Before the sun rose, I made my way to campus, deciding to accomplish the aims of the day in good timing.
©iStockphoto.com/Lisa Gagne
I was hoping to finish assignments from previous days, just prior to continuing preparation for a seminar that I will lead in the coming weeks.
Right before midnight, last night, I finished reading Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughter, which, in 1973, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Not long after reading the last page, I fell asleep.
Rising from my sleep in the morning darkness, the words from the book yet lingered...
"If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted," it read, as I paused to further consider the line in the context of the story...
The familiar biblical line slowly integrated with the sentences of my own life.
And the words remained, unmoved... like a stubborn wine stain on an unyielding garment.
Examining my life as I drove in the morning silence, I pondered...
Was I offset by the measures of the season, weighing significance on worn scales?
I released myself from introspection, refocusing my thoughts on the morning's agenda...
The morning and afternoon hours soon passed without the emergence of a single thought related to this morning's awkardness...
And just before the onset of evening, I walked through the campus grove with a fresh cup of Starbucks coffee (with an extra shot of espresso)... I was returning to the lab to continue gathering relevant images for my seminar pertaining to a new class of HIV drugs.
In less than an hour, I would sit in on a presentation led by an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney on employment discrimination. I eagerly anticipated gaining insight on anti-discrimination laws protecting HIV infected employees. I would briefly allude to such rights in my seminar, I presumed, as the absence of such laws would impede access to costly antiviral pharmaceuticals.
In reading literature related to this task, I also began to develop a stronger strategy for addressing the prevalence of this disease in rural South Africa--where my colleagues and I are providing daily lunches for rural school children.
There was much to think about. And time passed...
And in the still hour just before midnight, after a long day, I now sit, though not tired...
And, in stillness, I hope that my spiritual priorities remain intact... in spite of the busyness.
While contemplating, the timeless words of St. Therese of Lisieux come to mind:
"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me. The only way I can prove my love is by scattering flowers, and these flowers are every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."
Perhaps it is all too easy, in remembering the pressing matters of the day, to forget a few things that count... and love loses its depth.
"If the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?"
