Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Good Question, Great Answer

Sunday morning I heard part of an interview on Krista Tippett’s program on National Public Radio. Her guest, Terry Tempest Williams, told about being asked by someone at a party, “And what do you do?” She replied, “About what?”

Intriguing answer. We all do a lot of things; that’s why a lot of us feel like there’s not enough time in the day to do it all. But is there a way to see if they tie together somehow, if all our doings are, in the last analysis, really about only one or two things? The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber wrote that living means being addressed by life, or God, or a combination of the two; and we respond by being “about” something. So, if we know what we are about, we’ll discover what we think we are being asked to do, and we’ll discover which inner or outer voice we are paying attention to.

As Lent gets gradually closer, I think I’ll give some attention to what I’ve been about. It’s also probably time to ask if God thinks I’d be better off being about something else, or the same thing but in a new way.