Journal Entry May 9, 2017

I set my alarm incorrectly yesterday so I woke a little before 6 am to the light beginning in the east. I jumped up, quickly dressed, ate some cereal and was out the door by 6:20. I was just a bit late for work but my first hour is admin time. I like having this time before I start to get ready for the day. Needless to say, I did not write or read my Bible.

Today it is raining again but I don’t think it is supposed to last all day. I’m trying to follow the mindfulness practices that I was shown last week at Seton Cove. I’m doing the Body Scan daily but I often forget to eat mindfully. On Sunday, the bread and the grape juice of Communion became my mindful meal. As I tasted the piece of bread pulled from the loaf, I thought of the wheat in the fields near my house waving in the breeze. It turns from green to gold as it matures for harvest. The grapes are purple on the vine, ripe for picking. They are squeezed into the sweet liquid of juice rather than dried for raisins. But they are more than wheat and grapes. They represent the body of Christ. He said, ” Do this in remembrance of me.” The bread is His body given for us. The juice is His blood shed for us. “Take and eat,” He says. Remember what I did for you every time.

In the simple eating of a meal, the symbols are there. The ordinary becomes sacred. If I was truly mindful, I would see Jesus in every meal. But I am oblivious most of the time. I go about my business, my busyness, without a thought of Him. But then He will open my eyes and heart. I will see Him in my midst. I will see Him in the stranger, in the beam of sunlight through the clouds, and in the softness of a kitten’s fur on my face. He is here. He is here.

So train me, Lord, to be mindful in the ordinary. For in truth, everything is sacred.