It begins with a quote from Michael O;Brien’s Island of the World.
“You must live in the place that is the station of your labor and your love. Down there in the swaying forests, the dark sleeping fields, the cold barren lands, and the cities of man, where the indestructible, the faithful, the true are needed.”
And then he writes this: “Which one of us doesn’t want to fly, fly away… at least some days? I know that I do. But then, sighing, I am called back to my place in time, to labor and to love, the very frail man that I am. That is the meaning of true vocation, for everyone everywhere: to keep at it, laboring and loving, until we no longer can.
Most of my days I am so intensely aware of the now-but-not-yet nature of this life, groaning with creation itself as I spend the days of my life listening to the stories of people who cry out for their own reasons-of-the-heart, that riding away on the back of a great white horse appeals to me at my very deepest. With Josip, I long for a world where there is no more sorrow, a world where there is no more pain. I do, everyday I do.”
So there it is. We pick up again and put our shoulder to task because we find some new strength to do it. And that in itself is a miracle.