1/24/2023

This Sunday morning, getting up before the kids and having done some breakfast prep the day before, I had the luxury of a long stretch of quiet. After the night's snowfall the white-glazed backyard lay pure and serene, the gift of winter's beauty. Reading my Sunday book, The Still Point, I passed through a poem by Christina Rosetti and was stopped in my tracks by this phrase:

"On holy ground I fool stand shod."

My mind went to the many conversations of the night before and how slow I often am to recognize that the person in front of me is truly something extraordinary, a bearer of the holy fire of God hidden in layers of ordinary, bruised and fraying human-ness. Recalling each person's face and wondering whether I'd listened with the attention they deserve, I thought of the words of C.S. Lewis: "Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."

In the presence of the burning bush Moses had to be told to remove the sandals from his feet "because the place where you are standing is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5), which seems to indicate he hadn't recognized this on his own. It's good to know I'm not the only one.

A fool but a grateful one for the reminder, I continued on to the next page.