Notice everything

Here and Now, by VISION Events Editor Jennifer Tomshack, was taken at Plainsong Farm in Rockford, Michigan. The photo’s title, says Tomshack, was inspired by the writings of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew murdered in 1943 at Auschwitz: "Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields—there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze—and there I would immerse myself . . . . Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them" (An Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43).

"LESS IS MORE,” the credo of the minimalist movement in architecture, emphasizes the importance of clearing away the clutter to expose the beauty of the details and function of a space. A similar ethic was espoused centuries earlier by Jesus when he says to his fretting followers, “Notice how the flowers grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of them (Luke 12:27). This simple spiritual lesson, followed by saints and mystics ever after, is to examine our lives with an eye to the loveliness that is there in view, present all around us, rather than all that could be, that might have been, that others have.

As you discern your vocation don’t get distracted by the worry of the “what ifs.” Instead, consider the here and now. How do you feel when you pray, attend liturgy, serve in parish ministries, or spend time with men and women in religious life? Do you experience a sense of welcome, of clarity, of peace? Notice everything, particularly when you feel the most joy.