Last fall, a colleague asked me to choose a word that I would use as my focus for the year. A million words swirled around in my head, but then one just kept coming back to me…so I chose it. My word is “abandonment.”

Let me explain…

I love to be busy and I feel joyful when I’m doing my work because I’m doing what I love. However, there are those moments when I feel overwhelmed. During those times I read this quote that I have posted in my office. It’s from a stack of CSJ Maxim Meditation Cards that I received when I was first hired and attended a CSJ retreat down in San Diego. The cards take quotes from the writings of Jean Pierre Medaille, and some clever person made a 26 card stack of them and gave them to each of the new hires. When I got them, I used to shuffle them up and read/reflect on one word each day. Something different happened the day I read “abandonment.” That day I was particularly overwhelmed with work that I wanted to do, and was trying to multi-task and switch-task to get things done. I realized that I was losing focus, so I stopped and read my card of the day:

Abandonment-
“Never think of the future unless it is somehow necessarily related to your present work: abandon everything to the Providence of God your Father.” And another quote, “Recognize and tenderly love the presence of God in all the events of your life, however trying they may be.” 


I stopped shuffling the cards that day and have kept that quote posted. In this day and age where we are talking more and more about focus, the importance of boredom, multi-tasking, and switch-tasking…it is this quote that keeps me grounded.