Fr Ben Garren

“Never talk with any man, or undertake any trifling employment, merely to pass the time away; for every day well spent may become a “day of salvation,” and time rightly employed is an “acceptable time.” And remember, that the time thou triflest away, was given thee to repent in, to pray for pardon of sins, to work out thy salvation, to do the work of grace, to lay up against the day of judgment a treasure of good works, that thy time may be crowned with eternity.” —Jeremy Taylor

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Jeremy Taylor’s words from the 1600s continue to press upon us today. The hurdle so many of us face seems to be that we are caught having to take up trifling employment where what we have to do is pass our time away in some activity in order to survive.

This may be the need to maintain a relationship that is not life giving or it may be a job that drains us at every moment but we must keep in order to pay our bills.

We then try to distract ourselves from these onerous trifles with momentary points of escape that may provide relief but don’t change anything about the cycles of our lives. Too often the place that religion then enters into our lives is in one of those two spaces—another obligation we feel we must do or a momentary escape from things we wish to get away from.

Many of us don’t have the liberty to find a job that is personally meaningful, and often those momentary escapes are all that keep us together for the next week.

What we are called to do in our life with Jesus is to begin to bring something more deep into the cycles of our lives. To be able to define ourselves by something other than what we are required to do to make the next pay check and what we do to just get a break from that for a few minutes.

Christian Discipleship is about bringing into the cycles of our lives a foundation on which we can find meaning. Pray how those realities can be more present in your life.

Pax,

—Ben