Gay - be; You - be; it - be, just be.

         Can we be still enough to just be?  I confess that most often I am only content when I am moving along. Not too fast, not crazy busy, but also not too slow. I don't want to be bored.  I know I am capable of listening. I know I can take time  to sit and be. Does it have to be the Triduum to do so? Does it have to be some special occasion for me to just sit and observe, to try and be one with nature, to be one with God? Can I sit and be who God made me to be, a gay man, a happy soul, a loving, comforting, caring soul? Can, can, we do any of these things and just be?

          All too often we get lost in the cacophony of the world whizzing around us.  We take an active part in the insanity that we so often complain of. Our hearts long for unity, purpose and calm. Today's passage from  Sirach offers us some wisdom. 

          Yesterday we took some time to bicycle around a small section of our island.  We eschewed the gym in favor of a more wholesome, natural form of exercise.  Just getting out smelling the fields, the freshly tilled soil, the animals, the sweet fragrances of spring.  Still I felt the need to pause further. I pulled off the road to see bursts of red fronds among the tall grasses of the field. Take time to smell the roses? Take time to see God bursting forth, nature being what it so easily just IS.

           I gives me pause to think of what I am missing when I even casually cruise by in a car as I did just the day before when on a relaxing drive with my husband, hypermiling away in our latest wheels. So casual a ride and yet so much still missed. 

           I learned long ago the expression "knowing what, one knows not, is in a sense , omniscience".  What is it I do not know? Do I even search for the unknown or do I busy myself all day long placating myself with a mere slowing down. Can I stop and just be. Rest. Relax. Just be.

           Can I contemplate God, myself and just existence and love. What more is there, really?

        Sirach 42:15-45

I will now call to mind the works of the Lord,

   and will declare what I have seen.

By the word of the Lord his works are made;

   and all his creatures do his will. 

The sun looks down on everything with its light,

   and the work of the Lord is full of his glory. 

The Lord has not empowered even his holy ones

   to recount all his marvellous works,

which the Lord the Almighty has established

   so that the universe may stand firm in his glory. 

He searches out the abyss and the human heart;

   he understands their innermost secrets.

For the Most High knows all that may be known;

   he sees from of old the things that are to come. 

He discloses what has been and what is to be,

   and he reveals the traces of hidden things. 

No thought escapes him,

   and nothing is hidden from him. 

He has set in order the splendours of his wisdom;

   he is from all eternity one and the same.

Nothing can be added or taken away,

   and he needs no one to be his counsellor. 

How desirable are all his works,

   and how sparkling they are to see!

All these things live and remain for ever;

   each creature is preserved to meet a particular need. 

All things come in pairs, one opposite to the other,

   and he has made nothing incomplete. 

Each supplements the virtues of the other.

   Who could ever tire of seeing his glory?