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Yesterday, I glued my fingertips together with Krazy Glue and I am going to blame it on Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ. I have heard Fr. Greg speak at a couple of conferences now. Read a couple of his books. And was delighted recently to be given one of his quotes:
“I always talk about ‘cherishing’ because the word ‘love’ sort of gets lost. Cherishing is love with its sleeves rolled up.”
I talk a lot about love but how often do my sleeves get rolled up? Probably not as much as they could. In the past, I would have said “should” and I have the feeling it got me into a lot of unnecessary toil and stress. I would say “yes” to doing all sorts of things out of a sense of obligation, but not necessarily out of a sense of cherishing the work or the other the work was for. But feeling as stellar as I do at the present moment, and having had a good deal of my calendar shredded this past year, I can do things like make atrium materials again and have the time to do so. Now maybe I still shouldn’t because I end up doing things like gluing my fingertips together trying to stick straight pins into tiny flags of the different towns in Biblical Israel. But I still can and I cherish the little buggers (a reference to both the flags and the children).
I also am really cherishing my time spent of late working on a short book on Dominican spirituality and truth. It isn’t going anywhere fast but is letting me revisit some of the themes I wrote about before Covid (yes, another lifetime ago!) related to truth from a different angle. When I am working on it, I often get very frustrated and spend long stretches trying to pull the glue off the top of my fingertips and heating water for tea. That feels more productive than staring at my screen for hours and only having one sentence to show for it. Truth is a complicated topic especially in modern culture, and Dominican spirituality does make it clearer in helpful ways, but not without making you want to first pluck out the hairs in your eyebrows one by one as you attempt to understand the Summa. I have just finished chapter 3 of 8. Should be done sometime just before the Parousia. But it is a way of not only cherishing truth but cherishing all the Dominicans in my life who have been so good to me, even Thomas Aquinas.
The coming days will be spent continuing to remove the glue from my fingertips and cherishing the opportunity to return to St. Louis in early August as soon as my sixth round of chemo is almost done. Last summer at this time, I was part of a great Level 2 CGS formation course that got started inside the chapel at Aquinas Institute. I wish you could have seen the way the light came down through the windows throughout the day lighting up a couple catechists at a time and giving them halos. One year later I get to go back with these wonderful women to wrap it up. I cherish every moment of just thinking of being with them again, especially my fellow formation leaders Julie, Ashleigh, and Martie, and am rolling up my sleeves later this afternoon to finally find the missing lecture notes I promised to send them over a week ago now. Eeek. (Julie, Ashleigh, and Martie, I hope you are reading this.)
I agree with Fr. Greg that to speak of cherishing is richer than to speak of love, not because we should but because when we can it reminds us of the joy we are invited to as human being to treasure each other and the work we are gifted to get to do. When I write about cherishing, I find my heart swelling just a bit more with not only love but affection for the people and the tasks that I know I am lucky to have in my life. I hope that this week you feel the same. Know that I cherish you.
Picture explanation: These are not the flags that got my fingertips glued together. Instead they are my other favorite atrium material-making project of the past week: the International Eucharistic Presence figures for Level 2. Was not injured in process but did get paint on my new overalls. Sigh.