February 28, 2021

Dear St. Martin of Tours Family and Friends,

As I celebrate the fifty-second anniversary of my natal day, I have begun to think about my own mortality. Many of you will respond, “Oh, you’re just a kid!” – and I do appreciate the remark. However, it’s never a bad idea to think about death (though not too much lest we become morbidly obsessed and depressed).

Realizing that we have but a limited time in this world ought to have the positive effect of encouraging one not to waste time, not to get bogged down in the little matters of the day, and not to lose perspective regarding what is and what is not important.

The novelist Joyce Carol Oates has been asked many times about what she assesses to be the major difficulty in writing. She answered that it wasn’t a lack of creativity. Rather, it was being pulled in a hundred different ways by various distractions and interruptions: “… being interrupted many times in situations, professional or familial, where one is interrupted and one’s energy is drained off in different directions so that we don’t have the concentration that we need. That is really the great enemy of creativity.” (https://tim.blog/2021/02/11/joyce-carol-oates-transcript/)

Every day, Joyce Carol Oates places herself in her study and writes for a set time period a day. During that time she turns off all communication. She closes the door. She makes certain the dogs aren’t going to make a fuss or want attention. And she focuses on her task. Maybe the right question to ask yourself (and I’ve been asking myself the same question): What in fact, is your “task” in life? Other words for “task” in this case is “vocation” or “calling” or “purpose.” Usually we have more than one task. We wear different hats.

“Creativity” is a word that applies not to artists merely, but to every individual human being: You, I, your spouse, each member of your

family, (and maybe the dog, but perhaps not) are involved in the act of creating your life.

More properly formulated, you are the co-creator of your life, with God Who is the Creator and Who grants to us free choice in our actions, and who has also endowed us with a mind capable of self-reflection and self-evaluation. He has his hand on you and on me just like an author with pen on paper, and it’s up to us to sense the motions of God’s hand as He attempts to write the story of our lives, moment by moment, day by day, year by year.

What makes something a distraction? There is a scriptural reference that gets at the idea of what a distraction feels like. It’s from the second chapter, fifteenth verse of The Song of Solomon:

“Catch for us the foxes - the little foxes! -

that ruin the vineyards - our vineyards that are in bloom!”

These “little foxes” will steal the grapes, one at a time, day in, day out, and they will destroy the vineyard of your life, unless you decide to tame them. Put them in a pen; lock them there; let them out for the time necessary so you can attend to them and keep them away from stealing your time! Time is the limited treasure granted to us that sums up to encompass a life! Distractions are the little foxes.

Even if you can’t eliminate distractions, what we can do – and I have decided to look for a strategic schedule that makes sense – is to clump all the “little foxes” together in one place and time. Rather than addressing the foxes’ needs a little bit in the morning, at night, today, two days from now; rather feed them, play with them, perform all responsibilities (as is possible) at one fell swoop at one time. Be done with the foxes until the following week. Now, plunge in, with gusto and energy, what you are called to do!

And that is what’s on my mind for this week.

Blessings to all!