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Today I spent the day doing yard work. As a youth I use to hate doing yard work, I never saw the point in it. All the cutting and trimming and planting. All the weeding and seeding. It seemed to never end, from session to session there was always something to do in the yard, be it raking leaves in the fall or shoveling snow in the winter, it was a never ending process. And I truly hated it.
But when I got my own house, and my own yard and my own lawn my attitude shifted a bit. I still hated the work, but not there was a point. Pride! Pride in my house, pride in my lawn pride in my flower gardens. My own little plot of land. My own heaven.
But, as I stated I still hated the work. I am more of a thinker than a get down and dirty type. I would rather spend hours writing a report or researching for a new book or blog than to do yard work. But that too has changed. A few years back I installed a pond in my back yard. I love water, I love the sound of it and I love fish. So a pond sounded perfect to me. So I had one installed. What I failed to understand was the amount of work that it took for the up-keep of the pond. At first I was a little, well lets just say I was upset that my relaxation now turned in to work.
But what I found was that the up-keep, the cleaning and planting and caring for was relaxing. I found myself going to the pond every night with my skimmer to clean off the fallen leaves, I found myself spending the weekend tinkering around my oasis to make it just a tad bit more like heaven. And I hound I loved the work. Not only was I proud of it, I also loved it! What a shocker it was to me, a sworn “I will pay someone else to do that” and now I am “I can do it”. Now don’t misunderstand me, I am not a DIYer, I still believe in allowing the economy to work, to allow the principles of the capitalistic system to do there thing, and I am more than willing to help it out by paying someone to build me a deck or fix my car. But now I am more willing to venture in to the yard and plant a new bush or tree, to transplant this or that. I am more willing to get my hands dirty. This is a far cry from my youth and a giant step from my original pride as a home owner.
Being Catholic is a lot like that, I think. I think most of us go through a growing stage,a stage were something that we once thought we would never do, we are now doing. A stage were a once hard-line fact now becomes a soft edge fact or a once I would never do that becomes a hmm, maybe I will…
For the pat 20 years of my adult life I was a religious education teacher (volunteer), I thought I would never be able to give that up, the love and passion I had for it was like a fire. But the last two or three years of my volunteering I noticed that that fire was a little weaker, a little less burning desire. So last year I did something I thought I would never do, I stopped. Sure it hurt a little and sure I miss the kids, but over all I feel that I did Gods will.
Along the same lines, if you would of asked me ten years ago if I would have written books that are used worldwide or if I would be posting to a blog on an almost daily basis I would have responded with a big fat “I hate to write!” But just look at me now, I currently am posting to a blog, writing curriculum for faith formation and I am still writing the technical training manuals for the company I work for. Funny thing, time is…
God has plans for me, what they are I am not sure, but He has them. Will they include writing or faith formation or will it be down a different road? I do not know, but I do know that for now it seems that writing is a part of my life, as is gardening. So who knows, maybe I will write a book on gardening in your little heaven or maybe I will once again teach. God only knows…
I do know one thing, my love for writing has grown and now I can not see a time in my life when I will not be writing. It seems to be such a part of me now. And in away I can understand that, because in truth my writing is only an extension of my teaching. One I did with the spoken words the other with the written, each offering there own unique quality. But the current buzz I get from writing surpasses the buzz I was getting the last few years from teaching. No I still teach adults in my for pay job, I teach from the books I creates. God is good! I still have my first passion, teaching, and yet He has graced me with yet another, writing.
I am sure my skills are still far off from a Steven King and I am sure my theology needs a little work, no St. Thomas Aquinas am I. But I have notices an improvement over the years, my spelling has improves, it still stinks, but it has improved, mostly thanks to spell checker. I am sure my grammar has and my composition. But I can not judge that for myself, I have always been a poor proof reader, I still am as many of my post prove. I read what I know should be there, and not what is there. So I miss my own mistakes all the time. Some tell me that’s because I don’t think I make mistakes. There may be a little truth in that statement. Not that I am perfect, because I know I am not, but because I do not see them, my mind looks past them when I reread a document I have written. I fill in the missing blanks and assume the rest. What I need is a full time proof reader.
So today was a good day, today I had a chance to work in my heaven, to make it a little bit more heavenly. God truly is good!
God Bless
Paul
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| Hebrews 11:6“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
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