A Few Quotes

For those of you out traveling on this holiday weekend:

Wandering reestablishes the original harmony which once existed between man [sic] and the universe.
~ Anatole French

And for those celebrating those who Labor:

Far from leaving our bodies behind, prayer leads us to engage more fully with them, for God cannot be separated from the things of this world. I sought a life of prayer lived in intimacy not only with God, but also with the land and with a community of fellow pilgrims. That was why I came to [visit] the Trappists; they were known for a life of ora et labora, prayer and manual labor.
     "To sit on the side and gaze at our navel," Abbot Stan wrote in an essay on work, "is to miss the great reality of life. We are co-creators with God of the earthly city." Creation was not a one-time event, Stan said, it is ongoing, and we are called to participate in it with the work of our hands. For the monks at Mepkin there was a constant back-and-forth between work and prayer, action and contemplation, the one feeding the other. ... "If our work is to share in the creative activity of God," Abbott Stan continued, "then it is precisely not a dominion of power or self-aggrandizement. It is one of humility, to fulfill the calling to be a person. ... We do not dominate by lording it over nature, but by treading lightly, knowing that we are all in this together."
~ Bahnson, Fred. Soil and Sacrament:A Spiritual Memoir of Food and Faith. 2013: 21.

Blessed Be
Joel