Well, it's Saturday morning, 6:52, and I'm at work. Wow! Not something I usually do, because normally our shop doesn't work on Sat., occasionally one or two guys, but that's it. Today, though, most of us are here, 15 or so of us, "haying when the sun shines", as thy say. When I'm home on a Sat. morning by now H and I have had lots of coffee, said our different morning prayers, and had a nice breakfast. Then on our way to morning Mass whoever is the passenger reads our Morning Prayer from the Christian Prayer book aloud. It's about a 25 min. ride to St. Martha's in Enfield, and that's just about enough time. It's something we do in order to get everything in on a weekend. The point I'm trying to make is that all week I've been mulling over in my mind about our comfort zones, how most of us hate to get pushed out of them, how at times we'll do or say unusual things just to stay in them. I'm just as bad as the next person, for sure. Being here at work today, I'm out of my c.z. for sure. And I have to admit, I'm only here for the money. So sad, really, because there is a big difference between getting out of your c.z. for a worthy cause then for money. I guess that these are the everyday crosses that God give us to bear, and to bear with a smile.
And then there's getting shoved out of your comfort zone because of an earthquake. Watching the whole sanitized version of the disaster unfold on CNN, no matter how hard I try to plumb my soul for an ounce of despair that a Haitian must feel right now, I cannot find it. Maybe in a way I'm becoming numb to it all, here, thousands of miles away. My comfort zone for something like this is too great, their ordeal is something far from me, and I can only watch and pray. To offer up those small prayers that I say all day to Jesus, to Francis, to The Blessed Virgin Mother, to God Himself, offer them up for the Haitian people and to ask God to hear their plea, to bring comfort to the suffering. I know that my comfort zone is here with my always, a heavy chain holds me fast to it. Our Lord asks us to break the chains that bind us, and so far I don't think I've done any of that. The deeper I go in prayer the more challenges the Lord puts before me, as it should be. Help me Lord to stay on this path, this path to You, that I may give myself completely to you in order to help others. Remind me again and again Lord, like you did this week in Adoration, how every time I looked up to You I heard You say: Come, follow Me.