—to accept, investigate, and nurture that self back into a life better lived.

I am myself having a hard time moving forward into a new teaching year, as are many teachers I know, feeling still the burnout of the previous school year accompanying and hampering them. (If I had a dollar for every person who has, of late, shared their burnout, well…). I have to admit as I write this, I am only half prepared for the start of a new school calendar year, but I am also suddenly filled with an understanding of restoration that stems from taking time—not letting time steal my sanity and care away.

I know, I know—easier said than done, I hear you say? You’re right. But in the end, God is bigger than it all, and will find us where we are, and if we also make space for God and, as Fr Tom Francis once told me—place love where there is no love—then there will be love. And that does seem quite worth the effort to get there, whether we stake out in our own, or seek together with others.

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