Preparations

Of late, I have spent some considerable time thinking about and engaged in preparations for various things:  helping other faculty and staff prepare for the end of the school year craziness; creating a morning prayer for our provincial assembly this summer; getting the library ready for its summer rest--checking in and shelving all returned materials, final book orders and cataloging, shelf-reading, clearing the tops of shelves, straightening the books on the shelves; creating and producing the summer reading packets for the lower school students;and preparing to leave in three weeks for a little over a month of helping in another area of the Society...   Also, insofar as I am able,I have in a way been preparing my body for healing...trying to do what I can to allow for a best response to treatment for a bug that has been with me now for six weeks or so.

I like being prepared...I tend to travel prepared...whether in the course of an average day or over longer times and distances...and yet, as a wondrous friend gently and helpfully reminded me the other day when I was beginning to fret intensely about whether my voice will ever return and several other things all at the same time, all of the preparation in the world can not account for all events that happen...and when and if those events happen, you do what is needed and necessary. 

Meanwhile,  be aware and attentive, yes...but also, meanwhile, head on into the Unknown Ahead...

Head into the adventure...lean into it, lean into God who is here now and also ahead...and do so in freedom, trust, desire, openness, and faith.


...which made me think of both John the Baptist in the Gospels and John the Baptist in Godspell...

And that perhaps this disposition of heart is itself, ultimately, what prepares the way...and leads us to deepest home and widest horizon.