What a difference a sunny day makes. It sure seems easier to pray when the sun is out! Day three was a good day. Our 1st session dealt with sin, and went back to the premise that we cannot look at ourselves through our eyes, but only through God's eyes. When we look through our own eyes, what we see is distorted by all the baggage we carry. And so it is with sin. When people say they have no sins to speak of (I hear that all the time in confession), they are looking through their own eyes. Only when we come to understand the orderliness of God's creation, can we see the disorderliness within ourselves.
When we look at sin in that way, we see we have a part in the problems of this world. For instance, we in America have the capacity to feed the entire world. So how is it that we allow poverty and hunger to persist everywhere we look? Our materialism, our greed, our sense of entitlement keeps us from being in touch with the pervasive nature of evil in the world.
The 1st reading at Mass was the continuing story of Jonah. Jonah tried to run from God, but in so doing, he put not only himself, but many others in great danger. The ship on which he was hiding was about to sink! In the same way, our sins affect not only us but those in the world around us. There is no such thing as a 'personal sin.'
Our 2nd conference dealt with the need for balance within our lives - the four 'legs of the table' that make the table stable or wobbly. Those four areas are physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual. We need to be healthy in each of these areas and nurture ourselves regularly in these areas.
We ended our day celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation.
Fr. Youngberg (those from St.Thomas remember him as the priest who led our mission that began our anniversary year) assisted as a confessor.
This afternoon I got a 3 mile power walk in, and then I got to sit in the sun for a couple of hours. I finished reading Jim Stovall's 'The Ultimate Life', the sequell to 'The Ultimate Gift.' I highly recommend it. One of the gifts that the main character has to pass on is the Gift of Gratitude. He is told to find 10 things every day for which he is grateful. My 1st thought was that this is something I already do every day. But then I re-read the passage to discover that the task was to find these 10 things at the start of each day - before you even get out of bed!
I wondered why? After all, it is certainly much easier to do it at the end of the day, isn't it? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me. Instead of beginning the day thinking about the crises and problems awaiting me on the other side of my door, I can leave my room in a positive frame of mind if I have those 10 things in the front of my mind. those negative things no longer seem as burdensome or overwhelming.
This ties back to the theme of the retreat - seeing things through the eyes of God because they are out of focus if I see them through my own eyes. I do not need to focus on what might go wrong, but on what is right!
Anyway, it was a full day, and we have one more full day tomorrow.
Lastly, I leave you with a funny-but-true saying I heard today that I really liked: Remember, it is better to be seen than to be viewed!
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