Uncloistered

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  “She gazed ahead through a long reach of future days strung together like pearls in a rosary, every one like the others, and all smooth and flawless and innocent, and her heart went up in thankfulness. Outside was the fervid summer afternoon; the air was filled with the sounds of the busy harvest of men and birds and bees; there were halloos, metallic clatterings, sweet calls, and long hummings. Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun.” A New England Nun By Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930)

Gone Fishin'?

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Were do you like to fish?

Where thousands of people are stepping all over each other, using the same bait in a lake known to have been heavily fished day after day for decades?

Perhaps you like to fish where the catch is already gorged with bait, swiming wearily away as you plop more bait-a-plenty near them?

Maybe you enjoy fishing for a place among fishermen, jockeying for the pole-position, stumbling over one another?

Or do you prefer to fish where the terrain may be difficult, where danger may lurk in the vicinity, where the lake is attainable only after sacrifice and hardship, but, oh, the hungry fish! Multitudes fight and starve for even one morsel of food, and many others have never so much as seen one time the bait you have to offer . . .

Is that you? Do you prefer the last fishing hole?

That is missions.

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