Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I don’t know if little things ever pile up at your house. At ours we’ve been trying to tackle a bunch of little projects that just sort of get put on the back burner— at least until the whole stove is covered with things you put on the back burner!

We had some little holes in a wall that needed to be patched and painted. We had a door that needed paint, too. A couple of wall sconces needed to be installed. A wall plate on a socket that was cracked drove me crazy every time I walked by it. We had plants to pot, some books to sort, stuff to take to Goodwill, piles of receipts to be cataloged, a mess of old cleaning bottles under the sink. That and a hundred more things were piling up.

Then we had a leak. And an electrical outage in part of the house.

None of those first things felt like such a big deal until a big deal hit and then it was overwhelming. I think our spiritual lives have some of this sometimes.

Little things kind of pile up. Maybe we’ve not been praying much but will get to it. Maybe it’s been a while since we picked up a Bible. Maybe that apology we’ve been meaning to offer has been one thing too many. Maybe we’ve crossed our fingers during the confession a time or two but we’ll make it right, sometime.

All these little ways we distance ourselves from practice, from one another, from ourselves, and from God add up. They are all the things we put on the back burner to deal with important stuff. Then a crisis hits and we realize we’ve forgotten to shore up our foundation. Or, sometimes worse, something that isn’t a crisis feels like one because we’ve lost the perspective and sense of grounding that practice and prayer offer. We make it a crisis by our inability to know where we can make a change, or where we need to change, or what we cannot change at all.

All that is to say let’s not let the little stuff pile up. I know I’ve got some more work to do and I’m sure you do, too!

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert