RBWords - Volume 37 - Number 1: January 2024
Something to Think About
The beginning of the 37th volume of RBWORDS is a reminder to me of the passage of time. I began sending this monthly newsletter to friends in January 1988! The three sections have not changed: SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT, SCHEDULES AND EVENTS and IT HAS BEEN SAID. What has changed is the writer! Thirty-seven years ago I was 45 years old. Now I will be turning 82 next month. Where has the time gone?
Those who have attended retreats I have preached as well as some who know me well have heard me speak of the two kinds of time in ancient Greek: chronos and kairos. Chronos answers the question: How LONG have you lived? But kairos speaks to the question, “How long have you LIVED?” What does it MEAN to have lived this long? How is an octogenarian supposed to feel simply because he or she made it this far? What does it mean to say, “Act your age?” I’m still pretty active and my general health is quite good. My “day job” is to serve as chaplain to the cloistered Dominican nuns at the Monastery of the Infant Jesus in Lufkin, TX. But I have added a twice weekly visit with students at a state university just north of here and a once weekly adult faith formation class at a local parish. My two great “loves” in ministry have been campus ministry and itinerant preaching. Age makes the latter difficult now, but I have found the former to still be possible. I truly enjoy campus and young adult ministry, and hope to continue in a “wisdom-figure role” in that ministry when my time finishes here next Summer. In the meantime, I also continue this newsletter, preach online every day (THE WORD TO THE WISE) and I have a kind of TGIF texting ministry to current and ex-student friends weekly. My chronos keeps on, and my kairos is rich with God’s help and the love of friends. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
It Has Been Said
“ The just shall flourish like the palm tree, shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall bear fruit even in old age, they will stay fresh and green, to proclaim: ‘The Lord is just; my rock, in whom there is no wrong.’” Psalm 92:14-16
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