Dear All of Us,
When you were young,
what were some of
your favorite activities -
other than doing homework,
of course!!??
For many of us
many of them
had great impact
on our life course
and development.
As a young teen
in the early '50's,
I loved to take
the Lackawanna train
and Hoboken Ferry,
or the De Camp#66 bus,
from Montclair into Manhattan.
I would roam freely,
one time a tour of the NBC studios,
another to The New York Stock Exchange,
to The Cloisters,
to Brentano's Book Store,
to multiple many other venues
over those roving,
learning teen years.
People and place
fascinated me.
I feel in love with both.
That's carried right
to this morning
and a review of the news.
It's been a lifetime
people watching,
place experiencing,
loving both,
with stops and study
Manhattan to
New Hope, Kentucky,
across this land
and over the seas.
For all the variation
of people and place,
the constant has been that
all have a part to play and ply
in the fabric of life.
God is weaving creation.
God counts on us to do
our unique piecework
as the people we are,
in the place we are.
A good example of that for me was
as a teen being mixed into
the vibrancy of
The Garment District
there in Manhattan.
The buzz of the handlers
and their racks of finished goods
on the streets echoed
that from the lofts above
as thousands of workers
pieced together fabric
into the fashion that
clothed the country.
Each worker had
a piece to play and ply
in weaving all that together.
So it is in our spiritual lives.
We all have our piecework.
We are all sorts of people,
with all sorts of potentials,
in all sorts of places,
each with a piece in
God's weaving creation forth.
"He creates each of us
by Jesus Christ
to join him
in the work he does,
the good work
he has gotten ready
for us to do,
work we had better be doing."
Ephesians 2:10
The Message
That work works out as teachers,
bus drivers, farmers, programmers,
parents, line workers, writers,
corporate leaders, retirees...
That works out in places like here
in Washington, DC,
out there in rural Montana,
at the fish market in Seattle.
That works out in
beautifully varied and vital
people and places.
We are WholeWorkers,
as Lillia Delio aptly words it. (1)
Our piece
works to the whole
of God's Creation.
At times though and sadly,
we and others
fail and flaw.
We become Hole Workers,
tearing at the fabric of Creation
by our selfish, destructive workings.
The tares are personal,
corporate, systemic,
ecological, social, religious.
Aa a result,
part of being a Whole Worker
is to repent and repair.
Being a Whole Worker can mean
wishing the store clerk a good day,
to caring for an aged parent,
to cultivating a community garden,
to working for social justice,
to being active in a vigorous church,
to quiet, supportive prayer.
"And don't hold back.
Throw yourself
into the work
of the Master,
confident that
nothing you do for him
is a waste of time or effort."
1 Corinthians 15:58
The Message
How wonderful
to be employed together
in the creative, redemptive,
weaving of God's Creation
with peoples and in places
across world and time as a
WHOLE WORKER
John Frank
******
PS:
"The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
Aristotle
The understanding that what one can do
many can do better figures in Synergy,
Gestalt, non-liner fields.
Happily, The Creator got there first!!
******
(1) Ilia Delio, "Love at the heart of the Universe,"
The Perennial Tradition, "Oneing" vol1,no1
(Center for Action and Contemplation 2013): 21-22
******
Some of us have been gathering here
weekly for three plus years now.
Others are joining in here for the first time.
This week a shout out for the group
from Germany who are regulars here
every week. They sure are a treasured piece
of our whole here at
. "frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
- is posted here online
early Thursday mornings
east coast USA time
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
(easily bookmarked)
- arrives by automatic email Fridays
sign up above right
- all past postings are retrievable at
Blog Archive
bottom right column above
Weave Away!
******
