Today's reading was not from the Bible, but was a prayer from The Confessions of St. Augustine. We are to read it twice and let it permeate our heart.
My favorite line in the prayer was "And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things you made." He goes on to say that those "lovely things" kept him from God.
I think I like these lines because it's an issue I have as well. I frequently get sidetracked in my journey by "lovely created things"... maybe it's photography, guitar practice, or heck even youth work... where I allow these "lovely things" (I'll call them wonderful distractions) to get in the way of my life and purpose. Now you could say that life is the journey (and you'd be right), but I think our lifetime journey is in the balancing... or maybe continuously putting the distractions aside and focusing on God.
I've done the exercise on the bottom of p.16 many times... stand outside under the stars and ponder what others who have done the same have thought. (Did I tell you that one of my distractions is astronomy?) So go outside tonight and look up at the stars for a bit (bundle up... it's cold). It's one of the few things we can see just as our ancestors saw it (well, except for light pollution).
Ponder... how is our life like that of St. Augustine's
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