Priorities

Wondering, at the moment, how to get the blogging done, when there are many other things to get done! Priorities, priorities, you know.

Those priorities are as follows:

Praying: always vital, and never more vital than today with a more activist ministry and more challenging intellectual formation thanks to Boston College. Liturgy of the Hours -- morning prayer, evening prayer, night prayer, every day. Mental prayer, every day. Eucharist, every day. Prayer with others, whenever opportunities arise. Prayer on my own, whenever and wherever I am.

Reading: in all my spare moments, and in the moments I cannot spare, too. I will be reading more and reading faster than I have been doing these last two years. Will lectio divina disappear from my practice? Heaven forbid it! I will share with you some of the titles on my syllabuses as the year unfolds and as the pages turn.

Organizing: Renewing relationships, making new relationships, gathering people and resources in a way that will build a horizontal power among religious activists, a power that can be put at the service of low-wage workers. Yes, we who have privilege are gathering our powers in order to give them away. And by this example of being and doing, we hope to call the vertically powerful who order our economic life and our society to do likewise. At least that is the aim as this young Franciscan frames it, at Mass. Interfaith Worker Justice and the Boston New Sanctuary Movement.

Agitating: it's more fun than organizing, but without good organizing, there is no agitating. In truth, most of my time at Mass. Interfaith Worker Justice and the Boston New Sanctuary Movement will be hidden from the public eye, making connections and strengthening communities that are committed to personal and corporate transformation in the world.

Cooking: it's my turn this afternoon. Here comes salmon, brown rice, Asian slaw, salad, and cookies.

Meditating: now, on the parables of the lost coin and lost sheep for a visit I will be making to the United Methodist congregation in Winthrop, Mass., next Sunday.